Monday Memories--Medical Library Assocation June 1-5, 1996

I got back from the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting in Kansas City about 1 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.  I was there only 4 days, and chaired two meetings.  Glad that's over.  I know there are people who enjoy that sort of thing, but there are people who like to eat snails and jump from airplanes too, so go figure! 

Kansas City is a lovely city--seems much larger (is) and more cosmopolitan than Columbus, and much more self-aware.  The architecture is varied and dynamic and they've made a big effort to restore various areas.  The train station which used to see 250,000 people a day is empty but I think they are looking for a use for it--maybe a museum.  You get the feeling that KC is your last chance at urban living before hitting the plains, and maybe it was at one time.  The airport is miles and miles from the city, so although my airfare was pretty reasonable, a cab ride to the city is $30.  I found two other librarians at the airport, so we shared a ride. 

I shared a room with Vicki Kok from Virginia and Pat Mullen from Oklahoma.  Our hotel (Westin) was part of an 85 acre urban renewal complex maybe 20-25 years old now with attached shopping mall.  It looks just like Boston and San Antonio and Detroit in that sense.  All the stores and the merchandise are just the same if you stay in a hotel/mall complex.  As a chair of my section, I was invited to the president's reception which was held at Linda Hall Library, a huge privately endowed public library that specializes in the sciences.  I had wanted to see it for about 20 years, and was not disappointed.  It was fabulous.

Instead of going somewhere, our "tour" this year was a Missouri extension agent with his otter; “Reintroduction of River Otters in Missouri” by Glenn D. Chambers, Missouri Department of Conservation and Paddlefoot Productions Incorporated. He and his wife travel around with their two otters and demonstrate their behavior and talk about their habitat to school children.  He estimates he has talked to over 250,000 children in the last 4 years.  It was a very interesting program--I'd never seen an otter, and I guess they were almost extinct (fur trappers and draining swamps about eliminated them) in Missouri at one time, and now have about 800 in the wild.  He got two babies and they "imprinted" to him--he slept with them for the first several months.  He did this because his "real" job is a photographer, and in order to photograph otters in the wild he need some who weren't afraid of him.  He takes them out in the wild and photographs them, and then calls them in and they run and jump in their cages.  He was really great--drawled like a good 'ol boy but you knew he was one really smart guy--has done work for National Geographic and has a movie coming out. 

We had another program given by a guy from St. Louis about the Internet, "The Future of Veterinary Medicine on the Internet" by Ken Boschert, American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine, Division of Comparative Medicine, School of Medicine, Washington University. 

I already knew most of the stuff he talked about and he was doing 3 presentations that week, so it sounded a little canned.  Anyone who talks about computers in a way that I understand--well, I know he's not talking at a very high level, because I really struggle to keep up.

(from a letter to my parents)

Monday Memories--Medical Library Association, May 1998

May 22-28, 1998, I was in Philadelphia for the Medical Library Association annual meeting.  We had beautiful weather--I think it rained only one day.  I arrived on Friday, got settled, registered and went out to eat with two of my roommates, Carolyn and Gretchen, and a few librarians from California.  On Saturday I did a morning "historic" tour which was very interesting.  Pennsylvania is next door to Ohio, but our histories are very different, since they were a "commonwealth" long before the union was formed.  We toured Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, a shell of a house where Ben Franklin lived, and a print shop and Betsy Ross's home.  By Saturday afternoon I found my friend Jerry Stuenkel from Detroit who later lived and worked on St. Maartin's Island in the Caribbean and now lives in Florida.  We went to the grand opening "birthday party" of MLA (it was 100 years old that year) and then to the opening of the exhibits.  The party had "mummers" which I guess is a big thing in Philadelphia--guys dressed up in wild costumes (reminds me of Mardi Gras) and playing instruments and dancing

On Sunday, Majors (book distributors) sponsored their walk through the city and a breakfast.  They give us all matching T-shirts.  Jerry and I walked with a retired librarian named Priscilla who was 80 years old and didn't look a day over 65.   After the walk I changed clothes and went to a lovely Catholic church about a block from the hotel with Gretchen.  The priest and the cantor were just outstanding and the building was beautifully restored with lots of soaring arches and stained glass windows.  Catholics now sing hymns to Protestant tunes, but at about half the tempo.  They need to pep it up a little.  The sermon was on Christian Unity, and as I shook the priest's hand as I was leaving I told him I was Lutheran, and hoped some day we might be able to take communion together.  He laughed and said that sort of unity would be nice.

