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Welcome to the East Tawas Library News blog.

Last week I attended the Michigan Health Sciences Libraries Association's annual conference. It was a three-day conference held at the Doubletree Hotel & Conference Center in Bay City.

Sessions I attended included:

Medical Library: Prescription for Success by Dr. James Matarazzo (Dean and Professor of Library and Information Science, Emeritus) of Simmons College in Boston. I especially enjoyed hearing about his trip to Japan to study corporate libraries. This class ended up being very relevant to public libraries, discussing budgets and other obstacles facing libraries today.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Library by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum, the authors/illustrators of the web comic strip Unshelved. Bill is a software designer and cartoonist and Gene (pen name) is a librarian in a public library. Both live in the Seattle area. I really enjoy this comic strip, which is set in a public library, and receive it daily via email.

http://www.unshelved.com/

Surviving the Public by the Unshelved authors/illustrators. While this session was more informal than most customer service workshops usually are, it was actually more effective and certainly funnier than other workshops I've attended.

Health Benefits of Chocolate by Dr. Patrick Fields, aka Doc Choc (PhD in Botany and Plant Pathology). This session discussed the plant chocolate is derived from and chocolate's history. I enjoyed viewing the many chocolate related displays Dr. Fields brought. The program ended with a chocolate tasting.

Introduction to RSS & Blogging for Librarians by Sandy Swanson, a Librarian at Mercy General Health Partners in Muskegon. During this hands-on class we learned how these computer technologies can be used as public relations and communication tools in the work place. Thanks to this 2-hour class, I was able to set up this blog.

Michigan eLibrary (MeL) Health Resources by Bonnie Campbell, a Principal in the information consulting firm, CMEd, Information Services. This hands-on class reviewed the health related databases that all Michigan residents have 24-hour computer access to either through their home or work computers or through library computers, during library hours.

http://www.mel.org/

I also enjoyed the various vendors' exhibits. It was amazing how almost all medical related information is now provided via computers, versus the books we used in nursing school, over 26 years ago.

All in all, it was a wonderful conference and I appreciated the City of East Tawas paying my way.