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New England Region Projects Featured 2006
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Amy Frey, MA AHIP
New Britain, Connecticut
Hospital for Special Care (HSC) is a rehabilitation and long-term acute care hospital. Librarian Amy Frey started the book club to bring together patients and staff to interact outside the clinical relationships that usually exist. Amy joined forces with HSC’s therapeutic recreation specialist to recruit staff and patients.
A psychologist, a nurse, and staff from fiscal and pastoral care units were enlisted. The book group was started in the Spring of 2005. The patient members are all technology-dependent, and some cannot manage a conventional book. In these cases, the librarian obtains audio books or arranges for patients to read to another.
Because of health issues, some patient members cannot attend the book group; these patients will dictate their thoughts and comments to another book group member or type on a keyboard. Some members have cognitive losses, so books with complicated or multiple plot lines are avoided. Non-fiction titles usually do not require remembering a lengthy list of character names and plot details.
A book coming close to mirroring the experiences of patient members was Still Me by Christopher Reeve. The book group is branching out to produce a newsletter and a special book group for people with aphasia. The first book will be Kirk Douglas’ My Stroke of Luck – an account of stroke rehabilitation and coping with aphasia, a loss or impairment of the power to use or comprehend words usually resulting from brain damage.
The Center on Media and Child Health
Brandy King MLIS, Information Specialist
Children's Hospital Boston
Harvard Medical School
Harvard School of Public Health
Boston, MA
The Center on Media and Child Health (CMCH) is dedicated to understanding and responding to the effects of media on the physical, mental, and social health of children and adolescents through research, education, and interventions. A major goal of the center, and the reason they hired librarian Brandy King, is the creation of the CMCH Database of Research, a free online database of all scientific research on the effects of media on children’s health.
In developing the CMCH Database, Brandy set out to create a unified thesaurus that captured the terminology of 11 different disciplines that research the effects of media. Many of these disciplines operate in isolation without taking advantage of the knowledge gained in other fields. The aim of the database is to gather, index, and make available all the knowledge so that true interdisciplinary work can take place.
Brandy built an ontology of media effects terms and linked it to a semantic search engine so that users can enter a question and receive an answer in plain language. Commonly entered queries are "Does watching TV help children learn to read?" and "Does watching violent media make kids more violent?" This Smart Search project won the 2005 Special Libraries Association Innovations in Technology Award.
Brandy King works primarily as a solo librarian overseeing library science student interns. She has recently started a blog on news and research related to the study of media effects, aiming to keep researchers up to date on new developments in the field.
CMCH website: www.cmch.tv
CMCH Database of Research: http://cmch.tv/research/searchCitations.asp
Smart Search Interface: http://cmch.tv/mentors/semanticSearch.asp
CMCH blog: www.cmch.typepad.com/cmch
Project Directors: Brandy King, MLIS; Michael Rich, MD MPH
Rutland Regional Medical Center: GRASP Grandparents & Relatives Acting as Surrogate Parents
Claire LeForce MLS, Rutland Medical Center Health Sciences Library
Rutland, Vermont
Participants: Rutland Regional Medical Center Consumer Health Library, HealthWise Community Education, Southwestern Vermont Council on Aging, Crossroads Counseling Center; Vermont Achievement Center, Rutland, Vt.
GRASP was begun in June 2005 to meet a community need expressed by local pediatricians and home-based care clinicians. Claire LaForce, medical librarian at Rutland Regional Medical Center, brought the necessary players together to address a local concern.
Children are dramatically affected by adult substance abuse. Parents, incarcerated or in treatment facilities, are unable or unwilling to care for their children. Grandparents or older relatives are suddenly entrusted to raise and care for children. Needs of caregivers include respite care, parenting information, how to care for their own health, legal and financial assistance, and support from others in similar situations. Twice-monthly meetings address caregivers’ needs alternating educational content with open forums for personal discussion and problem solving.
A social worker facilitates meetings and coordinates guest speakers. The Librarian provides instruction on using MedlinePlus, evaluating health websites, and tips on finding information on the day’s discussion. A comforting environment is critical to the process. Childcare is especially essential to the group’s success. Now in its second year, the group is one of several throughout the state listed with the newly formed Vermont Kin as Parents organization (www.graspgrandparents.org).
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Last reviewed: 24 September 2007
Last updated: 11 October 2006
First published: 01 October 2006
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanence Not Guaranteed