The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries' legislative activities and the Joint Medical Library Association/Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries Legislative Task Force

Abstract

The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries' (AAHSL's) involvement in national legislative activities and other advocacy initiatives has evolved and matured over the last twenty-five years. Some activities conducted by the Medical Library Association's (MLA's) Legislative Committee from 1976 to 1984 are highlighted to show the evolution of MLA's and AAHSL's interests in collaborating on national legislative issues, which resulted in an agreement to form a joint legislative task force. The history, work, challenges, and accomplishments of the Joint MLA/AAHSL Legislative Task Force, formed in 1985, are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries' (AAHSL) Organizing Committee—Gerald Oppenheimer, Samuel Hitt, Glenn Brudvig, Peter Stangl, and Nina Matheson—clearly perceived the need for timely involvement in influencing current legislation affecting academic health sciences libraries. The education of Congress and government agency administrators about academic health sciences libraries was a legislative priority for AAHSL's founders. Their goal was to support legislation that bolstered academic health sciences libraries' abilities to provide better and more services to their institutions.

ASSOCIATION OF ACADEMIC HEALTH SCIENCES LIBRARIES' (AAHSL's) LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITIES, 1977–1984

From AAHSL's inception, its founders recognized that involvement in the legislative process at the national level was very important to the association and its members. Meetings with the National Library of Medicine's (NLM's) leadership and the Association of American Medical Colleges' (AAMC's) representatives, as well as continuing participation in the Medical Library Association's (MLA's) legislative activities, were among their early endeavors to put forward the association's legislative agenda.

An early example of working to influence government agency programs occurred at the November 1979 AAHSL annual meeting. NLM's Joseph Leiter, Ph.D., gave a presentation to the membership and engaged in a lively discussion concerning the development of MEDLARS III. The association's members were given the opportunity to influence its development through formal comments synthesized by James Williams, chair of the Committee on Information Control and Technology, and forwarded in a letter to Dr. Leiter before year-end [1].

AAHSL President Robin LeSueur wrote about lobbying for the Medical Library Assistance Act (MLAA) in his 1980/81 annual report,

Other soul searching centers around AAHSLD's relationship with and role with regard to the NLM and the MLA. There was a merger of these two directions, in a sense, during the intensive lobbying in the early months of 1981 for the life of the MLAA. The most extraordinary organization of the voice of health sciences librarianship achieved by Mary Horres of Chapel Hill, chairperson of the 1980/81 MLA Legislative Committee, with the assistance of incoming Chairperson Raymond Palmer of Wright State University, will long live in the political annals. Significant factors in the rapid dissemination of the wealth of timely information and lucid instructions Horres and Palmer compiled were their use of three national, complementary groups of health sciences librarians: [Regional Medical Library] (RML) directors, MLA regional legislative committees, and AAHSLD members. [2]

In late 1981, the question was raised as to whether AAHSL needed to designate an individual as a legislation liaison. The Board of Directors decided that “a separate one was not needed as the area was being handled already by MLA. Any necessary activity would be handled by the AAHSLD president” [3].

As AAHSL began to mature, it became quite clear that a single legislative liaison, president or member, could not shoulder unassisted a legislative agenda of any magnitude. The November 1982 board meeting minutes reported:

The question of whether or not AAHSLD should establish a Legislation Committee was discussed. It was determined, for the time being, the board would function in this capacity; it may be necessary to establish a separate committee at some point in the future. A letter will be sent to the MLA president proposing that we would like to support MLA's legislative efforts and therefore would like to establish a formal liaison with them. It was suggested that Mary Horres could serve in this capacity beginning in January 1983, sending copies of information sent to MLA's Legislation Committee to board members. [4]

Horres's appointment was an excellent choice. She had been active in MLA legislative activities for a number of years, was well versed in national issues affecting medical libraries, and had chaired the MLA Legislation Committee from 1979 to 1981. The Planning Document for the Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors, adopted by the board at that meeting, reflected the need for a formal legislative liaison with MLA [5].

