The NN/LM SCR will present two classes at the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock, AR on September 23, 2008.

Can You Hear Me Now? How to Make a Podcast
9:00 am to 11:00 am

This popular, hands-on class provides a fun and informative introduction to podcasting and how you can utilize this technology in your library. Students will make their own personal podcast! This course has been approved for 2 hours of Medical Library Association (MLA) Continuing Education credits.

ABCs of DNA: Unraveling the Mystery of Genetics Information for Consumers
12:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Librarians working with the public need to be aware of the issues surrounding genetics and resources to assist patrons in locating and evaluating sometimes complex and confusing information. This class explores basic concepts such as genes and chromosomes and offers an overview of genetic disorders, genetic testing, genetic counseling, and the Human Genome Project. Ethical and legal issues associated with genetic disorders will be covered with regard to privacy, discrimination, and potential legislative impact on medicine and society. A variety of reliable health information resources will be demonstrated. This 4-hour hands-on class is intended for consumers, public librarians, and health sciences librarians who work with the public.

For a detailed class schedule with times and locations see: http://nnlm.gov/scr/training/.

To register for a class: http://nnlm.gov/scr/training/register.html.

If you have any questions, please contact Karen Vargas at karen.vargas@exch.library.tmc.edu.

The Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies, a division of the American Library Association, has released “Think Accessible Before You Buy, Questions to Ask to Ensure that the Electronic Resources Your Library Plans to Purchase are Accessible.” It provides guidelines to ensure the electronic resources and Web services that libraries purchase are accessible to anyone-especially patrons and staff with disabilities.

With plenty of examples, this document breaks down the technical language barrier and helps us to understand the highest priority accessibility checkpoints, so that we can make sure our patrons and staff can effectively use our electronic services.

It includes:

• Definition list of commonly used accessibility terms
• Computer software accessibility checklist
• Internet and Web-based content accessibility checklist
• Electronic database and computer software accessibility evaluation form
• Internet and Web-based content accessibility evaluation form

Read more at: http://ala.org/ala/ascla/asclaprotools/thinkaccessible/.

As the health care websites offer more interactive features and have established their reputation for reliable medical information, they have seen an increase in their usage.

The NLM’s MedlinePlus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/) is among those reliable websites. It saw an increase to its brain cancer topics after Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

According to the Chief Medical Editor at WebMD, physicians these days are more willing to tell their patients to go to credible online health information resources since they enable patients to be better prepared for their physician visit.

Read full article at: http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2008/6/12/Health-Web-Sites-See-Spike-in-Use-as-Quality-Reliability-Increase.aspx?topicID=61.

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, South Central Region is glad to announce the new class: Can You Hear Me Now: How to Make a Podcast. The class can be offered in either a 2-hour schedule or a 3-hour schedule. This hands-on class is designed to provide a fun yet informative introduction to what is podcasting and how you can utilize this technology in your library services, to enable your users to access the information whenever they want, wherever they want and however they want it. Basic steps and suggestions on how to make a podcast will be covered and students will be able to enjoy hands-on practice on popular audio recording and editing software and make their first personal podcast!

This course has been approved for 2 or 3 hours of Medical Library Association (MLA) Continuing Education credits. For more information about the class, please go to: http://nnlm.gov/training/podcast/index.html.

If you are interested in hosting this class at your institution free of charge, please contact Shikun Jiang at: shikun.jiang@exch.library.tmc.edu.

As millions of Americans depend on public libraries for free access to computers and Internet resources, the increasing demand from the users and the growing community needs such as seeking educational, entrepreneurial and employment resources have put great pressure on the public libraries to get reliable, affordable and high-quality Internet access.

The “Internet Connectivity in U.S. Public Libraries” report is provided by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Research & Statistics. It describes the range of Internet services public libraries provide and the diverse challenges faced by different types of libraries in order to improve Internet connectivity to their communities through the library. The document also links to related research on bandwidth in the United States.

