The Library of the Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) is pleased to announce the launch of The New Americans Health Information Portal (NAHIP).

http://palantir.lib.uic.edu/nahip/

This portal is a collaboration with the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights. Our new portal links to a variety of quality multi-lingual health education documents. Languages include: Amharic, Arabic, Bosnian, Burmese, Chinese, Croatian, French, Haitian Creole, Karen, Khmer, Lao, Russian, Somali, Swahili, Thai, Tigrina and Vietnamese.

We hope this site is useful and welcome feedback. For comments on website: lmassen1 at uic.edu

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. N01-LM-6-3503 with the University of Illinois at Chicago.

From the NLM:

“NLM is pleased to announce the debut of the Unified Medical Language System(r)
(UMLS(r)) Basics, a Web-based tutorial that enables anyone with Internet access to learn about the UMLS. You can reach the tutorial at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/online%20learning/index.htm.

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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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The Outreach Express Award entitled Only Connect….to the Community was funded by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Greater Midwest Region (NN/LM GMR). This award allowed the Medical Library Association’s (MLA) National Planning Committee ‘08 to provide the first annual community service events. The two community service events held in Chicago, Illinois, allowed medical librarians to put words such as advocacy and visibility into action by creating partnerships with public librarians and volunteering in the neediest community, North Lawndale on the west side of Chicago. (more…)

The June 23, 2008, posting of new National Library of Medicine (NLM) web pages includes several timely MedlinePlus topics in English and many in Spanish. Check the links below for information on earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes and other natural disasters. In addition, the NLM Technical Bulletin for May-June announces the release of the new Enviro-Health Links page on Disaster Recovery and Environmental Health page. (more…)

The aim of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Disaster Information Management Resource Center (DIMRC) http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/ is to provide access to quality disaster health information to the nation at all stages of preparation, response, mitigation and recovery. For more information about the DIMRC, see the Fact Sheet: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/dimrcfs.html

Find out more information About the Center, NLM Disaster Information Resources, and Projects, Partnerships, and Program. The DIMRC is a service of Specialized Information Services (SIS).

By Barbara Platts, MLIS, AHIP
Munson Healthcare
Traverse City, MI

My 3-year journey to explore the feasibility of embracing federated search engine technology, recently culmunated with a trip to the 2008 Computers in Libraries Conference (CIL) in Arlington, Virginia. Thanks to the generous support of a GMR Professional Development Award, I was able to attend a number of sessions specifically related to current federated search engine applications. In addition, I was able to speak with identified vendors to set up trials upon my return from the conference, and network with colleagues who use this technology. (more…)

A redesigned version of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) Gateway, based on two rounds of usability testing, went live on Monday, March 10, 2008. Gateway allows users to search simultaneously in multiple retrieval systems at NLM. Visit the new Gateway homepage at: http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/.

The NLM Gateway Basics tri-fold brochure has also been updated and is live in .pdf version at: http://nnlm.gov/training/resources/gwtri.pdf . For the Word document version, visit our Handouts page for this and other downloadable resources: http://nnlm.gov/gmr/training/handouts.html.

For a full description of the changes in Gateway, visit the NLM Technical Bulletin:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/jf08/jf08_gateway_redesign.html

The new NIH Public Access Policy, which becomes effective April 7, 2008, calls for mandatory deposit in PubMed Central of peer-reviewed electronic manuscripts stemming from NIH funding. The change from a voluntary to mandatory policy creates new expectations, not just of funded investigators, but also of the grantee institutions that support those investigators.

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To answer questions by health professionals about MedlinePlus®, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine has created a new trifold brochure MedlinePlus For Health Professionals, available in Word and pdf formats. Feel free to download, copy and hand these out at exhibits and the reference desk. A space for your library name and information is included. This brochure, along with other consumer health, PubMed and more resources, may be found on the GMR Handouts page at http://nnlm.gov/gmr/training/handouts.html