The annual meeting 2011 of the German MLA (AGMB) took place 19th to 21th September at the university hospital of Cologne and was organized by the German National Library of Medicine. The elections of the new AGMB executive board and the new heads of the working teams were added to the fixed agenda with the commercial exhibition, scientific presentations, product reviews, meeting points and workshops. A new part of the meeting was the so called 5-minutes-presentation. Focal points were innovation management and marketing, reference management software and new applications in medical libraries.