2004 Annual Report of the Health Science Information Consortium of Toronto
HEALTH SCIENCE INFORMATION CONSORTIUM OF TORONTO
ANNUAL REPORT
2004
2004 Members of the Board of Directors
Ms. Maureen Cava (2004 – 2006)Manager, Professional Practice
Planning & Policy
Toronto Public Health / Ms. Margaret Duff (2002 – 2004)
Nursing Education Coordinator
The University Health Network
Dr. Gunther Eysenbach (2003 – 2005)
Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy,
Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto; Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, University Health Network / Ms. Dorothy Fitzgerald (2003 – 2005)
Director, Health Sciences Library
McMaster University
Mr. Syd Jones (2004 - 2006)
Director, Library Services
Centre for Addiction & Mental Health / Ms. Joan Leishman (Chair)
Director, Gerstein Science Information Centre
University of Toronto Libraries
Ms. Laurie Scott (ex officio) (Secretary)
Executive Director, Health Science Information Consortium of Toronto / Ms. Tina Smith (2002 – 2004)
Program Director, MHSc Health Administration
Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Mr. Andrew Szende (2004 – 2006)
CEO, Electronic Child Health Network / Ms. Elizabeth Uleryk (2003 – 2005) (Treasurer)
Library Director
The Hospital for Sick Children
2004 Members of Management Committee:
Susan Hendricks, Lakeridge Health Oshawa (2003 – 2004)
Helen Michael, Gerstein Science Information Centre
Beata Pach, York Region Health Services (2004 – 2005)
Laurie Scott, Consortium Executive Director, ex officio
John Tagg, West Park Hospital (2003 – 2004)
Bogusia Trojan, UHN (2004 – 2005)
Management Committee 2005 Election Results
Bruce Gardham of Toronto Public Health and Deborah Lambert of Scarborough Hospital were nominated for the two available Management Committee positions. There being no further nominations, both were acclaimed and will serve two year terms from 2005 – 2006.
Board of Directors 2005 Appointments
Tina Smith was appointed to serve a second term representing the Faculty of Medicine.
Heather Pollex was appointed to serve a three year term beginning in 2005, replacing Margaret Duff, whose term ends December 31.
Syd Jones was appointed Treasurer, replacing Elizabeth Uleryk.
No elected Board positions were open this year.
Management CommitteeAnnual Report
December 2004
It’s a pleasure for me to report on the activities of Management Committee during 2004.
Consortium Membership:
The Consortium welcomed back one member and gained another during 2004.
St. John’s Rehabilitation Hospital rejoined the Consortium after making a permanent financial commitment to library resources and staffing. We welcome Abdul Pullattayil of St. John’s Rehabilitation Hospital to our group.
The ICES library under the direction of Linda Devore applied for and was granted membership in the Consortium. We are pleased that the resources of ICES as well as Linda’s professional expertise and innovative contributions will be part of the Consortium.
A Memorandum of Agreement was initiated as a replacement for the original contracts of members whose corporate names had changed because of institutional amalgamations.
Strategic Planning Initiatives:
The Committee has continued the work of the initiatives begun last year.
The Standards Task Force completed its review. Upon receipt of its report, Management Committee concluded that the Consortium will endorse the MLA standards in principle, noting that some aspects of them are not applicable in Canada or to the Consortium. A separate interest group for Hospital Accreditation Standards has been created to provide members with a forum for discussion of Canadian standards for information management.
Together with the CAMH Foundation, the Committee applied on behalf of Consortium members for a grant from the Change Foundation to initiate a virtual reference project. While the application was not successful, the Committee endorsed going ahead with the project. A Task Force has been set up and will take this project to fruition over the next year.
A survey of patient education initiatives in member libraries was also undertaken.
Provincial Licensing Initiatives:
Laurie Scott met with representatives from COAHL and OHLA at their request to discuss the possibility of joint licensing of electronic resources. Committee members discussed the feasibility of the Consortium handling such licenses but ultimately concluded that this is neither within our mandate nor do these organizations necessarily have the same objectives as HSICT.
