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

Three years in a row at the Asian American Health Fair

The University of Michigan (U of M) Health Sciences Libraries once again staffed a booth at the Asian American Health Fair, giving out reliable MedlinePlus information as well as MedlinePlus pens. On January 31, 2009, we distributed about 50 pens and a multitude of different National Library of Medicine (NLM) brochures, including information from the Asian American Health site: http://asianamericanhealth.nlm.nih.gov/. Once again, the information that was targeted specifically to the Asian American group was very popular. Fair participants also appreciated learning that MedlinePlus information was available in multiple Asian  languages as well as in English. (more…)

Fran E. Kovach, MLIS, AHIP
Reference and Education Librarian
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine Library

Five years ago, Southern Illinois University (SIU) School of Medicine Library was asked to participate in a project to document African American contributions in Medicine and Biomedical Research for the History of Medicine Resource Guide to Library and Archival Collections. The National Library of Medicine published this guide on the website March, 2005. The guide is a useful resource for scholars and researchers and can be found at the following URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/afroguide/. (more…)

Submissions and Proposals Requested:

Small-Scale, High-Impact Renovations: Redesigning Library Spaces on a Budget

Many Greater Midwest Region members remember Kathleen A. Zar who joined the staff of the University of Chicago (U of C) Library in 1967. She rose to a leadership position as head of the Rosenwald Library, which housed the geology and geophysics collections.

In the early 1980s, the John Crerar Library, a private independent research library, merged with the University of Chicago Library. The University built a new facility to combine the Library’s existing science resources with the Crerar collections. When the new Crerar Library opened, Kathleen was appointed Head of Reference and Subject Services for the Science Libraries. (more…)

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

A couple of month ago, I submitted a poster proposal to the American Library Association’s (ALA) new Virtual Poster Session for the Midwinter meeting held in Denver, CO, from January 23-28, 2009. I wanted to showcase what we’ve done with Iowa Go Local and encourage the states that don’t have a Go Local program to start one up in their area. A virtual poster through ALA, seemed like a great way to do this, as their conferences always attract large numbers of people. (more…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

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

Lisa Massengale, Assistant Information Services Librarian, University of Illinois at Chicago Library of the Health Sciences (LHS), took her outreach to a new dimension as a presenter on WILL-AM 580, Public Media Broadcasting Service of the College of Media at the University of Illinois. The interview was broadcast on Focus 580 with David Inge, on October 20, 2008, but is available in podcast format from the Focus 580 website: http://will.illinois.edu/focus580/interview/focus081020b/.

Lisa is the librarian working with Heartland Health Outreach on the New American Health Information Portal, a project funded through the GMR. Listen to Lisa and Susannah Fox, Associate Director, Editorial, Pew Internet & American Life Project, on Health Information Online: Sorting Out the Good from the Bad, and Who Uses It.

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.