Estoril Echo 2 EAHIL Council Meeting Over thirty EAHIL Council members gathered together at the Estoril Conference Centre on Tuesday at 14.00 with Arne Jakobsson, Past President, well assisted by Marshall Dozier as facilitators. After the normal business matters, the main point on the agenda was how can EAHIL support new members’ participation and how members can support EAHIL in achieving this. The brainstorming of this issue was facilitated by the splitting into four groups, each one with the objective of coming up with one major idea. Some of these were: attract young members by granting them financial assistance, such as student registration fees; periodically have online conferences – however, this was countered by the argument that personal contact was one of the most important aspects of attending conferences; conference costs could be reduced by putting out to tender hotel accommodation and reduced registration (reduced fees for group registrations). Booking accommodation through EAHIL conferences should never be more expensive than booking directly which is often the case; workshops between conferences should really be small, focussed, unexpensive events; participation to conferences and EAHIL membership should be professionally rewarding through an accreditation system which our President Suzanne Bakker appropriately named “ EAHIL miles”. The meeting was concluded on an optimistic note after three hours, spent over nice coffee and cookies. Ioana Robu First Timers´ Reception Although 93 people, registered as First Timers, only 50 turned up for the occasion and those who did not come missed a very interesting evening in Cascais, a small fishing town along the coast from Estoril. First of all we visited the Santa Marta fort and lighthouse and the museum. The fort dates from 1650 while the lighthouse started operation in 1868. In 1981 the lighthouse was automated thus dispensing of the need for keepers. We then walked over to the Santa Maria House, beautifully situated at the entrance of the Cascais bay, designed by Raul Lino, the famous architect who believed in the return to traditional Portuguese styles. Combined with a cocktail of fruit, wine and a variety of hors d’oeuvres we were permitted to see this beautiful treasure. The house was built in three phases; 1902, 1914, 1918 and is covered in 17 th and 18 th century tiles, with a magnificent wooden oil painted ceiling attributed to Antonio de Oliveira Bernardes. These tiles were taken from an old convent in Lisbon and depict the theme of the struggle between virtue and vice. These First-Timers’ evenings have as their aim to welcome and introduce newcomers to EAHIL as well as a unique chance to make friends at the beginning of the conferences/workshops. This evening certainly realised these objectives and a very pleasant and memorable time was had by all attendees. Suzanne Bakker and Flatiel Vilanculos with a picture of architect Raul Lanco in the background Turkish Delight As a forerunner to the EAHIL Workshop in Turkey in 2011, all participants are invited to visit the Turkish delegation at their stand. Gussun Gunes, Huriye Golaklar; Didar Bayir, Tyba Akbaytork and Ayla Gunel are looking forward to meeting you.
Transcript
Estoril Echo 2
EAHIL Council Meeting Over thirty EAHIL Council members gathered together at the Estoril Conference Centre on Tuesday at 14.00 with Arne Jakobsson, Past President, well assisted by Marshall Dozier as facilitators. After the normal
business matters, the main point on the agenda was how can EAHIL support new members’ participation and how members can support EAHIL in achieving this. The brainstorming of this issue was facilitated by the splitting into four groups, each one with the objective of coming up with one major idea. Some of these were:
attract young members by granting them financial assistance, such as student registration fees;
periodically have online conferences – however, this was countered by the argument that personal contact was one of the most important aspects of attending conferences;
conference costs could be reduced by putting out to tender hotel accommodation and reduced registration (reduced fees for group registrations). Booking accommodation through EAHIL conferences should never be more expensive than booking directly which is often the case;
workshops between conferences should really be small, focussed, unexpensive events;
participation to conferences and EAHIL membership should be professionally rewarding through an accreditation system which our President Suzanne Bakker appropriately named “ EAHIL miles”.
The meeting was concluded on an optimistic note after three hours, spent over nice coffee and cookies.
Ioana Robu
First Timers´ Reception Although 93 people, registered as First Timers, only 50 turned up for the occasion and those who did not come missed a very interesting evening in Cascais, a small fishing town along the coast from Estoril. First of all we visited the Santa Marta fort and lighthouse and the museum. The fort dates from 1650 while the lighthouse started operation in 1868. In 1981 the lighthouse was automated thus dispensing of the need for keepers. We then walked over to the Santa Maria House, beautifully situated at the entrance of the Cascais bay, designed by Raul Lino, the famous architect who believed in the return to traditional Portuguese styles. Combined with a cocktail of fruit, wine and a variety of hors d’oeuvres we were permitted to see this beautiful treasure. The house was built in three phases; 1902, 1914, 1918 and
is covered in 17th and 18th century tiles, with a magnificent wooden oil painted ceiling attributed to Antonio de Oliveira Bernardes. These tiles were taken from an old convent in
Lisbon and depict the theme of the struggle between virtue and vice.
