A Message from the RML Director: Spring 2009
Could we be any happier that today is the first day of spring? I think not!
The light, the warmth, the promise of new growth and new ideas are irresistible. Anything seems possible, and everything seems likely. At the same time, we also celebrate the accomplishments of the past during Black History Month and Women’s History Month. At the Library of the Health Sciences (LHS), we were proud to host Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America’s Women Physicians, an interactive, multimedia traveling exhibit developed by the National Library of Medicine’s History of Medicine Division in collaboration with the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office. The display and accompanying Web site (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine) present a rich, inspiring resource of biographical, curricular, visual, and anecdotal information about women physicians in every aspect of medicine. The exhibit is on display here at LHS until March 26, 2009.
The GMR staff launched a new Web page on Emergency Preparedness and Response at http://nnlm.gov/gmr/member/emprep/. This page highlights the materials developed by the GMR Emergency Preparedness Working Group. It will complement the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Toolkit that is available online at http://nnlm.gov/ep/
We are developing a four-hour Emergency Preparedness for Librarians class, with MLA CE credit, that will be offered for the first time at the Midwest Chapter meeting in Columbus, Ohio, in October 2009. Members of the Emergency Preparedness Working Group are engaged in advising and assisting in the development of course content. In January, the Emergency Preparedness Working Group and GMR staff members took the Emergency 911 online class offered by SOLINET. The new GMR class will incorporate some management decision-making content from the SOLINET class and will also build on “continuity of service” planning strategies that the NN/LM emphasizes.
We are offering more distance learning opportunities. Making more online content available was a recommendation that emerged during the NLM Site Visit last summer. Max Anderson, Technology Coordinator, taught over ten online classes since the Site visit, including Podcasting, Screencasting, and Geeks Bearing Gifts. Holly Ann Burt, Outreach and Exhibits Coordinator, taught several PubMed updates online, and has scheduled several more. You can find out which courses will be scheduled next by going to the GMR Calendar, which is linked from the GMR Home page. The Calendar URL is http://www.eventkeeper.com/code/events.cfm?curOrg=NNLMGMR
One other innovation in the GMR program is that we are using Adobe Connect to hold quarterly Webinars with the region’s designated Outreach Librarians.
Watch for the next issue of the GMR Update, which will be out next week. Enjoy your own opportunities for innovation and celebration, and let us know how everything is going.
Kate Carpenter
Director, NN/LM GMR
