It will be two years next month that Arizona was struck by storms and flooding severe enough for the President to declare a major disaster. As June comes to a close, firefighters continue to battle hundreds of wildfires throughout California, the result of lightning storms and dry conditions throughout the state. A little over a year ago, Hawaii experience severe storms, high surf, flooding, and mudslides in Hawaii, Kauai, and Maui counties. This past February, northeastern Nevada experienced a magnitude 6.0 earthquake that was felt across much of the West, from northern Idaho and Utah to Southern California. And the Pacific Basin is regularly affected by almost every hazard you can imagine!

So what can WE do?

On June 20, 2008, regional Network office staff and Medical Library Association chapter representatives Irene Lovas and Peggy Tahir met with Dan Wilson and Susan Yowell to facilitate the regional adoption of the National Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan, an important step in helping libraries respond to emergency situations like those described above. (more…)

Recently, PubMed has undergone a flurry of enhancements and modifications. And that trend is very likely to continue! The latest changes include the way that Automatic Term Mapping (ATM) works and the introduction of a new Citation Sensor feature. These changes, along with the beta version of an advanced search mode for PubMed, were the highlights of a “PubMed Review” theater presentation from the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association (MLA). A detailed description of the new features is included in Boost for PubMed Search Results: New ATM and Citation Sensor Introduced, published in the NLM Technical Bulletin. (more…)

Welcome to our new EFTS members! There are now 188 EFTS members in the Pacific Southwest, representing 47% of our DOCLINE libraries! The following 13 libraries have joined EFTS since February 1, 2008: (more…)