Gemma Siemensma | HLA Convenor

It’s amazing how quickly a year can fly when you are immersed in a busy hospital or university environment where the flurry of activity never ceases.  HLA hasn’t stopped either and continues to meet and prioritise activities. There are a few pertinent activities that I’d like to draw your attention to:

1. The Guidelines for Australian Health Libraries – 5th edition have now been published along with Live Literature searches that accompany them. They are accessible online: https://hla.alia.org.au/guidelines-live-searches/. Thanks go to Project Lead Ann Ritchie and The Guidelines Reference Group Members for their time and efforts in finalising this long-term project.
2. You may have seen over the last 18 months the work ALIA has been undertaking in regards to the Professional Pathways Project: https://professionalpathways.alia.org.au/. Read the article in this issue by Ann Ritchie highlighting some of the concerns the ALIA Health Libraries Australia Committee have on the proposed framework. Make a submission to ensure your thoughts are heard and your issues understood.
3. This issue includes a submission urging the U.S. National Library of Medicine to update their MeSH term to reflect the Australian Indigenous populations accurately. Updates occur each November and we are confident changes are afoot! Thanks go to Alissa McCulloch from the ALIA ACORD group and to those individuals who helped with the submission.  

We are excited to announce that our Awards have been announced for 2022. Congratulations to both recipients:

• Anne Harrison Award: Keren Moskal – Monash Health for Design and implementation of an overarching evidence-based practice (EBP) syllabus.
• MedicalDirector Digital Health Innovation Award: John Prentice – ANZCA for Automated interlibrary loan/document delivery (ILL/DD) database for health libraries.

Our online events have been well received this year and we have more scheduled so check out https://hla.alia.org.au/ for details. Most excitingly we have a face-to-face event scheduled for November 10-11 at Westmead Hospital Sydney. A Call for Abstracts is open so check out the website and get submitting. The theme is Transformations and will explore how the health sector moves rapidly and how libraries must embrace challenges and continuously reinvent models of service delivery to meet ever-changing needs.

I hope to see you in Sydney soon!

Gemma