A joint MLA-NLM Task Force was commissioned to assess opportunities for integration of live and virtual information assistance into electronic personal health records products. The work of the Task Force has progressed on two fronts: identification and examination of PHR tools and development of ways to better integrate PHRs and the library community. Read the rest of this entry »

September is Emergency Preparedness Month and although the Midwest is known more for tornadoes than hurricanes, this past weekend we experienced unusual amounts of rain and subsequent flooding, in part due to the effects of what was hurricane Ike. Major flooding has occurred in northwest Indiana and greater Chicagoland, causing evacuation of residents, school closings and traffic reroutes.

As if just in time, the City of Chicago has instituted a new city service called Notify Chicago http://notifychicago.org Read the rest of this entry »

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine has selected emergency preparedness as a major focus for the current contract. In Spring 2008, some of you received a baseline Emergency Preparedness Assessment survey about your level of preparedness as well as your barriers to preparedness. From a random sample of 117 GMR member libraries, 65% responded to the survey. Here are some highlights: Read the rest of this entry »

With the hurricane season’s dynamic reminder of nature’s power comes an explosion of information on hurricanes.  The Specialized Information Services (SIS) branch of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has added a new section on Hurricanes to their Environmental Health and Toxicology section.  Visit: Hurricanes: Links to Health Information Including Toxicology and Environmental Health at http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/hurricane.html

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We are excited to announce a funding opportunity from the NN/LM GMR to support purchase, installation, and/or upgrading of hardware and software that enhance access to health information. This funding opportunity is the Technology Improvement Award. Awards may be used to improve information services to health professionals and health care consumers through the use of technology. What types of projects can you fund with this award? Some ideas include:

• Purchasing equipment and/or software (i.e. a scanner, web server, public access computer) to aid in delivering health information electronically;
• Paying for Internet access for one year;
• Paying for wiring and/or installation of new connections;
• Upgrading computer equipment.

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Now, where is that library? I know I put it here somewhere! Thanks to a mashup of Google Maps and your location in DOCLINE by Web Services Technology Operations Center (Web-STOC) programmer Aron Beal in Seattle, you can find other institutions more easily via NN/LM Member Maps. Before I get into too much detail about the member maps, let me briefly explain about Web-STOC.  This team keeps our websites in good running order and keeps us compliant with federal guidelines related to accessibility.  They are located at the University of Washington, which is home to the NN/LM - Pacific Northwest Region.

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Once the domain of the television show Star Trek, a whole new world of communication allows users to communicate instantaneously with each other. The Vocera Communications Badge (http://www.vocera.com) is what enables this instant communication. Via an identification badge like those already worn by many, on a lanyard or clipped to a shirt or a suit coat, and using wireless communication protocols, people can communicate using voice recognition. Read the rest of this entry »

Margaret (Peggy) Richwine, MS, MLS, AHIP, will retire September 30, 2008 as Outreach Services Director at Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) Libraries. Ms. Richwine has over twenty years at IUSM Libraries serving in Reference, Cataloging, Interlibrary Loan, and Outreach Services. With grants from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), she created Shared Hospital Electronic Library of Southern Indiana (SHELSI) http://library.medicine.iu.edu/body.cfm?id=77, the consortium of hospital libraries in Southern Indiana that share access to electronic resources.

She was also awarded a series of contracts to manage a team of Indiana librarians that assisted the National Library of Medicine in the development and maintenance of MedlinePlus. As a capstone to a long and productive career, Ms. Richwine led the Indiana team to establish InHealthConnect http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/local/indiana/homepage.cfm?areaid=13, one of the pioneer Go Local projects to use the NLM system.

We are very proud of Peggy and her accomplishments and wish her the very best.

Carole Gall, MLS, AHIP
Gift Officer & Medical Resources Consultant
Indiana University School of Medicine Libraries

Anna Ercoli Schnitzer
InfoPoint Librarian
Health Sciences Libraries
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI

The four-day Ann Arbor Art Fair in its 49th year, came to a close on Saturday evening, July 19, 2008, and this year for the first time the University of Michigan Library was part of the action. Although Booth #12 in the Non-Profit section of this huge fair was originally reserved and rented by the Health Sciences Libraries, we opened our tent flaps to affiliated library volunteers from the Science, Graduate, Undergraduate and Business libraries as well. It was an extra pleasure to have a cross-section of library collaboration, and we needed all the help we could get, since we had to provide staffing for a total of 45 hours. Read the rest of this entry »

There were two community service projects funded by the GMR held during the MLA ‘08 Conference in Chicago. I had the opportunity to participate in one of them - the Rush University Free Health Fair: Spring into Health and Fitness. I was between jobs at the time, so I was representing Ohio University Health Sciences Library and the GMR. After staffing numerous health fair booths in the past, this was still a new and exciting experience.

The event started quite early and it was nice to get coffee and dough nuts to start the day! There were a large number of volunteers from various organizations, and we all worked diligently helping the participants to make the best out of this health fair. It was impressive to see some of the MLA award winners staffing the tables. I had the opportunity to work with Vijay Pawal; Cunningham Fellow from India and Sarah McCord who was honored with Lucretia W. McClure Excellence in Education Award. The medical librarians at the Rush Medical Center did a great job making sure all the MLA volunteers were doing fine. Read the rest of this entry »