These First-Timers’ evenings have as their aim to welcome and introduce newcomers to EAHIL as well as a unique chance to make friends at the beginning of the conferences/workshops. This evening certainly realised these objectives and a very pleasant and memorable time was had by all attendees. Suzanne Bakker and Flatiel Vilanculos with a picture of architect Raul Lanco in the background
Turkish Delight As a forerunner to the EAHIL Workshop in Turkey in 2011, all participants are invited to visit the Turkish delegation at their stand. Gussun Gunes, Huriye Golaklar; Didar Bayir, Tyba Akbaytork and Ayla Gunel are looking forward to meeting you.
Estoril Echo 2
Opening Ceremony
Over 300 participants attended the Opening ceremony in the Estoril Congress Centre. After opening speeches from the Chair of the LOC, Margarida Miera and the Chair of the
Scientific Programme, Isobel Andrade and the EAHIL President, Suzanne Bakker, Alexandre Quintanilha took the floor. Alexandre currently chairs the Council of Associated Laboratories of the Ministry of Science in Portugal. He has an impressive portfolio of scientific publications and always has been involved in science policy. His keynote speech on the Evolution of Knowledge and its Impact on Bioethics was inspirational in its currency and relevance to current issues to which everyone could relate. Many people commented that it was one of the best Opening speeches at any EAHIL conference and this was reflected in the appreciative ovation he received from the delegates.
The Estoril Congress Centre is very well equipped to handle an EAHIL conference, offering spacious accommodation for the exhibitors’ area (ground floor), poster display on the first floor as well as providing an excellent forum for networking and social interaction.
Participants will have benefited from the fact that the exhibition area was open from registration enabling a longer period in which to meet the exhibitors. However, though no numbers have been allocated to the stand, it is hoped that everyone will us the opportunity to meet the representatives from these well-known companies who support EAHIL. Don’t forget that there are free promotional gifts, many of which are very useful.
Conference Catering
Everyone appreciated the excellent lunch served on the first floor cafeteria, with an extensive seating area. It was a sumptuous buffet and vegetarians were well catered for being offered a separate menu.
Welcome Reception, Hotel Palacio, Estoril This took place in the palatial settings of the Hotel Palacio. They even had laid down a red carpet for us! This was an ideal time for social networking with
friends, colleagues and new acquaintances.
The buffet was enjoyed by all who attended, accompanied by a local brass band who played a medley of familiar tunes. Even visiting the toilets was an experience in lavishness and luxury of bygone times.
As in previous EAHIL meetings the Editorial
team will be delighted to meet participants
and listen to their comments and viewpoints
regarding the conference.
Estoril Echo 2
CEC Reports
A search strategy for systematic reviews Mala Mann Whatever your background in evidence searching you would have enjoyed her presentation and shared her enthusiasm that transforms medical librarians into helpful partners of physicians. You would have discovered a great Medline searching interface, work on improving search strategies, learnt how to balance search sensitivity and specificity, or simply shared tips and EBM teaching experiences
Francoise Paslan
Navigating the evidence base: planning and delivering effective library services Andrew Booth Andrew Booth is the editor of the only book in Evidence-based Librarianship (EBL) and has published a lot of articles on the subject. Andrew had a very practical approach to the course; he offered group work and went through the process of how to use evidence in our library according to evidence based librarianship. Emerging technologies and tools Guus van den Brekel Guus pulled off another excellent hands-on seminar, provided a visual wealth of interesting and useful Internet sites and his use of multimedia to inform participants captured our attention. No-one was sleeping here! And I’m sure everyone will be taking home some inspiring ideas to try out
BioMedical web nuggets Friedhelm Rump Friedhelm Rump’s curse on “Biomedical web nuggets” presented a clear overview on Internet search engines and special tools freely available on the Internet. The hands-on approach allowed participants to try searches in their own subject areas.