I met Jerry and her friend Patty who is a hospital librarian in Detroit (so young and cute you just want to hate her, but she was too sweet) for lunch and then we went to the first plenary session (outside speakers), a program on electronic journals and then to an art museum where Patty had tickets from an exhibitor for dinner.  We ate and looked at paintings--most of which were 18th or 19th century art relating to Pennsylvania history in some way--and then walked back to the Marriot.

Monday was our big day--our Veterinary Medical Library Section had a breakfast hosted by CAB (British indexing company), then we went to the University of Pennsylvania campus for a program on a canine genetic disorders database.  After lunch we had our business meeting, and then our program, for which I was one of the speakers.  I had practiced my speech many times, and feel it went quite well.  Most people seemed to remember two points, which is pretty good.  Also, every one got a copy of the full speech, so they can always read it.  Then for dinner we went to a lovely Chinese restaurant.  Tuesday was the second plenary session and I attended a meeting on evidence based medicine (hard to explain, but it means you diagnose based on what has been found to be sound practice in published studies).  Then Jerry and I said our good-byes for another year or two (she was not at the 1996 or 1997 meetings) and I helped Kathrine of Texas A & M put up our poster exhibit of our section's history.  About 3 p.m. I left for the airport and got picked up by Bob about 6 p.m.

(The notes for this memory were from a letter to my college roommate and childhood friend, JoElla, whose married name is the same as my grandmother's, and I also discussed some genealogy because her husband's grandmother and my grandmother called each other "cousin" in their letters and I had mailed a batch of them to her.)

Monday Memories-- Medical Library Association, Washington D.C. May 15-21, 1992

I arrived in Washington around noon on Thursday, May 14, and was picked  up at the airport, then we rode the metro to a shopping area and had lunch at Slades.  We went to choir rehearsal at Immanuel Presbyterian and also got to see a video tape of the Spring musical.  Really cute.  We saw the famous Falls, after which I assume the towns are named. We ate those yummy cinnamon biscuits in the morning after our walks (surely they cancelled each other out).  There is a very convenient shopping center, Loehmann's Plaza, next door to the apartments where she lives.  Friday we toured Alexandria, an old restored village with lots of cute unique shops. We explored the Torpedo Factory with its wonderful crafts people and had lunch at a little deli overlooking a river (not sure which one).  We shopped on Saturday and bought yummies to eat at a health food grocery. That night we went to see a Goldie Hawn movie, "Crisscross," that was sort of a downer--not her usual comedy stuff.

The area she lives in is really lovely, and Virginia is so pretty in the spring.  She says I missed the peak color, but for one who has lived all her adult life in central Illinois, central Indiana and central Ohio, it looked pretty darn peaky to me! Sunday we went to Boulevard Baptist church where she plays the organ and in the afternoon went to a play, "How to succeed in business."  Karen picked me up there and we whipped into DC on a parkway that Karen knew about so I could register at my hotel and attend the conference of the Medical Library Association.

Washington is such an impressive city--there must be a million things to see and do there.  But the extent of my sight-seeing was one quick walk to the zoo, which was close to the hotel, and a 2 1/2 hour trolly/bus tour around the famous places.  I did get out and walk around the Vietnam Memorial.  It was good to see my friends from the other Veterinary Medicine libraries.  We only see each other once a year, but we have our electronic mail on the computer and a newsletter, so we keep in touch. The group visited the Zoo and talked to the veterinary staff and attended many meetings, none memorable enough to include either then or now!

One highlight of the meeting was when Compact Cambridge (an abstracting indexing service located in Cambridge, MA) took us all the Kennedy Center Tuesday evening for either a performance of the symphony, an opera, or a cabaret.  I saw "Pump Boys and Dinettes" and it was just fabulous.  It was rock, rock-a-billy, gospel, blues, honky tonk, and ballads, all taking place in a gas station with an adjoining dinette.  The actors were so versatile.  We had the best time. After the play we had a chocolate extravaganza, with fabulous desserts. 

The conference met Sunday through Wednesday. The veterinary medicine librarians met with the pharmacy librarians.  In 1993 the conference was planned for Chicago, (see my blog here) and I decided to fly out in the afternoon instead of the evening.  It is just too hard to get going the next day. This year I was back at work for 1 1/2 days, then we had a 3 day holiday, and then a 4 day week.  So I needed a little more adjustment time.

