Some items of news about 8ICML. Get your bookings in early!!
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News from the 8th International Congress on Medical Librarianship
Volunteer Coordinator Starts Work
Well over 100 volunteers are already working hard throughout the
world to ensure that 8ICML runs smoothly and to make a it
success. During the conference itself next year, many more
volunteers will be needed to register delegates, act as stewards,
set up furniture in lecture rooms and so on. It is hoped that
the core of the congress crew will consist of staff from the BMA
library, which expects to be closed for redecoration during the
week of ICML, but there will also be an extended need for other
volunteers.
To make sure that everything run's smoothly, Jane Smith has
agreed to take on the onerous task of coordinating the volunteer
effort. Jane is deputy librarian at the British Medical
Association and a member of the committee of the UK Health
Libraries Group. She has joined the main organising committee.
Next Stop Sao Paulo
IFLA has chosen Sao Paulo as the venue for the 9th International
Congress on Medical Librarianship, which will take place in 2005.
At the annual IFLA meeting in Bangkok, the Section of Biological
and Medical Sciences Libraries decided to recommend the bid
developed by Bireme/PAHO (www.bireme.br) to bring 9ICML to their
home city. The decision was made despite very strong rival bids
from Sydney and Montreal, and the unprecedented strength of the
competition is testimony to the growing importance of the
International Congress in the professional calendar. 2005 will
be ICML's first visit to Latin America.
The decision is subject to ratification by the general assembly
at the 2000 congress, but the 8ICML organisers are already
beginning to work closely with the Bireme team. Elenice de
Castro, who will be running the project, has joined the main
8ICML organising committee in order to reinforce these links.
Almost 300 Presentations During ICML
190 papers and posters have been selected for the contributed
paper sessions, following the recent meeting of ICML's
international programme committee. Including the plenary
speakers, the invited speakers and the programmes of the ten
participating organisations, the congress will offer almost 300
presentations - with up to ten parallel sessions during the
contributed papers programme.
ICML programme chair Arne Jakobsson was delighted that over 360
abstracts were submitted in response to the Call For Papers. It
was even better news for the congress programme that the quality
of the abstracts was extremely high, and that the global nature
of ICML was reflected in the fact that they came from 55
different countries. Currently 134 papers and 56 posters have
been accepted, and at least 45 countries will be represented on
the plenary and contributed paper sessions.
In addition to the core programme, there will be sessions with a
regional or special subject focus organised by participating
organisations, and these will include tracks on animal health,
nursing information, pharmaceutical libraries and informatics.
In addition to Japanese language sessions, the programme
committee is hoping to set up contributed paper sessions in
German, French and Spanish.
The authors of the selected presentations are being asked to
confirm that they will attend to present their contributions and
to submit an updated abstract by December 1 st.
How the papers were chosen:
The final selection meeting took place over two hot August days
in London and was attended by eight members of the committee from
Hungary, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, and the UK.
Before this meeting each abstract had been circulated
electronically to all programme committee members for peer
review. Seventeen people reviewed each abstract, giving a
ranking on a scale of 1 5 plus comments on individual submissions
if there was a particular point to make. Each abstract was
considered individually and the cumulated rankings and comments
(a stack of paper 15cm thick) provided the basis on which the
final judgements were made. This methodology was set up in order
to ensure both that the decisions would be broad based and
impartial, and that they would be informed by a range of views
reflecting the world wide professional community.
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