Introduction: highlighting international librarianship.

Abstract

An international meeting with its richness and diversity of topics and authors often magnifies the breadth and depth of the meeting experience. This seemed readily apparent at “One Health: Information in an Interdependent World,” held in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 3–8, 2013, which attracted more than 2,700 attendees from 41 countries, 190 papers, and 287 posters 1. One Health used the framework of the 113th Medical Library Association (MLA) Annual Meeting and Exposition to anchor 3 international conferences and provide a unique federated meeting experience including joint plenary sessions, continuing education opportunities, and the usual extensive MLA topical section programming. The meeting also retained the unique identity of the international collaborators through topical meeting tracks and responsibility for track programming. The framework allowed the participating international conferences to focus on programming and promoting the meeting for their constituencies and to participate in selecting One Health plenary speakers. One Health included 3 international concurrent conferences: the 11th International Congress on Medical Librarianship (ICML), the 7th International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists (ICAHIS), and the 6th International Clinical Librarian Conference (ICLC). The international conference entities are not organizations with dues-paying members such as MLA, but represent communities of interest capable of supporting and sustaining international conferences that have included the first ICML in London in 1953, the first ICLC conference (called the first UK Clinical Librarian Conference) in 2002, and the first ICAHIS conference in Reading, United Kingdom, in 1992. ICML is officially sponsored by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Health and Biosciences Libraries Section 2. The Health and Biosciences Libraries Section, and specifically its standing committee, recommends sites for each ICML. Before One Health, the MLA annual meeting and the ICML had been linked twice, both times in Washington, DC, in 1963 (2nd ICML) and 1995 (7th ICML). The 1963 and 1995 MLA/ICML meetings were conjoint meetings rather than the concurrent, federated meetings characterizing the Boston One Health meeting. Concurrent meetings of ICML, ICLC, and ICAHIS occurred for the first time in Brisbane, Australia, at the 10th ICML, 4th ICLC, and 6th ICAHIS 3. Publications that memorialize international health sciences library meeting content are included in journals such as the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA), Health Information and Libraries Journal, and other library science publications or in published proceedings, including past ICML published proceedings 4. ICLC has maintained links to papers from previous congresses on a website 5, and since 2009 has utilized the digital repository of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, following the 2009 concurrent meeting with ICML, ICLC, and ICAHIS 6. ICAHIS has used the institutional repository of Washington State University as the archive of its papers beginning in 1992 7 and, since 2009, has used the University of Queensland digital repository to archive past meeting content. Faced with an embarrassment of riches in the form of 190 papers presented at the One Health meeting and with the understanding that One Health papers related to ICML, ICLC, and ICAHIS programs would ultimately be published in the University of Queensland digital repository, MLA has chosen to publish four invited papers from the One Health meeting. “The Ethics of Scholarly Publishing: Exploring Differences in Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication across Nations” by Kathleen A. Amos, Susan Swogger, and Kathleen A. McGraw “Building Capacity in a Health Sciences Library to Support Global Health Projects” by Mellanye Lackey “Improving Medical Education in Kenya: An International Collaboration” by Alexa Mayo “Information Empowerment: Pre-Departure Resource Training for Students in Global Health” by Gurpreet K. Rana These papers are not intended to provide an overview of the One Health meeting, but to highlight some of the work and growing interest related to international librarianship and global health currently underway in North American health sciences libraries. Lackey's paper on capacity building in a health sciences library addresses the need to articulate a vision for the library in sync with an institutionally directed global vision and to create an organizational structure to facilitate success. Rana reports on pre-departure resource training for university students who are engaged in global health programs that are supported by the university. The paper underscores the importance of information skills training to the success of global missions. Amos's paper on the international incidence of retractions in fifty countries related to plagiarism and other reasons highlights the globalization of unethical publication practices. Mayo reports on an international partnership between a library in Kenya and the University of Maryland Health Sciences and Human Services Library, where the goal of improving the quality of medical education will have a major impact on health outcomes in Kenya.