Wednesday, June 22, 2011

HICSA meeting Friday 5 August 2011

You are kindly invited to the next meeting of the Health Information Community of South Africa (HICSA), which will take place at

the WHO Offices,
7th Floor Metropark Building,
351 Schoeman Street, Pretoria

on Friday, 5 August 2011, 14:00 - 16:00

AGENDA
14:00 Welcoming

14:10 - 14:30 Brief report back on US visit (Marguerite Nel)

14:30 - 15:00 The Association of Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA): background, conference and importance in Africa (Alfred Masiteng (WHO) and Michael Chimalizeni (ITOCA)

15:00 - 15:30 Discussion: The forming of an AHILA Country Chapter in South Africa

15:30 - 16:00 HICSA Business meeting (Agenda will follow later)

Please invite other professionals in the field of health information to also attend the meeting and join the HICSA community.
RSVP: On or before 2 August 2011 - Marguerite: 012 529 8474 or marguerite.nel@up.ac.za

In order to arrange parking, we also need to give the number of vehicles - so, let me know if we need to book a parking space for you.

Your attendance will be highly appreciated.

Kind regards
Marguerite Nel (Chair)
Jotello F Soga LibraryFaculty of Veterinary ScienceUniversity of PretoriaPrivate Bag X04ONDERSTEPOORT 0110SOUTH AFRICA
Tel: +27 12 529 8474
Fax: +27 12 529 8302
Marguerite.nel@up.ac.za http://www.ais.up.ac.za/vet/marg.htmAriel: 137.215.210.246

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

HICSA meeting of 24 November 2010 MINUTES

HICSA GAUTENG MEETING

Acacia room at Coffee @ Burgundy's, Klubsaal,
University of Pretoria, Hatfield Campus

Tuesday, 24 November 2009, 12:30

MINUTES

PRESENT : 16

Antoinette Lourens, Carina van Zyl, Neil Heslip, Marguerite Nel, Erica van der Westhuizen, Susan Marsh, , Tertia Coetsee, Vimbay Hungwe, Susan Dickinson, David Swanepoel, , Susan Scheepers, Ina Fourie, Kabelo Nzima, Suzy Nyakala, Anna-Marie Young, John van Niekerk

APOLOGIES: 1
Berry Pflugler

Sue Dickinson welcomed all members and attendees at the meeting.

Prof. Ina Fourie reported on the 10th International Congress of Medical Librarianship (ICML) 2009, Brisbane, 31 August - 4 September 2009.

She identified some areas for further studies in the field of medical librarianship. The following were discussed:

- Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and Librarianship
- Collaboration with faculty for EBM
- Getting research findings into practice
- Information management – how do you manage your own information?
- Information behavior of people writing guides
- EBM websites
- Performance and quality measurement
- How can we improve our own searches?
- Research performance indicators
- Health Informatics
- Publishing trends and challenges
- Professional development
- Hospital libraries
- Technologies / Web 2.0 – Does it really make a difference?
- Disaster management and planning
- History
- Google Books
- Medical Biographies


Tertia Coetsee and Marguerite Nel gave feedback on the 6th International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists (ICAHIS) they attended in Brisbane as well as the libraries they visited during their time in Australia.

The main purpose of the visit was to attend the 10th International Congress on Medical Librarianship in Brisbane, Australia. This Congress is held every four or five years giving the health library sector an opportunity to meet together to address major issues confronting the profession. This has been the second time the ICAHIS Conference was held in association with the ICML and following on from the 5th Conference held in South Africa in July 2005, and hosted by the University of Pretoria, it was a great opportunity meeting again other librarians specialising in animal health from around the world to discuss a range of issues relevant to our profession.

The presentations at the ICAHIS conference covered a wide spectrum of topics, including usage studies, partnerships and collaboration, management of grey literature, challenges of technology in libraries and services for the NetGen, institutional repositories and user studies.

Visits to the University of Queensland as well as Sydney were discussed.

Marguerite Nel gave a presentation on “The role of health and medical library associations in the facilitation and sharing of information and knowledge”.

Some of the challenges are the changing role of librarians, the role of the internet, social networking and web 2.0 as new ways to share knowledge and ideas. Referring to a few international health and medical library associations, the role, benefits, strengths and weaknesses of HICSA were discussed. Thereafter everybody was invited to share opinions and ideas regarding the future of HICSA.

The following were decided:

- HICSA must continue to exist
- HICSA need to expand and invite librarians from the pharmaceutical companies as well as the Department of Health to join
- We must become more virtual but also have an annual meeting and a conference
- Need more workshops
- Must convey a survey to investigate the possibilities to join LIASA
- Make use of technology – blog/ wiki/ discussions on listserve
- Electronic newsletter – more regular
- Webpage – need to be updated
- Suggestion that we become an AHILA chapter
- Need to consider partnerships – LIASA / AHILA

Treasurers report

Neil discussed HICSA’s balance sheet. We have a positive bank balance in the FNB account. It is suggested to close the ABSA account due to the high amount of interest needed to be paid. However, the next treasurer can decide on this.

Election of 2010 - 2012 Management Committee

The following members were elected:

Chair: Marguerite Nel
Secretary: Kabelo Nzima
Treasurer: Susan Marsh
Liaison officer: Erica van der Westhuizen
Additional member: Vimbay Hungwe