Consortium Promotion and Advocacy:
Management Committee has committed to monitor the development of Local Health Integrated Networks (LHIN’s) within Ontario and to advise members of issues that may be of concern to the Consortium or its members as they arise.
A history of the Consortium was added to the HSICT web site.
In September, Laurie Scott, Executive Director and Helen Michael presented a poster co-authored with Syd Jones, outlining the benefits of membership and work of the Consortium at the 9th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries entitled “Hospital Libraries: the Future Lies in Cooperation”.
Union Catalogue/SIRSI Project:
An Implementation Working Group was formed to address issues of concern and their work has been ongoing over the course of the year. Preliminary testing for loading library holdings into existing U of T records was completed successfully however some technological issues remain unresolved. In addition, libraries who are contemplating using SIRSI as their local system have raised concerns about the impact of recent provincial privacy legislation. Given these difficulties, Management Committee recommended to the Board that we should not proceed with full implementation until we can sort out these issues.
Change in Consortium Office Staffing:
Management Committee undertook a review of the position of Assistant Executive Director of the Consortium in light of shrinking budgets and staffing at member hospital libraries, the evolution of work processes within the Consortium Office and the recent resignation of the current incumbent to take up a position as Library Manager elsewhere.
The Committee recommended to the Board that the AED position not be posted or filled again at this time. By introducing more efficient ways of doing things (such as eliminating recording detailed minutes for most meetings) the Consortium Office should be able to operate efficiently without the AED position with some clerical and web support technical assistance.
Committee Members:
I would like to thank the members who served on the Management Committee this year, all of whom participated actively in the business of the Consortium. Coming from a variety of library backgrounds but all with similarly high levels of concern, commitment and creativity that have proven invaluable to the work of this Committee, they are: John Tagg, Helen Michael, Bogusia Trojan and Beata Pach.
John and I are leaving the Management Committee and we’d like to wish the new members, Bruce Gardham and Deborah Lambert our best wishes as they join the group. I hope they find it as rewarding an experience as I have.
I’d also like to thank members of our various sub-committees for the time and expertise they have contributed to the work of the Consortium.
Finally, I’d like to extend best wishes and thanks on behalf of all members of the Consortium to the Consortium staff, Laurie Scott and Richard Wilson. Their dedication and commitment to the activities of the Consortium have continued the high levels of service excellence we have come to expect from this co-operative association of libraries.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan Hendricks, Chair
Annual Report of the Executive Director
December 2004
Licensing
As has been the case over the past number of years, licensing of electronic resources has taken up the lion’s share of time in the Consortium Office. Activities include soliciting members for their interest in products, negotiating the pricing, confirming which members are committed to participating, issuing invoices to the members, collecting the funds, and paying the vendors. The most recent license signed is for online access to the New England Journal of Medicine. Still pending as of this writing is a joint license with the University of Toronto Libraries for eCPS, the online version of the Compendium of Pharmaceutical Specialties. Also pending is possible participation under a COAHL agreement for Ovid online access and MEDLINE via a site license (versus the existing concurrent user model).
As of the end of the year, the Consortium has the following license agreements in place:
Ovid MEDLINE, CINAHL and EBMR (Cochrane) 27 participants
Ovid PsycInfo 12 participants
ProQuest Nursing Collection (full text journals) 15 participants
EBSCO full text collections 16 participants
New England Journal of Medicine 21 participants
I’ve met regularly this year with Joan Leishman and Sandra Langlands to compare notes on the Consortium’s licenses and those of the University of Toronto, watching for more opportunities to work together on obtaining licenses.
The Consortium had a demonstration by Stat!Ref in March. Some members, including UTL, have already bought various titles, but there is not a great deal of overlap. Stat!Ref requires a common set of titles in order to provide a discount. I had meetings with representatives from the Ontario Health Libraries Association, and we are exploring the possibilities for a province-wide license.
We attempted to get a quote for UpToDate, a product which is in great demand in the hospitals and by medical students. We gathered the bed count statistics they requested, but in the end they declined to give us a price.