PICO workshop Hans Ket and Marion Heijmans
Marion and Hans really outdid themselves this time. They held, or should we say “performed”, a highly interesting and intensive course. The very important and complex world of EBM searching strategies and techniques was given in a most attractive and direct way, making this highly complex subject really understandable and applicable. They should be complimented for their well worked out course scenario, for their artistic skills (they even performed for us and we performed for them) all in order to fully illustrate and present the real-life situations we might face daily in our libraries. All course participants agreed that such a course would be more than welcome on a future occasion.
How to design and start a library liaison program Blair Anton 10 people (far too small!) attended a very enthusiastic workshop. She gave us an insight into how librarians can go into clinical departments and make the work of clinicians easier while at the same time demonstrate that as librarians they have their own skills and expertise. Finally, Blair stated that you should “keep always being a librarian”. Welch Medical Library recently decided to focus on liaison librarians for answering user needs instead of collections. Most books will be discarded. I am very curious about these developments. Maybe a theme for a next EAHIL conference workshop?
Fons van den Eeckhout, The Netherlands
I think it would be good if the material presented at
the CE courses could be made available for those
who did not have the opportunity to participate.
Flatiel Vilanculos
First Timer comments Eva Alopaeus recommended us to come here as it’s easy to make contacts, important to follow new trends, opportunity to meet health librarians, collaborate and network.
Thomas Frantzen, Yommine, Maud, Frida, Sahlgrenska University Hospital Library
Estoril Echo 2
Exhibitor Comments Science AAAS – Christina Schlecht & Kiki Forsythe First time exhibitors at EAHIL. One of the reasons for coming to EAHIL is to promote a new Journal Science Translational Medicine. This is an emerging branch of medicine that embraces research and clinical trials with particular reference to cancer, diabetes, nanotechnology, genetics and immunology. Librarians are seen to be in touch with clinicians, researchers and other personnel in this inter-disciplinary subject area. A number of people from many countries have taken up the special offer on the journal. Van de Bilt Publishers’ Agents Theo and Janet van de Bilt are freelance agents who work on behalf of a number of publishers. They hope to raise their profile amongst healthcare librarians, who they see as a target market, particularly in the area of electronic medical publications. They have been pleased to see existing customers and meet potential new clients. They stated that some very good deals have been initiated through EAHIL and how worthwhile it is coming to be an exhibitor.
OUP – Tracy James OUP has been represented at previous EAHIL events and see the conference as a big important market activity.
Tracy said how beneficial it has been to have the exhibition open from the start of the Conference.
EBSCO Claire Honeybourne & Annalisa Mamberti EBSCO have a great record of supporting EAHIL events. The position of the exhibition and location of their display has seen a heavy traffic flow to the EBSCO stand. As well as reinforcing existing publications and services they are keen to promote new products such as “DynaMed”. A slight downside to the first day was the timing of their Presentations which coincided with other sessions, and sadly no-one turned up. Claire and Annalisa are looking forward to meeting more delegates at their stand.
Proquest – Jody Burton & Claudia Reyland
Traffic has been lighter at our stand and long lulls between visits, unlike previous years. Presentations had not been advertised well and it should be made
part of the programme. Thieme – Uwe Stehle So far it is going very well – both new and existing clients with lots of queries. The downside was no one attended Thieme’s presentation – the timing in the programme conflicted with parallel sessions EAHIL is still very worthwhile supporting as you get to meet Healthcare librarians and people from all over Europe and indeed worldwide..
Special Federated Search Offer from WebLib for EAHIL Conference Participants
Leave your visiting card at WebLib’s booth and win a federated search engine. The winner of the draw will get her/his federated search for FREE the first year (2400 EUR value). You do not need
to order to win!!
Estoril Echo 2
Public Health Information Group
EAHIL Public Health Information Group will have an informal Dinner gathering at the Restaurant Costa Da Estoril, Ave Amaral (opposite the entrance to the Conference Centre) on Thursday 18 June 2010 starting at 7.30 pm The Business meeting of the EAHIL Public Health Information Group to be held on Friday 19 June 2010 at 10.45 -12.15 in the Auditorium Conference Centre.
Paivi Pekkarinen and Sue Thomas Mafra Palace-convent Library Tour The Library visit to the Mafra Palace convent takes place this afternoon (Thursday 17 June 2010). The library is housed in a beautiful Baroque Building, and contains over 35,000 leather-bound volumes dating from the 14th-19th century. The coach will leave from the Conference Centre at 2.30pm. The return journey will depart at 6pm from the Mafra Palace.
A Flying Start!
