Health Information Professionals Reimagine Personalized Learning Immersion Experience With MLA ’20 vConference & Exhibits

CHICAGO, IL, July 24, 2020 —While remaining laser-focused on the well-being of its membership base and future of the health information profession, the leadership of the Chicago-based Medical Library Association (MLA) revaluated their instructional design principles and member immersion experiences, and redesigned the now virtual, 120^th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, “MLA ’20 vConference & Exhibits,” running from Monday, July 27, 2020 through Monday, August 31, 2020.

This vConference, typically drawing over 1,400 in-person participants annually, is designed for Medical Librarians, Informationists, Collection Development Librarians, Consumer Health Librarians, Reference Librarians, Hospital Librarians, Entry-Level Librarians, Library Directors, International Librarians, Solo Librarians, and other experts in the profession. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, MLA members have focused their energies this year on supporting partnering institutions in their own communities, providing COVID-19 resources, like MLA’s comprehensive online resource. MLA leaders have focused their energies on reimagining their offerings, including virtual multimedia instruction, and learning to address COVID-19 issues and other need-to-know topic areas.

The MLA 2020 National Program Committee (NPC), led by members Janna C. Lawrence, AHIP (Chair) and Melissa De Santis, AHIP (Co-chair) and MLA’s Annual Meeting Innovation Task Force co-chaired by MLA President Lisa Traditi, AHIP, and MLA’s Executive Director Kevin Baliozian, CAE, transformed MLA ’20 vConference & Exhibits to offer incomparable professional content virtually for members in all areas, combined with exclusive networking opportunities with exhibiting partners and colleagues.

“Our members understand the reciprocal nature of the science and scholarship of teaching and learning,” noted Lisa Traditi, AHIP. “Our goal for this year’s virtual experience is to present the material in a user-friendly, dynamic and memorable way that supports our members’ goals to further engage in lifelong learning and growth within our profession.”

MLA’s leadership and professional staff reworked all calendar-year programming to meet the needs of its members. By incorporating findings from the Annual Meeting Task Force’s extensive deep-dive research, MLA conducted its Annual Business Meeting and transition of MLA Officers virtually on Tuesday, May 19, 2020. With a quorum requirement of 200 MLA members to conduct official business, the virtual business meeting exceeded expectations with 495+ MLA participating members.

“By conducting our business meeting in May, we knew that our MLA ’20 vConference & Exhibits could focus solely on personalized, blended-learning instructional courses and networking experiences, without a required focus on governance and official association business,” said Kevin Baliozian, CAE. “Our successful membership participation for May’s virtual meeting is extremely promising as we ramp up for our completely enhanced virtual member experience for this year’s conference and exhibits.”

While embracing and revamping evidence-based learning principles, MLA has fine-tuned its virtual programming, personalizing real-time member experiences. Programs like MLA’s vConnections and Insight Initiative, providing high-value dialogue on issues pertinent to medical librarians and publishers, have paved the way for the virtual, member-centric programming in store for MLA ’20.

MLA ’20 vConference & Exhibits’ participants will be immersed into the month-long interactive conference with a Live Kickoff on Monday, July 27^th to learn how to best navigate the vConference & Exhibits, discover highlights of the InSight Initiative, recognize MLA ’20 vConference sponsors, support colleagues featured in the awards and recognition ceremony and interact in real-time, virtual networking events.

MLA ’20 registrants will experience memorable, virtual educational programming including 39 lightning talks, 20+ immersion sessions, two keynote addresses, 186 posters (with voice recordings) and nearly 100+ papers (voice synced with slides) in specialized practice areas including information management; information services; education; professionalism and leadership; clinical support; innovation and research practice; and global health and health equity.

“A personalized approach to our immersive planning process allowed us to anticipate our memberships needs or wants for this year’s Conference,” noted MLA’s National Program Committee Chair Janna Lawrence, AHIP. “Our individualized user-friendly programming model paired with exhibits and symposia that showcase more than 65 of our exhibit partners, really takes us to a new level of member experience.”

MLA’s world-class exhibiting partners will engage in real-time with MLA members through collaborative vendor exhibits and symposia, including Sunrise Seminars or Lunch and Learns.

MLA ’20 vConference & Exhibits Schedule At-A-Glance
Exploration Week: July 27 to August 9, 2020	Registrants will experience visits to the virtual exhibit hall; posters; lightning talks; papers; vConnection Series; Open Connection Forums; Chat Rooms; Insight Initiative and Social Events including games nights or yoga.
Live Action Week: August 10 to August 14, 2020	Registrants will experience additional vendor exhibit public video chat sessions and symposia; lightning talks and paper meet-ups; interactive immersion sessions; two Keynote Presentations featuring the John P. McGovern Award Lecturer, Esther Choo, MD and Janet Doe Lecturer, Chris Shaffer, AHIP;  National Library of Medicine (NLM) “Year in Review” Update; PubMed conversations; an Open Science Symposium with panel discussion and interactive breakout sessions; PubMed Conversations with NLM colleagues; Social Hours hosted by Keynote Speakers, MLA Caucuses, Chapters, Fellows, National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) regions and a Closing Session featured a performance by the MLA ’21 Annual Meeting & Exhibits Washington, DC Organizing Committees.
Watch Later (Viewing Only): Open through Monday, August 31, 2020	Registrants receive one full month of content including 65+ vendor exhibits, symposia, and all presentations available for three years, after June 1, 2021.

While the conference registration launched last month, registrants still have time to participate in MLA’s inaugural Continuing Education (CE) Passport Program that gives member participants full access to MLA’s online CE courses through December 31, 2020, including access to 50+ live and prerecorded webinars, including all upcoming 2020 webinars; 6+ self-paced courses, including all new self-paced courses published in 2020 (estimate of 12 total). An estimated 31 courses are approved for continuing nursing education (CNE) credit.

“This year was an opportunity to continue the valuable work of our Annual Meeting Task Force, identifying a process for us to provide a robust learning forum that expertly combines real-time individualized learning experiences with memorable personal connections,” noted MLA President Lisa Traditi, AHIP. “We know our members are anticipating this year’s vConference & Exhibits based on their involvement in vConnections to date and our inherit nature as medical library professionals to explore, engage, collaborate and connect.”

MLA also is offering no-charge hardship registrations to 145 MLA members facing personal hardships or navigating tight institutional budgets, during this challenging economic time. Visit https://www.mlanet.org/meeting for more about MLA ’20 vConference & Exhibits.

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About MLA

The Medical Library Association (MLA) is a global, nonprofit educational organization, with a membership of more than 400 institutions and 3,000 professionals in the health information field. Since 1898, MLA has fostered excellence in the professional practice and leadership of health sciences library and information professionals to enhance health care, education, and research throughout the world. MLA educates health information professionals, supports health information research, promotes access to the world’s health sciences information, and works to ensure that the best health information is available to all. For more information about MLA, visit MLANET.org.

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