In 1983, a revised Planning Document was presented at the AAHSL annual meeting. The document recommended four actions under the activity titled liaison:

1. liaison established with MLA Legislation Committee;

2. contact established with the American Library Association (ALA) Copyright Committee;

3. Joint MLA/AAHSL Legislative Task Force appointed; and

4. liaison maintained with NLM and AAMC. [6]

Recommendations 1 and 4 had been accomplished by the time of the fall 1983 annual meeting. The liaison with NLM eventually evolved into a regular agenda item at future task force meetings. The AAMC liaison continues today with an annual meeting between the AAHSL president and president-elect and the AAMC's Office of Governmental Relations representatives. No reference to recommendation 2 was found in AAHSL newsletters or annual reports. Recommendation 3 was predictive and became a reality over the succeeding eighteen months.

At that same meeting, President Richard Lyders announced to the membership that the board had voted to endorse a statement prepared by MLA's Legislation Committee in support of the MLAA, and he had written a letter to that effect to the MLA Board of Directors. Legislative Liaison Horres reported that “AAHSLD is represented by three members on the MLA Legislation Committee, and the chairman, Gerry Oppenheimer, will keep AAHSLD informed as actions are taken by the committee” [7]. Horres and Oppenheimer are two of many examples of the involvement of AAHSL members in MLA legislative activities before the formation of the Joint MLA/AAHSL Legislative Task Force. In 1977/78, Oppenheimer chaired the MLA/NLM Liaison Committee, and Nina Matheson was the MLA Board liaison to the MLA Legislation Committee, a committee she had chaired for the first half of 1976. Eventually, the experiences of these individuals and others helped move AAHSL and MLA toward working together in the legislative arena for the benefit of both associations.

MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION (MLA) LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITIES, 1976–1984

MLA's legislative agenda during this period involved some different activities than AAHSL's that eventually pointed the way to the development of the joint legislative task force. The MLA Legislation Committee recognized the need for “legislative representation by a professional person or group who has key contacts in Washington” [8]. During 1976/77 and 1977/78, the committee worked with two different lobbying groups, T. L. Schmidt Associates and the Bennett Group. In 1979, at the request of the Legislation Committee, the Bennett Group submitted a plan to the MLA Board for assistance in Washington, DC, with MLA's legislative agenda [9]. The board did not approve the plan, because they felt it was too expensive. Instead, they charged the MLA executive director with further exploring the need for a Washington lobbyist. Also in 1979, the board approved making MLA an institutional member in the Coalition for Health Funding, a group that was viewed as a cohesive force with a growing influence when lobbying before Congress on health matters [10].

In 1980, MLA established a National Issues Advisory Council (NIAC). It may have been created with an eye to lessening the work of the Legislation Committee; however, that committee's annual report for 1979/80 stated, “Splintering off specific issues to the National Issues Advisory Council may result in inconsistencies in monitoring and responding to legislative concerns and in a failure to keep MLA members informed about pending legislation” [11]. The committee's 1980/81 annual report made no mention of NIAC. Instead, it recommended “the formation of closer ties to legislation committees of related professional associations” as one of the issues they would discuss at the 1981 MLA annual meeting [12]. Over the next three years, they pursued that goal as well as worked more closely with MLA's regional groups.

In 1984, the official title of the Legislation Committee was changed to the Governmental Relations Committee (GRC) to reflect more closely its charge of communicating to the MLA membership about legislative issues and mobilizing the membership to give input to Congress when needed. This change of focus helped set the stage for a cooperative venture with AAHSL, a related professional association, and resulted in forming a joint legislative task force.

