The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, South Central Region will offer the following free workshops for librarians at the Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library in March and April, 2009:

Caring for the Mind: Providing Reference Services for Mental Health Information
March 18, 2009, 8:30 am to 11:30 am
This hands-on class will help participants to gain awareness of mental health issues.  Attendees will learn to respond to challenging reference questions for mental health information.  Websites will be presented on collection development and mental health research.  A full description is available at:   http://nnlm.gov/training/consumer/caringforthemind/

Can You Hear Me Now? How to Make a Podcast
April 17, 2009, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
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 podcast! A full description of this class is available at: http://nnlm.gov/training/podcast/index.html

Upon successful completion of each class, each participant will receive continuing education credit awarded by the Medical Library Association.

To register for these classes: http://nnlm.gov/scr/training/index.html
If you have any questions about these classes, please contact Karen Vargas, karen.vargas@exch.library.tmc.edu.

A memorial service celebrating the life of Dr. Elizabeth K. Eaton will be held on Sunday, March 15th, from 1:00 pm until 5:00 pm.  The location will be Bayou Parkland, 6520 Almeda Road (between Holcombe and MacGregor) in Houston, TX.  Lunch will be served.  We hope you will be able to join us to honor the life of Dr. Eaton.

Deborah Halsted
Interim Executive Director
Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

On February 20, 2009, Florida State University held “Public Libraries and Hurricane Response: Eppes Panel Discussion” on Public Librarians’ Response to Hurricanes: Lessons, Issues and Strategies.  Speaking at the panel discussion were: Rebecca Hamilton, State Librarian of Louisiana; Rebecca Mitchell, Director, Alabama Public Library Service; Judith Ring, Director, State Library and Archives of Florida; Peggy Rudd, Director and Librarian, Texas State Library and Archives Commission; MaryEllin Santiago, Manager, Southeastern Library Network’s (SOLINET) Gulf Coast Libraries Project; and Sharman B. Smith, Executive Director, Mississippi Library Commission.

Topics discussed were:

• Lessons from recent hurricanes in Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida
• Roles of public libraries in hurricane preparedness
• Rebuilding libraries and community infrastructure
• Local and state politics in hurricane preparedness and response
• Integrating public library preparedness and response with the local community
• Coordinating public library response with other emergency management services
• The role of the state library in supporting and assisting communities and public libraries
• Strategies for how public libraries can be better prepared to assist their community

These presentations are archived on the Florida State University website: http://www.ii.fsu.edu/hurricanes/archive.html

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has updated their newsletter Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Focus on Research and Care with a fresh new design and content that is more focused on research and patient care.  The publication has a new mix of feature stories and other information, which will be useful, lively, and quick and easy to read and use.

Forty-eight percent of the newsletter’s readers are health care providers, making them the largest audience segment. Eight pages of the newsletter will have a focus on news for clinicians, whether they are in conventional medicine, CAM, or integrative medicine. Patients, their families and friends, and the general public make up about 30 percent of the newsletter’s audience, and each issue will have an insert containing features targeted to them.

The NN/LM SCR will be offering the following class at the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System, Main Library, Albuquerque, NM, on Wednesday, March 25.

March 25, 2009

1:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Keeping Up with NLM’s PubMed

With a hands-on approach, this class will show attendees how to use the features of PubMed effectively. Attendees will be able to describe the contents of PubMed; formulate basic search strategies; display, print, and save results in various formats; revise and refine searches; and use special features such as Related Articles, Link to journals, Citation Matcher, and Clinical Queries. The instructor will demonstrate online searches and students, at computers connected to the Internet, will be invited to follow along. Time for individual practice will be provided.

To register for the class, go to: http://nnlm.gov/scr/training/register.html.

If you have any questions, please contact Re Mishra at ruicha.mishra@exch.library.tmc.edu or 713-799-7880.

