AAHSL Committee and Task Force ManualThe purpose of the AAHSL Committee and Task Force manual is to provide committee and task force chairs with basic information about AAHSL and its policies and procedures in order to support them in a successful leadership role. The manual will be sent to the chairs by the President-Elect when appointments are made. The manual will also be available on the AAHSL Website. Each year the Board of Directors will appoint a board member responsible for reviewing and updating the manual. The full Board will discuss necessary changes at the mid-Winter meeting and the manual will be finalized by August so that it can be distributed to the incoming committee chairs.
AAHSL Mission and ProfileHistory AAHSL Mission and Profile The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) was founded in 1977 and was incorporated in 1978 under the name Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors (AAHSLD). This new organization’s purpose was “to provide a medium for communication among directors of such libraries in order to foster their common concerns of planning, program and policy development, to extend their contacts nationally and to provide a forum for joint actions.” (MLA News May 1978) The AAMC’s Council of Academic Societies recommended that the name be changed to AAHSL to reflect that it was an association of institutions rather than individuals with the bylaws ensuring that only library directors would be represented. While this suggestion was not implemented at the time, in 1996 the name was adopted when a separate 501(C)(6) organization was formed in order to pursue more lobbying efforts as well as educational, and research projects. The new organization was named AAHSL – the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries. A full history of the association can be found in the symposium issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association 2003 April; 19(2) entitled “The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries: twenty-five years of excellence.” [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=153152&blobtype=pdf] Organizational Identity Membership in the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) is at the Full/Regular or Associate Member level. Libraries of U.S. or Canadian medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) or the American Association of College and Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) at Full or Provisional status (charter class in year 3 & 4) are eligible for Full/Regular membership. All other libraries or other organizations are eligible for Associate membership. AAHSL Strategic PlanDownload the Strategic Plan. AAHSL StructureAAHSL is a non-profit corporation, organized in 1995 and incorporated in 1996 under the laws of the District of Columbia. It is a 501c (6) entity under the Internal Revenue Code. Below is a brief overview of the structure of AAHSL. More detailed information is available in the AAHSL By-Laws. (See Appendix A) AAHSL’s eligible “Full Members” are the academic health sciences libraries of the institutions that are members of the Association of the American Medical Colleges or the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. Canadian health sciences libraries may join as a Full member but pay the Associate member fee because they do not benefit from U.S. lobbying. Each Full Member is represented by its director, chief executive officer, or other similar designee and has the right to cast one vote in elections and on other business brought before the membership. The governance of the AAHSL is vested in the elected officers on the Board of Directors, which is composed of elected and appointed officers. Elected officers include a President, President-elect, Secretary-Treasurer, Immediate Past President, and three (3) directors-at-large. The Directors-at-large serve for staggered three-year terms. Appointed officers are determined and appointed by the Board. A list of current elected and appointed officers can be found on the AAHSL Web site, http://www.aahsl.org/board-of-directors. Terms begin and end at the close of the AAHSL Annual Meeting. The following standing Committees are defined in the By-Laws [Appendix A] and include:
Other standing committees, and task forces are appointed and charged by the Board. AAHSL is a member of the AAMC’s Council of Faculty and Academic Societies (CFAS) and the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) General Calendar for AAHSL CommitteesNew officers and chairs begin and end their terms at the close the annual meeting, which is usually in November and is held in conjunction with the AAMC annual meeting. The calendar below is presented with the deadlines starting at the time of the annual meeting and moving forward through the association year. Beginning October 1, 2019, AAHSL’s fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30. The full version of the association calendar can be found in Appendix B. In this calendar, the first group of activities under each month applies to all committees and task forces. The second group, which appears in Italics, lists the deadlines for specific committees and task forces. Codes in Calendar: HQ: Headquarters
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