JOINT MLA/AAHSL LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE

Oppenheimer's 1988 Janet Doe lecture examined MLA's participation in political activity in the broadest sense. He quoted from the 1967 report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Future Development of MLA that:

MLA has responsibility … for representing the goals and objectives of the profession to makers of public policy at the national level. … Even though there was some official withdrawal from the sense of this commitment in the years immediately following [the 1967 Ad Hoc Committee report], this statement might be regarded as the underpinnings of and justification for the creation, at a later time, of the MLA/AAHSLD Joint Task Force to Create a Legislative Agenda, and the actions taken by this body in the middle and late 'eighties. [13]

Oppenheimer served as AAHSL's first legislative liaison in the early 1980s and was one of the four original AAHSL representatives named in 1985 to the MLA/AAHSL Task Force for Creating a Federal Legislative Agenda for Health Sciences Libraries. He also served as chair of the MLA GRC for 1985/86. The theme of his Doe lecture came from long involvement and experience in influencing the legislative process and from very thoughtful reflection on the necessity to continue to do so.

The summer 1985 AAHSLD News published the article “MLA/AAHSLD Task Force for Creating a Federal Legislative Agenda for Health Sciences Libraries,” which reported: “AAHSLD and MLA are joining in a cooperative project to initiate a federal legislative agenda for health sciences libraries.” Representatives of the associations held their first meeting on June 28, 1985, at the New York Hilton with Bradie Metheny, coordinator for the Delegation for Basic Biomedical Research, and his associate, Robert Waxler, M.D. AAHSL was represented by Horres, Matheson, Lucretia W. McClure, and Oppenheimer. MLA was represented by Judith Messerle, Jean Miller, Phyllis Mirsky, and Palmer. The purpose of the meeting was to begin a planning process, which would result in a federal legislative agenda [14].

The association's boards approved acquiring the services of Metheny, a governmental relations expert, to further the common interests of both organizations. Oppenheimer, GRC chair, reported that Metheny's efforts with the Joint MLA/AAHSL Legislative Task Force would be to:

secure appropriate governmental support for programs enabling health sciences libraries to make full use of information technology and expand their roles accordingly. The task force is concentrating on five important areas: (1) Physical conversion of facilities allowing health sciences libraries to become information management centers. (2) Equipping health sciences libraries with systems hardware and software. (3) Development of software. (4) Recruiting and training of health information managers and retraining of other staff. (5) Establishing programs for educating health professionals in systems use. [15]

The first major success for the task force came during the April 1987 visits to congressional offices. A senior staff aide on Representative William H. Natcher's (Dem., Kentucky) Labor, Health and Human Services (Labor/HHS) Appropriations Subcommittee invited the task force to return in July 1987 and give live demonstrations for about twenty House staff members. The purpose of the gathering was to acquaint them, in more detail, with opportunities and needs centering on information technology. The demonstrations were well received and became a part of the third round of visits in April 1988. During those visits, task force members did quick literature searches using an Apple Macintosh, a compact disk player, MEDLINE search software, and a prototype online textbook. The task force was invited to give a luncheon and demonstration for more congressional staffers from the House Human Resources, Appropriations, Health and the Environment, Budget, and Select Committees in June 1988. That event included demonstrations by colleagues from eight institutions on the importance of their Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems (IAIMS) programs to the health sciences community and to the delivery of quality patient care [16].

WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVES

Metheny arranged task force strategy planning sessions, taught the task force the arcane skills of lobbying, and accompanied them on visits to congressional offices. He also arranged for the first meetings by the entire task force with government agency leaders. In December 1987, they met with John Clement, National Academy of Sciences (NAS); James B. Wyngaarden, M.D., director, National Institutes of Health (NIH); Ruth L. Kirchstein, M.D., director, National Institute for General Medical Science (NIGMS); and Donald A. B. Lindberg, M.D., director, and Kent Smith, deputy director, NLM, to promote the joint legislative agenda outlined in the newly revised case statement. This round of meetings set the stage for regular interaction with government agency leaders at future task force meetings.