Yesterday morning EAHIL 12 was launched with the warmest of good wishes from the Chair of the Local Organising Committee, a senior official from the Gulbenkian Foundation (among our generous sponsors), and the Mayor of Estoril. We then heard an inspirational opening address from Alexandre Quintanilha. If the role of a university professor is to make his audience think, then he certainly accomplished that. Expounding on the theme of The evolution of knowledge and its impact on bioethics, he cited fascinating quotes from great thinkers and scientists over the last five hundred years. He explained that without curiosity and imagination there is no knowledge. Curiosity influences/ determines the questions we ask; imagination influences/ determines how we attempt to answer those questions. With clear uncluttered slides and not a note in sight he highlighted the changes of the last 40 years underlining the paradigm shifts in the 1980’s that have moved us from certainties to uncertainties.
Putting these in the context of healthcare he spoke of the role of health librarians in providing information/evidence to help us all struggling with dilemmas. Librarians everywhere have a role in helping citizens to be free, responsible and autonomous. Quoting Richard Rorty (2009) he summed up his themes. Take care of freedom and truth will take care of itself. What a gripping opening address! As we go back to our daily work it will stay with us and inspire for years to come.
Shane Godbolt, UK & Donna Flake, USA
Guess who braved the sea in Estoril?
A small prize for identifying this EAHIL
delegate. Answers to the Estoril Echo team by
Friday midday.
A really nice restaurant, already tested,
is the Reijos in Cascais. Rua Frederico
Arouca 35. Tel: 21/4830311
Tuulevi Ovaska
Are you concise?
What is your opinion of the Estoril
Conference?
Sum it up in one sentence and the there will
be a prize for the best answer!!
Answers by midday to the Estoril Echo team!
Office behind the Information desk in the
foyer of the Congress Centre.
Estoril Echo 2
Comments from the 1st Timers
Lorraine Toews, Canada, Lorraine is working in a veterinary library in Calgary, Canada. She heard about the EAHIL conference from colleagues in Canada and the USA and decided to find out more the Association. Lorraine will be presenting a paper during the conference.
Ann de Meulemeester, Belgium Ann is a Bio-medical Librarian who learnt about EAHIL from colleagues and decided to attend the CEC and Conference. The course Emerging Technologies and Tools by Guus Van den Brekel and Mala Mann’s course Systematic Reviews were very useful for her.
Mien Chew Chin, Singapore Chin hopes to meet a lot of medical librarians at the Conference. She works for the Ministry of Health in Singapore. Chin attended the PICO workshop which was very good and the Writing for Scientific Publications which she really enjoyed. Both workshops met her expectations.
What was being said?
The Editorial team will
award a prize for the
most amusing caption
for this photo of
Aileen and Christer
Lagvik from Sweden
Elinor Bastin, UK Eli comes from the Oxford Healthcare Library and was encouraged to come by other EAHIL members. Although a first timer, she is giving a presentation and has submitted two posters.
Charlotte Van Der Valk, Netherlands Charlotte enjoyed attending the PICO workshop. Charlotte has taken on the role of Secretary for the new Complementary and Alternative Specialist Interest Group. The inaugural meeting of this group will be on Thursday.
Flatiel Vilanculos, Mozambique, Secretary- General of AHILA
Flatiel came to Portugal with two main goals:
to ensure access to Portuguese language information resources;
to establish a partnership between the AHILA and EAHIL by tapping into the EAHIL experience regarding funding and association management.
He is very happy to be here because he can learn a lot from our European colleagues that can be adapted to the mutual benefit of both associations.
Claudia Leuker, Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences, Bonn, Germany Claudia attended this conference for the first time due to an EU grant regarding biomedical ethics. She is hoping other colleagues will e able to benefit from other EU grants in the future.
Herminia Arrazola, Oviedo, Spain She was delighted to renew her attendance at an EAHIL conference after a ten year break. Although an EAHIL member since 1992, financial constraints have hindered her attendance in the last decade.
Linda Thorn & Karin
Bystrom, Sweden Linda is a Biomedical librarian working in the Uppsala University while Karin works as a Medical Librarian in the hospital. Both decided to take the opportunity to come to
EAHIL and found the Systematic Reviews workshop very good. When asked about their flight to Estoril they stated that it was very bumpy on route and again on landing.
