Barbara Knight, MA, MLS
Lila Pedersen, MALS, AHIP
Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences
Grand Forks, ND

On December 9, 2008, the staff of the Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks held a reception to honor Judy Rieke, PhD, retiring Assistant Director and Collection Management Librarian. Judy had been with the Library of the Health Sciences in that position since 1992. In those 16 years Judy guided the transition of the library collection from print-based to our largely digital-based collection today.

Judy assisted with the library’s move to the current building in 1994 and was able to fulfill her interest in historical and rare books by organizing the Harry D. Benwell History of Medicine Reading Room. During her time on the staff, she monitored two special gift collections which today number nearly 2,000 volumes. One collection featuring historical pathology and anatomy books is from University of North Dakota School of Medicine alumnus Dr. James D. Barger, and the second is from former faculty member Dr. Anthony B. Gustafson. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever tried to find a particular page, person or phone number on an NN/LM website and not know where to look? As much as the we try to make our pages easy to navigate, sometimes the information might not be readily found. Here is a tool that is right under our noses. Read the rest of this entry »

Season’s Greetings to the GMR membership!

Our character-building Midwestern winter began in earnest in November this year, bringing an abrupt end to favorite fall activities. The economic conditions, however, in which our institutions operate were anything but moderate during the past weeks.

Rescissions, hiring freezes, layoffs, furloughs, subscription and license cancellations, moratoria on travel, and deferred maintenance deferred longer still comprise the challenges that most, if not all, of our institutions are addressing now. The new austerity also affects the GMR. Our budget for the Year 4 contract is approximately 3% less than the amount budgeted for Year 3. We will be looking at ways to reduce expenses and enhance focus on regional priorities.

One way that we plan to accomplish these goals is to incorporate the feedback that we gathered in our NLM site visit on August 12, 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

Christopher Childs
Education & Outreach Librarian
Hardin Library for the Health Sciences
University of Iowa

Partnering for Patient Empowerment Through Community Awareness (PPECA)*

Partnering for Patient Empowerment Through Community Awareness (PPECA) a project that focuses on patient safety, is a collaborative effort between the Hardin Library, University of Iowa College of Public Health and its Institute for Quality Healthcare, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC), Consumers Advancing Patient Safety, and Zipperer Project Management which specializes in patient safety information projects. A three hour long train-the-trainer presentation is given that is broken up into several different modules. I teach the third module called Prepared with Information: The role of information in the safety of care. I’ll talk about the importance of getting the patient to become a more active participant in the healthcare process, tips on how this may be accomplished, and I’ll demonstrate some useful resources such as MedlinePlus and Iowa Go Local. While the location for these presentations has always been in a hospital setting, our audience usually always includes members of the local community. We always invite a public librarian from the area to join us and include a handout on consumer heath/patient safety information that hospital staff and community members can use to create their own program.

For more information on PPECA, please visit our website at http://hosted.lib.uiowa.edu/ppeca/about.htm

Critical Access Hospitals

This project began by a request from the Director of Patient Care Services at Marengo Memorial Hospital, which is one of nine UI Critical Access Hospitals (CAH). She wanted allow her staff access to Hardin’s resources even though they aren’t affiliated with the University of Iowa. Our director, Linda Walton agreed to allow staff members access to Read the rest of this entry »

Network members wishing to add a library service or program or are considering applying for a subcontract with the GMR (See http://nnlm.gov/gmr/funding/ for Funding information), might benefit from assistance in the areas of planning and evaluation. GMR evaluation services are provided in consultation with the Outreach Evaluation Resource Center (OERC) of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine.

The GMR has recently launched an Evaluation page, located at the following address: http://nnlm.gov/gmr/member/evaluation/. Read the rest of this entry »

Outreach Connections is a Native health information wiki available at the following URL: http://native.outreachconnect.info/. Described as a participatory network, this wiki is designed to serve as a collaborative space:

• for those who work with health care providers serving Native peoples (American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians),
• for those who work with Native health information consumers,
• to improve health information access for Native peoples,
• to exchange information from health information promotion and training experiences, and
• to complement sites already focused on health information for Native peoples.

Librarians, patient educators, and others who provide health information to Native peoples and their caregivers are invited to contribute project to the wiki. Projects that are currently listed may be browsed by title. For those who have never used a wiki before, a link to a tutorial is available on the main page.

“Survival Tips and Stories: Expanding the Library’s Services in Times of Disaster,” the MLA webcast that originally aired on Wednesday, November 12, 2008, is now available for checkout via the GMR Lending Library.

You can do a search by title, or just the keyword of “disaster.”  It will come up as one of the results.  We currently own two copies of this item.  You can earn 2 MLA CE credits by viewing this DVD, reading the participant’s manual, and most importantly, submitting the evaluation back to us here at the GMR.  We will then notify MLA that you have viewed the webcast and you will receive 2 credits.

Anyone that is a member can obtain a user id and password to check out items.

Christopher Childs
Education & Outreach Librarian
Hardin Library for the Health Sciences
University of Iowa

Since August of 2007, the staff at the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences at the University of Iowa have been working on getting our Iowa Go Local project completed for the public unveiling at the Iowa State Fair on August 11th, 2008. I started working at Hardin at the end of February of 2008 and part of my responsibilities as the community outreach liaison, is to promote Iowa Go Local across the state. I wrote an article for the Fall 2008 issue of MIDLINE, the newsletter of the Midwest Chapter, Medical Library Association, to talk about my experiences working on this project. This article gives the reader a recap of the history of the project, including its challenges and an account of the promotional activities that continue today.

The link to MIDLINE is http://midwestmla.org/midline/

Visit Iowa Go Local at http://www.medlineplus.gov/iowa

Mary J Markland MA, AHIP
SE Clinical Campus Librarian
University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Fargo, ND

The Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences at the University of North Dakota has been seeking new venues for consumer outreach. Traditionally we have focused our outreach program on health professionals with a few smaller health fairs or public library events thrown in. After teaching a continuing education session at the Fargo Public Library, I realized that we needed to get out and talk about MedlinePlus and the other NLM consumer resources. With our Go Local North Dakota project reaching completion, it seemed like the perfect time to try a bigger consumer event. The Women’s Showcase 2008 was a great opportunity that was geographically convenient and had a wide variety of exhibitors.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP) is now accepting applications for the 12th Annual Patty Iron Cloud National Native American Youth Initiative which will be held in Washington D.C., June 20 - 28, 2009. American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) high school students, ages 16- 18, who have an interest in the health careers and/or biomedical research are encouraged to apply. Read the rest of this entry »