The MLA Centennial celebration year continued with the May 14-19, 1999 meeting in Chicago. The meeting took place in the Hyatt Regency Chicago. The theme of the meeting was "Present Tense: Future Perfect?" There were 2479 participants in total.

Forty-two continuing education courses were taught at the meeting, and some of the courses were:

• Consumer Health
• PubMed
• Evidence Based Medicine
• Research Methods
• Credentialing for Hospital Librarians
• Document Delivery
• Negotiating Vendor Licenses
• Customer Service
• Grants
• Copyright
• Understanding Meta-Analysis

103 Vendors set up booths and publicized their products in the exhibit hall.

At the opening session of the meeting, Gay Davies (UK) expressed warm greetings on behalf of EAHIL.

Daniel Burrus, Chief Executive Officer of Burrus Research Associates, Inc. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin presented the first Plenary speech entitled "Future View: Toast of the Town or Just Plain Toast."

Sherrilynne Fuller, Ph.D., Director of the Health Sciences Libraries and Information Center of the University of Washington - Seattle, presented the annual Janet Doe Lecture. The Janet Doe Lecture is an inspiring talk on some aspect of the philosophy of medical librarianship. Dr. Fuller's presentation was entitled "Enabling, Empowering, Inspiring: Research and Mentorship Through the Years".

Daniel Callahan, Ph.D., Director of International Programs of the Hastings Center in Briarcliff Manor, New York, presented the Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lecture entitled "Can we afford technological progress and an aging society". This interesting presentation called for rationing of health care in the US much like some European countries ration health care. He called for much more preventive medicine.

All the 23 sections of MLA had programs at the meeting. One example of section programming is a group endeavor in which 5 sections provided a program of speakers. They were 1) International Cooperation Section, 2) The Federal Libraries Section, 3) the Medical Informatics Section, 4) the Public Health and Health Administration Libraries Section, and 5) Veterinary Medical Libraries Section. The program of speakers of these five sections included:

1. Training Internet Trainers in the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union by Terry A. Henner of the Savitt Medical Library, University of Nevada School of Medicine in Reno, Nevada.

2. Enhancing Global Information Access to Infectious Diseases by Jie Li of the Biomedical Library of the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama, and Gang Wu of the Shiffman Medical Library of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

3. Health Science Libraries in the Next Millenium in the Indian Context by Jagdish G. Sharma and Rajiv Sarin, M.D. of Parel, Mumbai, India.

There was a wonderful international reception for all international attendees and also members of the International Cooperation Section. (This is always a favorite event of the entire MLA meeting for me.)

Donna Flake

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