Estoril Echo 2
Opening Ceremony
Over 300 participants attended the Opening ceremony in the Estoril Congress Centre. After opening speeches from the Chair of the LOC, Margarida Miera and the Chair of the
Scientific Programme, Isobel Andrade and the EAHIL President, Suzanne Bakker, Alexandre Quintanilha took the floor. Alexandre currently chairs the Council of Associated Laboratories of the Ministry of Science in Portugal. He has an impressive portfolio of scientific publications and always has been involved in science policy. His keynote speech on the Evolution of Knowledge and its Impact on Bioethics was inspirational in its currency and relevance to current issues to which everyone could relate. Many people commented that it was one of the best Opening speeches at any EAHIL conference and this was reflected in the appreciative ovation he received from the delegates.
The Estoril Congress Centre is very well equipped to handle an EAHIL conference, offering spacious accommodation for the exhibitors’ area (ground floor), poster display on the first floor as well as providing an excellent forum for networking and social interaction.
Participants will have benefited from the fact that the exhibition area was open from registration enabling a longer period in which to meet the exhibitors. However, though no numbers have been allocated to the stand, it is hoped that everyone will us the opportunity to meet the representatives from these well-known companies who support EAHIL. Don’t forget that there are free promotional gifts, many of which are very useful.
Conference Catering
Everyone appreciated the excellent lunch served on the first floor cafeteria, with an extensive seating area. It was a sumptuous buffet and vegetarians were well catered for being offered a separate menu.
Welcome Reception, Hotel Palacio, Estoril This took place in the palatial settings of the Hotel Palacio. They even had laid down a red carpet for us! This was an ideal time for social networking with
friends, colleagues and new acquaintances.
The buffet was enjoyed by all who attended, accompanied by a local brass band who played a medley of familiar tunes. Even visiting the toilets was an experience in lavishness and luxury of bygone times.
As in previous EAHIL meetings the Editorial
team will be delighted to meet participants
and listen to their comments and viewpoints
regarding the conference.
Estoril Echo 2
CEC Reports
A search strategy for systematic reviews Mala Mann Whatever your background in evidence searching you would have enjoyed her presentation and shared her enthusiasm that transforms medical librarians into helpful partners of physicians. You would have discovered a great Medline searching interface, work on improving search strategies, learnt how to balance search sensitivity and specificity, or simply shared tips and EBM teaching experiences
Francoise Paslan
Navigating the evidence base: planning and delivering effective library services Andrew Booth Andrew Booth is the editor of the only book in Evidence-based Librarianship (EBL) and has published a lot of articles on the subject. Andrew had a very practical approach to the course; he offered group work and went through the process of how to use evidence in our library according to evidence based librarianship. Emerging technologies and tools Guus van den Brekel Guus pulled off another excellent hands-on seminar, provided a visual wealth of interesting and useful Internet sites and his use of multimedia to inform participants captured our attention. No-one was sleeping here! And I’m sure everyone will be taking home some inspiring ideas to try out
BioMedical web nuggets Friedhelm Rump Friedhelm Rump’s curse on “Biomedical web nuggets” presented a clear overview on Internet search engines and special tools freely available on the Internet. The hands-on approach allowed participants to try searches in their own subject areas.
PICO workshop Hans Ket and Marion Heijmans
Marion and Hans really outdid themselves this time. They held, or should we say “performed”, a highly interesting and intensive course. The very important and complex world of EBM searching strategies and techniques was given in a most attractive and direct way, making this highly complex subject really understandable and applicable. They should be complimented for their well worked out course scenario, for their artistic skills (they even performed for us and we performed for them) all in order to fully illustrate and present the real-life situations we might face daily in our libraries. All course participants agreed that such a course would be more than welcome on a future occasion.
How to design and start a library liaison program Blair Anton 10 people (far too small!) attended a very enthusiastic workshop. She gave us an insight into how librarians can go into clinical departments and make the work of clinicians easier while at the same time demonstrate that as librarians they have their own skills and expertise. Finally, Blair stated that you should “keep always being a librarian”. Welch Medical Library recently decided to focus on liaison librarians for answering user needs instead of collections. Most books will be discarded. I am very curious about these developments. Maybe a theme for a next EAHIL conference workshop?
Fons van den Eeckhout, The Netherlands
I think it would be good if the material presented at
the CE courses could be made available for those
who did not have the opportunity to participate.
Flatiel Vilanculos
First Timer comments Eva Alopaeus recommended us to come here as it’s easy to make contacts, important to follow new trends, opportunity to meet health librarians, collaborate and network.
