Thinking of hosting an NN/LM GMR technology class at your institution? Here are a few opportunities for you to do so.

Whether you are interested in keeping up with emerging technology trends or just want a review of technologies currently being used by library’s - Geeks Bearing Gifts: Unwrapping New Technology Trends is the class for you.  This class can be 4-hours or 8-hours long and is limited to 20 participants. Requirements for the host institution: computers with Internet access for each participant.  Projector and instructor station for Instructor. More information on the class can be found: http://nnlm.gov/training/geekgifts/.  This class has been approved for 4 or 8 hours of MLA CE Credit.

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

Women’s Health and Fitness Day Event 2009

Sponsored by the University of Michigan (UM) Medical School, various University of Michigan Health System units, and even a few grocery stores, the 2009 Annual Women’s Health and Fitness Day Event took place at Ypsilanti High School in Michigan on Saturday, January 24th. The event had been organized and was facilitated by the UM Women Medical Students. (more…)

The Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University in collaboration with the National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center (OHRC) released a new edition of the knowledge path about oral health for infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women. Presented in time for Children’s Dental Health Month in February, this electronic guide points to resources that analyze data, describe effective programs, and report on policy and research aimed at improving access to and the quality of oral health care. (more…)

The goal of GMR’s outreach programs is to expand partnerships and implement activities with network members and other institutions and organizations to improve awareness of and access to health information resources for health professionals, the public health workforce, and members of the public. So how do network members find one another to form these partnerships? How do institutions and organizations who have providing health information as part of their mission become GMR members? The answers to both questions can be found on the GMR’s website. (more…)

Dan Wilson, Coordinator of the NN/LM National Emergency Preparedness Plan, has added several new items to the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness Toolkit at:  http://nnlm.gov/ep/

1. An online tutorial  that provides an overview of the Toolkit - available through the new Tutorials tab near the top of the page. The tutorial was produced using a free service called Screencast-o-Matic.
2. Risk Assessment Maps and Charts is a new feature found in the right hand side bar on the main page - these maps are great for teaching purposes.
3. Mutual Aid Agreement (MAA) is offered as a less formal version of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), and provides partnering libraries with a tool to forge an agreement for providing mutually agreed upon services during disaster situations.  The MAA template is found through the Model MOU/MAA tab on the main page.

Long-time GMR network members may remember ESources as the online newsletter for the Greater Midwest Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine through the end of the 2001-2006 contract. 3Sources was the name of the newsletter from March 1983 to May of 2001. The name change to ESources emphasized the transition to an online newsletter.That newsletter has evolved to this blog format as The Cornflower.

With The Cornflower firmly holding its place as a main form of communication from and within the GMR, it is time to have the blog take over from where the website left off. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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 (more…)