Just two days after my laryngitis in Omaha, and it’s already time for the New York/New Jersey chapter meeting. Fortunately for me this is one of my chapter’s single day meetings, so I won’t have to talk much–I can mostly nod, smile, and point. While this chapter includes all of New Jersey, the New York part consists of counties south of Albany, with membership concentrated in metropolitan New York city. If you’ve ever been to New York city, you know that hotels are exceedingly expensive. To compensate, my chapter usually alternates single day meetings in or close to the city with multiple day meetings outside the city. Past outside-the-city meetings (sometimes jointly held with other chapters) have been in New Haven, Saratoga Springs, Philadelphia, Lake Placid, and Hartford.

This year the meeting is at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ. It’s about 14 miles from New York city, and McGraw-Hill graciously sponsored a bus to get us urbanites into the suburbs. It’s going to be a rush hour commute, so that means a very early departure. 7:30 AM finds about 50 medical librarians standing on 42nd Street eager to get on the bus and out of the cold. About an hour later (this is rush hour), we’re on the gorgeous MSU campus.

The theme was “Librarians Lead the Way to Long Life & Good Health.” Our keynote speaker was Dr. Rosanne Leipzig from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She spoke eloquently of the physiological and psychological aspects of aging, and how few adequately trained geriatricians are currently available. She highlighted a very useful tool, the Portal of Geriatric Online Education, a “one-stop shop for geriatric educational products.” If you work with a geriatric program, you need to bookmark this site.

After a break, Kathel Dunn gave the update from the NN/LM Middle Atlantic Region, and I was able, with the help of a lavalier mike, to give the MLA update. Even though the meeting was just a single day, it included vendors, a poster session, a business meeting, and a panel discussion on how some librarians are reaching out to their baby boomer patrons. A quick and efficient meeting, designed for busy city people.