Later in May 1992, the Mid-Ohio  Health Sciences Librarians had their spring meeting in Columbus.

On Wednesday, the Mid-Ohio Health Sciences Librarians met for their spring meeting and we first had a guided tour of  "In Black and White" at the Wexner Center, our very controversial arts center here at Ohio State.  No, it wasn't a show about race, but fashion and the curator was Charles Kleibacker, Designer in Residence in Ohio State's Dept. of Textiles and Clothing (he died in 2010).  The show brings together actual examples of fashion from the 1920's to the 1990s by designers such as Chanel, Dior, Galanos, Givency, Armani and Mackie.  Everything was either black or white, even the sets.  Samples of designer's studios and workrooms were also worked into the show.  One thing was apparent--if the fabric is lovely and the design good, the dress is timeless.  The dresses from the 20's and 50's looked just as good as the day they were first paraded down a runway in Paris.  (Images of Kleibacker shows)

Then as an unexpected bonus, we slipped into a lecture by designer Shannon Rodgers, (d. 1996) who designed clothes for many movies.  He was designing back in the 1930's so he was in his 80's, but his presentation was very interesting and witty.  He was still working for the fashion museum at Kent State.  He did a mini-fashion show for us with three models.  One was wearing what he designed for Rosalynn Carter, one he did for Dinah Shore, and various other famous people. The Wexner Center is so impossible to show anything in, that a special exhibition space had to be designed to fit within the exhibit area, and that was interesting too.

After the show, we all walked to a campus dive/restaurant to have our business meeting.  As 15 middle-age librarians trooped in, all the tie-dyed, earringed -shaved heads turned to stare. We librarians really know how to shake up a place. The food was great.

(Notes on this memory are from my 1992 letter to my parents about MLA and Mid-Ohio.)

Monday Memories--Medical Library Association Meeting 1993 in Chicago

From May 16 to May 19, 1993, I was in Chicago attending the Medical Library Association then headed to Mt. Morris to work on my publication project. As usual, the Veterinary Librarians had a great meeting. As I hopped off the shuttle from the airport on Sunday, I made a mad dash to the Shedd Aquarium with Melinda Saffer from Tufts who had also just arrived. We met up with our group which was having breakfast courtesy of the Aquarium Library staff. Then we attended a public demonstration in their new Oceanarium, and toured the facility with their veterinarian, seeing many of the back room medical facilities--even had to walk through a special tub of water to disinfect our shoes. There are huge lines to get in Shedd, so we were fortunate to be able to by-pass all that. (I still have the Shedd Aquarium T-shirt I bought.)

After that the librarians gave us a tour of the Shedd library, the largest aquarium library in the country. It was a lovely facility, and I jotted down some disease titles with which I was unfamiliar. The aquarium is on the lakefront only about a 15 minute walk from the Palmer House, site of the conference, so several of us walked back to the fabulous beauty of the flowering trees, Buckingham Fountain and all the yachts against the blue sky and water. And of course, there was the fabulous Chicago skyline, where every famous architect since the great fire has plunked down a building.

Then back to the hotel, registration, (my key was stolen and I narrowly missed an assault) lunch with friends, and that evening, Faxon (book vendor) took us to the 95th floor of the John Hancock Building. It was dusk, and as the lights of the city came on it was one of the prettiest sights I've seen. To show how chocolate improves the memory--it's been almost 25 years--I think it was a Chocolate themed buffet.

On Monday the distributor Majors (library subscription vendor) gave us a walking tour of Michigan Avenue with free T-shirts and breakfast. The Executive Committee of the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section (I was treasurer) met for several hours hearing reports, discussing next year's meeting in San Antonio, what to do about journals from former Communist countries, etc. I attended a session after lunch, then walked down to view the new Washington Public Library, which is quite controversial, but was only two blocks from the Palmer House.

Monday evening Compact Cambridge, a company developing CD-ROM data bases (Compact Disk Read Only Memory) which were all the rage then, hosted an event at the Field Museum, and we toured many exhibits from Egyptian tombs to Guatemalan pottery. Between the time they had committed to this reception and the actual event, they had been bought out by SilverPlatter, another CD-ROM company, but the event was held anyway.

