Even though the Medical Library Association (MLA) 2010 annual meeting is history, anyone with Internet access can still learn from the event.

The National Library of Medicine put on 12 different presentations at its exhibit booth theater to update people on a variety of NLM products. Those products include PubMed®, MedlinePlus®, and resources for public health, environmental health, disaster planning, historical research and much more. The presentations were recorded and can be accessed through the NLM Technical Bulletin, which also includes links to information from other NLM events at MLA. You can also access the presentations on the Distance Education Program Resources page on the NLM Web site.

Organizers of the NLM booth say attendance for the presentations this year was even better than recent years. More than 600 people stopped by the booth to watch the updates.

“The archive of these theater presentations gives the Library the opportunity to reach the medical librarians who were not able to attend the conference as well as a wider audience of users who might wish to quickly view a ‘year in review’ for a specific topic,” explains Janet Zipser in the Library’s MEDLARS Management Section. Zipser has helped organize the NLM theater presentations at MLA since the theater’s inception 12 years ago.

The 2010 Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lecture that was held at NLM also can be viewed online. It’s available at the National Institutes of Health videocast Web site. John D. Halamka, MD, MS, described what he sees as grand challenges ahead for healthcare information technology, as well as proposed solutions. His talk was titled “Knowledge Services and the Role of Medical Libraries in Healthcare IT.”