Krafty Goes To Washington

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1GaNBus 

Thursday, July 9, 2015

9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time

#medlibs Twitter chat

Led by Michelle Kraft @krafty

Actually the title of this post should be Krafty and Others Went to Washington, but I was having a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment and the title I used seemed to ring better than the longer one. Thankfully my post's title is about all I have in common with the movie staring Jimmy Stewart.  

As president of the Medical Library Association, I and the Joint Legislative Task Force (which includes some MLA members, AAHSL members, president of AAHSL, and some MLA staff) went to Washington DC to talk to members of the Senate and the House of Representatives regarding the funding of the NIH which in turn funds NLM.  The task force divvied up into three groups and the members of the three groups met with aids and staffers from their respective states.  I met with Senator Rob Portman's staff and Congresswoman Marcia Fudge's staff.  

The #medlibs chat will be a bit in the spirit of my "behind the MLA scenes" posts I do on my Krafty Librarian blog where I write about things happening within in MLA that aren't secret but people may not necessarily know about.  I will be chatting about my experience going to DC talking to staffers, their understanding of NIH and NLM, and in general how this type of talk can help any librarian wanting to get discuss their cause with somebody else.

So, come share your thoughts and perspectives! Never participated in a #medlibs or other Twitter chat before? Check out this overview and come on in, we're a supportive community and are especially keeping an eye out to welcome and support your participation if you've just heard about this community for the first time during the meeting.