Thomas Frantzen, Yommine, Maud, Frida, Sahlgrenska University Hospital Library
Estoril Echo 2
Exhibitor Comments Science AAAS – Christina Schlecht & Kiki Forsythe First time exhibitors at EAHIL. One of the reasons for coming to EAHIL is to promote a new Journal Science Translational Medicine. This is an emerging branch of medicine that embraces research and clinical trials with particular reference to cancer, diabetes, nanotechnology, genetics and immunology. Librarians are seen to be in touch with clinicians, researchers and other personnel in this inter-disciplinary subject area. A number of people from many countries have taken up the special offer on the journal. Van de Bilt Publishers’ Agents Theo and Janet van de Bilt are freelance agents who work on behalf of a number of publishers. They hope to raise their profile amongst healthcare librarians, who they see as a target market, particularly in the area of electronic medical publications. They have been pleased to see existing customers and meet potential new clients. They stated that some very good deals have been initiated through EAHIL and how worthwhile it is coming to be an exhibitor.
OUP – Tracy James OUP has been represented at previous EAHIL events and see the conference as a big important market activity.
Tracy said how beneficial it has been to have the exhibition open from the start of the Conference.
EBSCO Claire Honeybourne & Annalisa Mamberti EBSCO have a great record of supporting EAHIL events. The position of the exhibition and location of their display has seen a heavy traffic flow to the EBSCO stand. As well as reinforcing existing publications and services they are keen to promote new products such as “DynaMed”. A slight downside to the first day was the timing of their Presentations which coincided with other sessions, and sadly no-one turned up. Claire and Annalisa are looking forward to meeting more delegates at their stand.
Proquest – Jody Burton & Claudia Reyland
Traffic has been lighter at our stand and long lulls between visits, unlike previous years. Presentations had not been advertised well and it should be made
part of the programme. Thieme – Uwe Stehle So far it is going very well – both new and existing clients with lots of queries. The downside was no one attended Thieme’s presentation – the timing in the programme conflicted with parallel sessions EAHIL is still very worthwhile supporting as you get to meet Healthcare librarians and people from all over Europe and indeed worldwide..
Special Federated Search Offer from WebLib for EAHIL Conference Participants
Leave your visiting card at WebLib’s booth and win a federated search engine. The winner of the draw will get her/his federated search for FREE the first year (2400 EUR value). You do not need
to order to win!!
Estoril Echo 2
Public Health Information Group
EAHIL Public Health Information Group will have an informal Dinner gathering at the Restaurant Costa Da Estoril, Ave Amaral (opposite the entrance to the Conference Centre) on Thursday 18 June 2010 starting at 7.30 pm The Business meeting of the EAHIL Public Health Information Group to be held on Friday 19 June 2010 at 10.45 -12.15 in the Auditorium Conference Centre.
Paivi Pekkarinen and Sue Thomas Mafra Palace-convent Library Tour The Library visit to the Mafra Palace convent takes place this afternoon (Thursday 17 June 2010). The library is housed in a beautiful Baroque Building, and contains over 35,000 leather-bound volumes dating from the 14th-19th century. The coach will leave from the Conference Centre at 2.30pm. The return journey will depart at 6pm from the Mafra Palace.
A Flying Start!
Yesterday morning EAHIL 12 was launched with the warmest of good wishes from the Chair of the Local Organising Committee, a senior official from the Gulbenkian Foundation (among our generous sponsors), and the Mayor of Estoril. We then heard an inspirational opening address from Alexandre Quintanilha. If the role of a university professor is to make his audience think, then he certainly accomplished that. Expounding on the theme of The evolution of knowledge and its impact on bioethics, he cited fascinating quotes from great thinkers and scientists over the last five hundred years. He explained that without curiosity and imagination there is no knowledge. Curiosity influences/ determines the questions we ask; imagination influences/ determines how we attempt to answer those questions. With clear uncluttered slides and not a note in sight he highlighted the changes of the last 40 years underlining the paradigm shifts in the 1980’s that have moved us from certainties to uncertainties.
Putting these in the context of healthcare he spoke of the role of health librarians in providing information/evidence to help us all struggling with dilemmas. Librarians everywhere have a role in helping citizens to be free, responsible and autonomous. Quoting Richard Rorty (2009) he summed up his themes. Take care of freedom and truth will take care of itself. What a gripping opening address! As we go back to our daily work it will stay with us and inspire for years to come.