The last round of visits to congressional offices with Metheny took place in June 1989. At the end of 1989, he retired from lobbying, though he assisted in the selection of a new Washington consultant, CR Associates, who began working with the task force in early 1990.

The task force met with Theresa Forster and Dominic Ruscio of CR Associates on April 18 and 19, 1990, to plan strategies for the future. They also accompanied the task force on visits to the staff of the House and Senate Labor/HHS appropriations subcommittees in support of an increased budget authorization for NLM to continue implementing the recommendations of NLM's Outreach Planning Panel. Those visits were very successful, and the NLM appropriation was increased by two million dollars in 1991/92.

CR Associates organized a spring 1991 meeting with Dr. Lindberg and Bernadine Healey, M.D., director of NIH, to acquaint them with the MLA/AAHSL legislative agenda and AAHSL's mission and activities. The task force also visited twenty-two offices of congressional representatives and senators involved in MLAA reauthorization and the NLM appropriation. The assistance of Forster proved invaluable, and the task force was saddened to learn she had resigned her position in early fall 1991. The task force continued working with Ruscio for its fall visits, but CR Associates declined to renew its contract with MLA/AAHSL for 1992. This challenge led to a search for a new Washington legislative consultant, the successful result of which led to a very long and fruitful collaboration. On February 2, 1992, MLA and AAHSL signed a first contract with Dale Dirks, president of the Health and Medicine Council of Washington (HMCW).

Dirks and his staff were able to step in quickly, as HMCW had been providing support to health professional and voluntary associations since 1977. They had daily contact with the committees of Congress responsible for authorizing and appropriating health-related programs, as well as with federal agency representatives [17]. Dirks was well known and welcomed in congressional offices. He immediately learned the task force's priorities, scheduled nineteen visits during the spring meeting in Washington, and worked extremely well with the task force and MLA staff. The contract with HMCW has continued to this day, and the tenth anniversary of their affiliation was celebrated at the spring 2002 task force meeting.

ADVOCACY

Capitol Hill visits and public witness testimony.

Visits to Capitol Hill offices of representatives, senators, and their committees and meetings with appropriate government agency leaders have been the longest standing forms of advocacy used by the task force. Public witness testimony has been another. From 1978 to 1980, Hitt, as an AAHSL officer, and MLA members gave testimony to House and Senate appropriations committees concerning the reauthorization of the MLAA and the NLM budget. After the inception of the task force, the chair of the MLA Governmental Relations Committee (GRC) was charged with giving public witness testimony on behalf of both associations.

Written communication.

Written communication has been another form of advocacy with a long task force history. The original case statement, produced in 1985, was the first of many documents that the task force members have prepared over the past seventeen years to share with legislators, their staff, and the associations' members. Fact sheets, positions statements, and articles in the MLA News and the AAHSLD News on the status of legislative issues have been other ways of communicating the legislative agenda. More recently, communication with members has moved to the electronic environment. Email has been used for action alerts, calling for communication by association members to legislators on critical issues needing timely responses. MLA's Website, MLANET, is now used by the task force to post the position papers, fact sheets, and task force reports.

MLA Distinguished Public Service Award.

Another form of advocacy is giving recognition to a U.S. representative or senator. The Distinguished Public Service Award was established to honor persons whose exemplary actions have served to advance the health, welfare, and intellectual freedom of the public. MLA's first Distinguished Public Service Award was presented to Representative Claude Pepper (Dem., Florida) in February 1989 for his “efforts on behalf of the new National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at NLM, as well as his long standing commitment to quality health care for all Americans” [18]. The task force does not recommend a name to the MLA board every year, but when the award is conferred, the MLA president, as a task force member and a representative of MLA, presents the award during the task force's spring visit to Washington, DC.

