1st. National Congress of Egyptian Medical Librarians and the 4th. Regional Conference on EMR Virtual Health Library: Role in e-Learning and Building the Information Society, Cairo, Egypt

Organized by the World Health Organization, trough the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean in Collaboration with Ministry of Health and Population, Supreme Council of Egyptian Universities, Egyptian Universities Network (EUN) and Academy of Scientific Research, ENSTINET . The meeting had over 200 participants at the Regional Conference. The National Congress of Egyptian Medical Librarians convened for the first time to draw a clear picture of the situation of health sciences libraries in Egypt. It was a forum for analysis of challenges and possible solutions. Initiatives and projects on networking, resource-sharing, digitization, automation, training and electronic publishing had been presented and discussed.

Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, Regional Advisor, Health Information Management and Telecommunications, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, World Health Organization and Member of the ICML9 International Committee, distributed the ICML9 promotional leaflets and announced the date of the ICML9 and the importance of participation in it. He also mentioned about the previous two congresses that I attended in Washington and London. He opened the website of the Congress during the Conference and displayed it for participants to promote participation. Many participants were interested and took note of the URL.

Mr. Najeeb Al-Shorbaji also recommended participants to mark the date of the Congress on their agenda and to start looking for funds. He was also pleased to announce the Regional Office will start also raining funds to support sponsorship of some participants from the Eastern Mediterranean Region.

Submitted by: Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, Regional Advisor, Health Information Management and Telecommunications, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, World Health Organization and Member of the ICML9 International Committee