The Consortium had trials of Skolar MD and Clinical Evidence, both from Ovid. The response was not strong, with only three members expressing interest in purchasing Clinical Evidence, and only one in purchasing Skolar MD.
Member Issues
I consulted with Providence Healthcare for a number of months in 2003 regarding filling their vacant librarian position. I was very pleased that Ann Chin who used to work at Providence and was responsible for setting up the library there, was hired back on a part-time basis this past April. Welcome back Ann!
I participated in site visits to two applicants for membership: St. John’s Rehab and ICES. Both applications were approved by the Board, and we extend a warm welcome to Abdul Pullattayil and Linda Devore.
For the past several months I have been assisting Baycrest Centre with recruiting a new library manager. I advised the VP Human Resources on methods of recruitment, job descriptions and so on. I participated in three interviews, and the recruitment efforts are still on-going.
Sirsi Project/Union Catalogue
A number of members have expressed interest in using Sirsi as their local automation system. At one of the meetings of the fully affiliated teaching hospital library directors, many technical issues were raised, along with concerns that privacy restrictions may apply to information contained in patron databases. At the time of writing, we have received answers to many technical issues from both UTL and Sirsi. Each interested library needs to determine whether their privacy offices have concerns about the information in the patron database. There is a deadline from Sirsi of the end of 2004 for libraries to commit to participating at the rate of $1,000 USD. After that, the price will rise. Pricing for members who wish to contribute catalogue records only (i.e. who don’t wish to use the full Sirsi system), in order to achieve a union catalogue for the Consortium, is still to be determined.
Consortium Continuing Education
In January, the Electronic Resources Subcommittee held a continuing education session on health information literacy, using a videotape of the Medical Library Association’s teleconference on that topic. In October, we used another MLA teleconference on “Expert Searching” to provide a CE framework. Linda Slater, from the University of Alberta, led a very well received full day workshop on the topic.
Consortium Office Staffing
As reported by Management Committee, Richard tendered his resignation effective November 30. I want to thank him for all his hard work and dedication over the past 15 months and wish him well in his future endeavours.
I recommended to Management Committee that the Consortium not fill the position of Assistant Executive Director again. The nature of the work in the Consortium Office has continued to evolve over the past 5 ½ years since the position was created, and I believe the work of the Consortium can now be accomplished by an Executive Director with part time clerical and student/web assistance.
External Contacts
Richard Wilson and I spent a day in March visiting the Hamilton Health Library Network. We started at McMaster University’s Health Sciences Library and met with Dorothy Fitzgerald and Elena Goldblatt, Library Director at the City of Hamilton’s Department of Public Health and Community Services. We then met with Jean Maragno at the St. Joseph’s Hospital Library and Lois Wyndham at Hamilton General. It was very interesting to see how this network is organized and managed. The model is very different from our Consortium’s, and is focussed primarily on centrally managed interlibrary loans.
As president of CHLA/ABSC, I had the good fortune to attend the meeting of the Medical School Libraries Committee of ACMC in Halifax. In May I attended my final meeting of the CISTI Committee on Health Sciences Information, as well as the CHLA/ABSC conference, where my term as president ended. In June, I attended the annual SLA conference as a member of the Board of the Biomedical and Life Sciences Division.
In September, I attended the 9th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, where I presented a paper, co-authored by P. Ellis of Dalhousie University and T. Tripp of the University Health Network, entitled Shaping the Future of the Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada: Focus Groups and Survey, as well as a poster session, co-authored by Syd Jones of CAMH and Helen Michael of the Gerstein Science Information Centre, entitled Hospital Libraries: The Future Lies in Cooperation.
Priorities for 2005
The Virtual Reference Task Group will report its recommendations early in 2005. If they propose that the Consortium pursue a virtual reference service, this will be a major priority for the year.
Together with Management Committee, I will monitor developments coming from the Ontario government regarding Local Health Information Networks and what impact they may have on library services in the hospitals.
I plan to seek ways to promote the activities of the Consortium to the broader health community. Possible means include an article in Hospital News and a poster session at the OHA convention.