Tuesday the Veterinary Section had its Business meeting, and then its own programming. Two new products, one a prototype, were demonstrated. Tuesday was free day at the Chicago Art Institute, so David Anderson from California and I went together after lunch. There was a nice display on the 1893 Columbian Exposition, photos of its construction, "Constructing the Fair: Platinum Photographs of the World's Columbian Exposition" which I was very interested in. Grandma Weybright graduated from high school in June, 1893, so I'm guessing her trip there was a graduation present because there are some souvenir items in the Weybright collection from this exposition. Tuesday evening we had our section dinner at a Greek restaurant, Dianna's Opa, which I didn't think was very impressive, but everyone enjoyed it.

Wednesday morning I caught the shuttle back to O'Hare Airport, then the bus to Rockford where Mom and Dad met me at the bus, we had lunch, then went on to Mt. Morris. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent ferreting out missing titles, checking imprints, recording recollections, etc. for my personal library of farmers publication project.  Mom went to Washington to Julie Clark's graduation on Friday, so Dad and I did the Pine Creek tour and I recorded some of his stories--may call it "The Pine Creek Chronicles." (I wrote it up and distributed it with the cookbook I was preparing for the reunion that summer.)

On Friday I also had a three hour breakfast with Lynne and Sylvia. On Sunday we went to church and then out to eat with Aunt Marian and Connie Brebner. Dad drove me back to the bus on Sunday afternoon and I got home about 7:30 p.m. I returned to work on May 24th, and used two more days of research time entering data, making corrections in the data base and checking catalogs.

(Information taken from a letter I wrote to my parents June, 1, 1993,--and this is only part of it.  If you think this is long, imagine their boredom in reading it!  Somewhere I have photos.)

Friday Family Photo—Dora Hsiung

Here is an old photo of my college roommate, Dora Hsiung, and me 30 years after we met in 1958 at the University of Illinois. I was in Boston for a Medical Library Association conference and we went to the Boston Museum of Art.

Here is a video of Dora demonstrating her fiber art.  I’ve saved all of her Christmas cards and have framed some in a grouping.

http://www.newtv.org/video/inside-the-artist-s-studio/inside-the-artists-studio-fiber-artist-dora-hsiung/

Monday Memories--MLA San Antonio 1994

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to join an exercise class, so here I am in my 1994 San Antonio "Walk with Majors" shirt getting ready to go to class today. Majors was (or is, don't know for sure) a book distributor, a nice family operation. Even if your library didn't use their services, they always bought breakfast for and gave a t-shirt to anyone who "walked with Majors."

One of the great things about being the veterinary medicine librarian at Ohio State was the terrific cities I visited and the conferences I attended. Several times my husband took a few vacation days and joined me. The Veterinary Medicine Section of the Medical Library Association is the best professional group ever. The OSU Libraries was poorly funded for professional meetings, but the college dean would usually find the money to pay for my registration, hotel and travel.

The next photo is Jerry and I; she was a hospital librarian from Detroit and we met at our first MLA in Boston in 1988. Although she started library school about 20 years after I did, we had both joined this organization at the same time, and are both now retired but I still hear from her at Christmas. I had a scrunchy perm in those days, and it looks like I didn't scrunch that day--I think these Majors Walks were very early and we probably hadn't yet hit the showers.

Here's an excerpt from a letter to my parents about that trip:

My friend Jerry from Detroit sent me a packet of photos this week which she took of San Antonio and us when we were there for the Medical Library Association in mid-May. It is a lovely city, and they really cater to tourists--must be one of their biggest industries. They had a river that was forever flooding and during the Depression the WPA corralled it in stone walls, into a lovely river walk, and it has been extended to other areas. The city business sort of goes on above it, and you never see the traffic or hear it when walking along the river. We did a lot of walking and picture taking; I attended meetings, and an architect (friend of a friend) took us on a city tour and we got to see some of the more unusual things the ordinary tourist doesn't see. We also visited an artist's colony and bought a nice watercolor of the Alamo. One morning the Majors company took us on a long hike through the King William restored residential section where we saw all these fabulous homes, and they gave us breakfast. Jerry had a photo of the two of us standing side by side in our Majors t-shirts and we look like librarian-Siamese twins because the shirts blend together.

Another treat was going to the air force base and seeing how they train the dogs. We vet librarians always do something with an animal interest. That base is incredible, and even though I'd heard a lot about it, you almost have to see it to believe it.