The NN/LM SCR is pleased to announce the two recipients of the Year 03 Library Technology Award:

Ochsner Health System Medical Library & Archives
Principal Investigator: Nital Sheridan
Project title: History of Medicine in New Orleans: A Digital Collection
Brief description: The focus of this project is to perform digital preservation of selected materials from archives of the Ochsner Medical Library & Archives. Materials include publications, photographs, institutional records, and personal papers, which chronicle the growth of the medical field in New Orleans. Digitization will prevent deterioration and improve access by enabling easier distribution and access from multiple locations. Materials will be digitized externally, and the Ochsner librarians will create a web interface that brings these materials to the public, documenting over 80 years of medical history in New Orleans.

Texas A&M University and Oklahoma State University Library
Co- Principal Investigators: Esther Carrigan and Heather Moberly
Project title: A Proposal for the Digitization and Preservation of a Key Historical Resource in Human and Animal Medicine: The Index-Catalogue of Medical and Veterinary Zoology
Brief description: This project is a collaborative effort between Texas A&M Medical Sciences Library and Oklahoma State University Library to digitize the Index-Catalogue of Medical and Veterinary Zoology, which will greatly increase accessibility to its contents. By working together on this collaborative project the two institutions will have complete holdings of the publication for digitization.  The finished product will reside in the institutional repositories of both institutions to ensure availability and long-term preservation.

Congratulations to Nital, Esther, and Heather!

The NN/LM SCR is pleased to announce the two recipients of the Year 03 Partners in Public Health Information Outreach Award:

University of Oklahoma-Tulsa Schusterman Center Library
Principal Investigator: Stewart Brower
Project title: Building Dynamic Partnerships in Public Health: Using Wiki Technology to Connect the Tulsa Public Health Workforce with National Library of Medicine Resources
Brief description: The primary emphasis of this project is to educate local public health agencies in the use of Web 2.0 technology and to develop a full-featured wiki platform for their use.  The library will identify and partner with agencies and individuals contributing to the health and welfare  of Tulsa and assist them in developing wikis for the purposes of project management, user education and information delivery.  Librarians will construct subject-based webliographies for the wikis as well, including significant surface and deep links to National Library of Medicine Resources.

St. Edward Mercy Medical Center Library
Principal Investigator: Pat Morris
Project title: Communication and Education: Equipping the Community to Fight CA-MRSA
Brief description: This project will bring CA-MRSA information and general health information seeking skills to public health workers, healthcare professionals, school personnel and consumers in the Ft. Smith, AR area by providing teaching and training expertise using improved health information seeking skills.  During the education sessions, attendees will be shown internet searching techniques to find reliable and authoritative healthcare information using NLM electronic health information products including PubMed, MedlinePlus, Clinicaltrials.gov, ToxTown and PHPartners.org.

Congratulations to Stewart and Pat!

Two Can You Hear Me Now? How to Make a Podcast class sessions will be offered on March 20, 2009 in Lake Charles, LA at the McNeese State University Frazar Memorial Library.

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 podcast! This course has been approved for 3 hours of Medical Library Association (MLA) Continuing Education credits.

Time: Friday, 3/20/2009 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM, and 12:30 PM – 3:30 PM.

To register, go to http://nnlm.gov/scr/training/

If you have any question, please contact Shikun (“KK”) Jiang at shikun.jiang@exch.library.tmc.edu.

The February 18 SCR CONNECTions webinar recording is now available at https://webmeeting.nih.gov/p78795709/

Next session will be held on March 18th.
What: Clever Evaluation: Evaluation Tips for Libraries With Not Enough Time (the session will be presented by the NN/LM’s Outreach Evaluation Resource Center)
Time: March 18, 10:30-11:30 AM Central Time
Link: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/scr/

Hope to see you then!

The Maternal and Child Health Library released a new edition of the knowledge path, Spanish-Language Health Resources. The knowledge path points to health hotlines and helplines, web sites, publications, and databases for health professionals and consumers. The knowledge path presents Spanish-language resources covering a wide range of health topics, including many of interest to the maternal and child health (MCH) community. The knowledge path is available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_spanish.html. A Spanish-language version of the 2009 edition is also being developed. Knowledge paths on other maternal and child health (MCH) topics are available at http://mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/index.html