New Conveners for EBLIG

Abstract

As new Co-conveners for CLA’s interest group, EBLIG, we would like to take the opportunity to introduce ourselves. Sue Fahey is a public services librarian at the Health Sciences Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's. Renée de Gannes-Marshall is the information specialist at the Canadian Dental Association in Ottawa. EBLIG's goals are:

• to represent the interests of librarians involved in evidence based librarianship and library related research;
• to organize continuing education opportunities for librarians in this area;
• to provide a means of communication between librarians involved in evidence based librarianship;
• to assist librarians with the dissemination of library research utilizing an evidence-based model;
• to support librarians' evidence based research with grants.

We are pleased to announce the introduction of a new workshop grant which has been established to support and encourage the development of continuing education activities in evidence based librarianship in conjunction with local/regional/provincial associations or institutions. EBLIG Co-conveners and volunteers will evaluate applications and determine awards based on the established criteria, including relevance to the profession and to the advancement of evidence based librarianship, value to expected participants and regional/geographic location. We would like to award the first grant this year and have allotted a budget of $250 and set a deadline of October 15th, 2007. Please apply ASAP for funding for your fall course idea! For more information, go to http://eblibrarianship.pbwiki.com/EBLIG+Workshop+Incentive+Grants.

An hour long Education Institute audio conference, Evidence-Based Librarianship: A Toolkit for Public Libraries, featuring presenters Virginia Wilson and Stephanie Hall, will be held on Tuesday, November 6th, at 12 pm. Virginia and Stephanie will present a toolkit tailored to public librarians and public library workers with tips on how to integrate EBL into the workflow. The toolkit will include key EBL articles, sources of evidence, and steps to take to put EBL into practice. Registration is $54 for members and $74 for non-members. For more information, go to http://www.thepartnership.ca/partnership/bins/calendar_page.asp.

If you managed to make it to EBLIP4 or you missed out, but were wondering how you could get to the next conference, (especially after seeing conference abstracts posted on the website http://www.eblip4.unc.edu), we have been in touch with the main contact for EBLIP5 to be held in Stockholm, Sweden. Details on the conference, including event dates and venue, are forthcoming.

As of July 31st, 2007, our interest group is 48 members strong from across Canada and the United States! For those who participate on the listserv and who live outside of Canada, did you know that you can join EBLIG without having to become a full member of CLA for a fee of only $30 CAD annually? For more details, go to http://www.cla.ca/about/igroups/evidence_based.htm. Also of note is the fact that non-members can participate on the listserv.

We look forward to your comments and questions and invite you to participate in the activities set forth during 2007-2008. Participate on the listserv, contribute to the wiki, keep reading this journal, and get involved with EBL. Also, if you are a fellow "Facebooker", feel free to join the Evidence Based Librarians group (118 members strong at the time of writing!).

We look forward to working with you.