PARTNERS IN LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITIES

To keep abreast of the many issues affecting libraries in general, some of MLA and AAHSL's professional library association partners have sent representatives to the legislative task force meetings held in Washington, DC. These individuals usually brief the task force on their associations' work on particular issues facing libraries, answer questions, and provide written materials. Sometimes the issues are peripheral to the task force's current legislative agenda, however some connection always exists that the task force members must keep in mind when meeting with congressional staffers. Recent briefings have been given by: Miriam Nisbet, American Library Association, Washington Office; Mary Alice Baish, Association of Law Libraries; Andrew Sherman, U.S. Government Printing Office; and Robert Martin, Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Task force members have also worked with other nonlibrary groups on issues of mutual interest over the years. Examples of these partnerships include the National Rural Health Association, the Coalition for Health Funding, the Coalition for Health Information Management, the Ad Hoc Group for Biomedical Research Funding, the Coalition for Networked Information, and the Digital Futures Coalition.

LEGISLATIVE ISSUES

Initially, the task force focused on just a few issues affecting health sciences libraries. Their earliest work was lobbying for increased funding for NLM and reauthorization of the MLAA and influencing NLM's long-range planning activities. Over the last seventeen years, many other issues have become priorities and been addressed by the task force. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, government information policies such as the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) privatization, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) interstate access charges, the NIH grant indirect cost allocations for libraries, and the Copyright Reform Act were added to the task force's agenda and became the subject of position statements, fact sheets, or MLA News articles. Throughout the 1990s, most of these issues remained on the legislative agenda, and, since 2000, several others with broad implications have been added. Some 2002 legislative issues being monitored by the task force include: the distance education provisions of the Technology Education & Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act, fair use issues in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMAC), and right to privacy issues in the 2001 anti-terrorism Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) Act.

Over the years, the scope of issues and level of task force involvement in addressing these issues increased significantly. To track and to keep on track with issues on the legislative agenda, a grid system was started in 1994. The grid for the MLA/AAHSL 2001/02 legislative priorities consisted of five broad categories. It formed the basis for the task force's 2002 visits to congressional offices and demonstrates how complex and far reaching the current legislative issues have become:

• National Health Information Policy: PubMed Central, licensing, database protection, copyright legislation

• Health Care and Public Health Information Research: telemedicine and telehealth legislation, NTIS closing

• Health Resources Information Research: Medical Research Trust Fund legislation, funding for NTIS

• Health Education Information Resources: distance education provisions of copyright legislation, graduate medical education legislation

• Development and Use of Health Information Technologies: anti-circumvention technologies legislation, national information infrastructure and high-performance computing communications legislation [19]

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND CHALLENGES

June Glaser, task force chair from 1992 to 1996, reported in 1993 that:

The Joint Legislative Task Force's 1985 shared vision included: decentralizing library resources; making information available regardless of format; automating services and linking (networking) within and outside the health center; educating and training library users; and retraining health sciences librarians and developing sources of staffing. The task force has lobbied to meet these goals over the past five years and has gained recognition in its negotiations with legislators. [20]

Glaser's comments continue to ring true today.

There is an ebb and flow in working with Congress. Some years, the task force's visits gain excellent support for the MLA/AAHSL legislative agenda, and other years Congress is occupied with issues unrelated to these lobbying efforts. The process of continually educating new congressional staff about the importance of the National Library of Medicine and the nations' health sciences libraries is a monumental task. The task force and MLA's GRC also face the continuing challenge of raising the members' awareness of the legislative agenda and this important lobbying work.

These challenges will be met with ongoing reports to the memberships, presentations at annual meetings, lobbying on Capitol Hill, meetings with government agency leaders, and close collaboration with the Washington, DC, consultant. If the past seventeen years are any indication, the Joint MLA/AAHSL Legislative Task Force has a bright future, and the associations it represents will continue to reap the rewards of its efforts.

Note on naming: In 1978, the Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors (AAHSLD) was incorporated. In 1996, in response to IRS requirements, AAHSLD formed a new organization to carry on its work, under the name Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL). In this article, unless otherwise stated, the newer name is intended to refer to the organization throughout its history.