The report includes the following sections:

• U.S. public libraries provide critical access to Internet services.
• Library Internet access speeds are improving, but often fall short of patron needs.
• Urban/suburban/rural communities face different Internet connectivity challenges.
• Libraries face unique challenges in meeting demand for high-speed Internet access.

Read the full article at: http://www.ala.org/ala/ors/plftas/connectivitybrief1.pdf.

Message from the Medical Library Association MLA-FOCUS 5/29/2008: Webcast for the 2008 MLA Web 2.0 Plenary Session.

The final plenary session, “Web 2.0 Tools for Librarians: Description, Demonstration, Discussion, and Debate,” featuring several of MLA’s top bloggers and Web 2.0 experts, was broadcast as the first-ever annual meeting live webcast. Participants answered questions from both the live audience and the online viewers. If you missed it, the webcast will be available to MLA members only until June 30, 2008.

To see the webcast, log on to the member-only area at: http://www.mlanet.org/members/mla08_plenary.html.

A mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a new, integrated tool (adopted from Wikipedia). For instance, disease data can be mashed-up with Google Maps to create a clickable disease map giving vivid interpretation of outbreaks in different regions around the globe. Mashups have shown great potential in public health, emergency preparedness, and information sharing for local interests.

Here are some great examples:

HealthMap (http://www.healthmap.org/en) brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health.

School Safety News (http://www.schoolsafetynews.com/home.php) provides an alert system displaying Pre-K to College safety events from all around the US.

Earth Album (http://www.earthalbum.com/) is a mashup based on Flickr and Google Maps that allows you to explore some of the most stunning photos in the world.

CodexMap (http://codexmap.com/codexmap.php) is a tool combing a book’s ISBN number with its geographic location on Google Maps.

NN/LM Member Maps (http://nnlm.gov/scr/blog/?p=492) mashes up address data in DOCLINE with Google Maps to give you a visual display of our network members.

BioWizard (http://www.biowizard.com/) tops PubMed with Social Networking applications where you can share, rank and discuss a PubMed search result, and register for an account to list publications, share research interests and join groups. It provides a web-based community for life scientists and physicians.

And here are some Google Gadgets to play with, to add things like “My Library’s Most Popular Items” or “the Newest Material at the Library” to your iGoogle page:  http://www.blyberg.net/2006/08/18/go-go-google-gadget/

So, what can mashups do for libraries? Here are some ideas for you:

• A user does a search in your library catalog. A map then appears showing where a copy is available in the branch locations and its status.
• A scientist comes to a health librarian looking for some articles. The librarian searches PubMed and each article found is linked with related, tagged resources shared in Del.icio.us and Connotea.
• Several libraries are working collaboratively on a Virtual Reference service. A map with color-coded markers on the service home page shows users which librarian at what location is online and available at the moment. Once the user clicks on the available librarian, a chat window will be brought up for asking reference questions.

Here are some interesting data from the American Library Association’s (ALA) blog Marginalia:

As of April 18, 2,671 participants were in ALA’s Facebook group

ALA’s National Library Week 2008 events attracted 2800 visits from around the globe in Second Life

…

Read more at Conversations at ALA: http://discuss.ala.org/marginalia/2008/04/30/conversations-at-ala/

A recording of the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s (NCBI) three-day course “Introduction to Molecular Biology Resources” is now available online at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/courses/molbio.html. The course is intended for librarians with an interest in searching molecular sequence databases.

The course had been offered in person until April 2008 when NCBI suspended their educational programs due to budget constraints.

For more information on all National Library of Medicine Distance Education Resources, see: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/dist_edu.html.

WISER (Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders) version 4.0 is now available for download at http://wiser.nlm.nih.gov/choose_platform.html or via WebWISER.

New features in version 4.0 include:

• “Category A” biological agents radiation unit converter
• WMD Response Guidebook
• automatic update check capability
• a refresh/update of the data

For more information about WISER see: http://wiser.nlm.nih.gov/