Christopher Childs
Education & Outreach Librarian
Hardin Library for the Health Sciences
University of Iowa
New Influenza A (H1N1) also known as the Swine Flu Resource Guide Available from the Hardin Library
A new resource guide containing information on Influenza A (H1N1) has been created and is available from the Hardin Library. All of the information contained in this guide is free and available to the public. The guide includes: national & international resources, maps, blogs, an RSS and Twitter feed, Iowa resources, articles, and consumer health resources available in English, Spanish and multiple Languages.
The National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provide links to resources about the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak. The National Library of Medicine Division of Specialized Information Services has released an Enviro-Health Links page on Swine Flu. This page contains links to resources about the flu outbreak, including transmission, prevention, treatment, and the genetic makeup of the influenza virus. MedlinePlus released a new health topic page on Swine Flu: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/swineflu.html. The page is also provided in Spanish: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/swineflu.html.
MedlinePlus - Multiple Languages provides information in Arabic to Vietnamese on the MedlinePlus: Flu - Multiple Languages site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/languages/flu.html. Related Multiple Language links from MedlinePlus include the Germs and Hygiene resources: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/germsandhygiene.html translated in ASL (American Sign Language), Arabic, Chinese, French, Hindi, Hmong, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
The World Health Organization site: http://www.who.int/ provides information in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and English.
An easy way to post updated information is to use the widget seen below:
Clicking on Get widget now! will bring you to the Health and Human Services (HHS) Image and Icon Library and the code for this installing the widget on your web page.
Additional resources are included on PandemicFlu.gov providing one-stop access to U.S. Government swine, avian and pandemic flu information.
Last week, Go Local North Dakota reported utilizing the Featured Site option on the North Dakota Go Local homepage. For those of you in Minnesota, the Featured Site on My Health Minnesota→Go Local links to flood Information as well. Take a look at the useful and interesting information on both the North Dakota and Minnesota Go Local sites.
For all you Web 2.0 participants, of particular interest is the the social network site created by The Forum, the newspaper for the Fargo-Moorhead area: http://flood.inforum.com/. To access MedlinePlus Go Local, see http://medlineplus.gov and follow the link to Go Local.
Kathryn Carpenter, Director, University of Illinois at Chicago Library of the Health Sciences, the Regional Medical Library for the GMR, has turned her Spring 2009 blog message into a podcast. The audio file is 5:03 minutes long and is an MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 file, commonly referred to as mp3. Here is a chance to hear Kate in a new format: (.mp3 file). The text of this message is available in pdf: A Message from the RML Director Spring 2009.
The podcast was recorded using the free software Audacity and then encoded to an mp3, playable on a variety of media players including an iPod, with such software as QuickTime, iTunes or Media Player. Listen to this podcast and use the Comments section let us know your thoughts on what you hear.
If you would like to learn how to make your own podcast, consider taking the podcasting class taught by GMR Technology Coordinator, Max Anderson. To find out more about this class, see: Can You Hear Me Now? How to Make a Podcast.
Several Network members are in or near the Red River flood zone. The GMR will post information regarding any closings or other pertinent information related to rising river levels. For local river reports, please see The Fargo Flood Homepage: http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/fargoflood/, provided by North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND, and NOAA’s National Weather Service: http://www.weather.gov/.
For GMR Emergency Preparedness information, please see: NN/LM Emergency Preparedness and Response: http://nnlm.gov/gmr/member/emprep/index.html. Regional coordinator for ND is Ann Pederson and for MN, Paul Dahl.
Network members are encouraged to utilize the Comments section on the GMR blog to report relevant information.
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Note:
GMR Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for North Dakota, Ann Pederson, suggests the City of Fargo’s webpage as another source of information: http://www.cityoffargo.com/Flood09/.
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/
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.
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.
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.
September is Emergency Preparedness Month and although the Midwest is known more for tornadoes than hurricanes, this past weekend we experienced unusual amounts of rain and subsequent flooding, in part due to the effects of what was hurricane Ike. Major flooding has occurred in northwest Indiana and greater Chicagoland, causing evacuation of residents, school closings and traffic reroutes.
As if just in time, the City of Chicago has instituted a new city service called Notify Chicago http://notifychicago.org(more…)
The National Network of Libraries of Medicine has selected emergency preparedness as a major focus for the current contract. In Spring 2008, some of you received a baseline Emergency Preparedness Assessment survey about your level of preparedness as well as your barriers to preparedness. From a random sample of 117 GMR member libraries, 65% responded to the survey. Here are some highlights: (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…)
Christopher Childs
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September is Emergency Preparedness Month and although the Midwest is known more for tornadoes than hurricanes, this past weekend we experienced unusual amounts of rain and subsequent flooding, in part due to the effects of what was hurricane Ike. Major flooding has occurred in northwest Indiana and greater Chicagoland, causing evacuation of residents, school closings and traffic reroutes.