Join a demonstration of the Valuing Library Services and Cost Benefit/ROI Calculators on Monday, December 8, 2008 at 2pm Eastern Time, 1pm Central. Barb Jones and Betsy Kelly from the MidContinental Region, NN/LM will reprise their MLA presentation on these tools to enable health science librarians to determine the return on investment and cost benefit of their libraries and services. Come with some numbers and let’s discuss how you can use the online calculators to show the value your library brings to your institution. To participate, come to this url: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/libraryvalue/.

This demonstration will be held via Adobe Connect. If you have not used Adobe Connect before, feel free to log into the site in advance. The system might want to install an Adobe Connect plugin, and if it does, you should allow it. When the meeting begins, the system will normally ask you for your phone number and then call it so that you can hear the audio and participate in the discussion. If the system does not call your phone, join us using this toll-free number:1-866-548-4716
Participant Code: 243436

For an advance peek at these great calculator tools, go to http://nnlm.gov/mcr/evaluation/calculator.html and http://nnlm.gov/mcr/evaluation/roi.html and see how you might be able to express your value in monetary terms!

This session is hosted by the NN/LM Outreach Evaluation Resource Center. For questions, contact Susan Barnes at sjbarnes@u.washington.edu or Cindy Olney at olneyc@coevalmail.com.

http://nnlm.gov/ep/10-stepsservice-continuity/

The NN/LM SE/A Emergency Preparedness Regional Advisory Committee (RAC) has been hard at work throughout the recent hurricane season. Now, the committee is about to gear up for the snow and ice emergencies of winter. Committee Chair Dan Wilson of the University of Virginia is leading the way, stressing the importance of service continuity planning. Below you will find the 10 steps for preparation and Dan’s presentation on the issue delivered early in the fall of 2008. Start your planning in the quiet moments when students are vacationing and the hospital census is low by following the checklist, step by step.

For answers to preparedness and continuity questions, consult the regional emergency preparedness page at http://nnlm.gov/sea/services/emergency/disasterrelief.html, the national toolkit at http://nnlm.gov/ep/, or your state representative to the Emergency Preparedness RAC at http://nnlm.gov/sea/about/emergencyrac.html. As the Regional staffer assigned to the committee, Beth Wescott will field your question at bwescott@hshsl.umaryland.edu or by phone at 800-338-7657.

10 Step Service Continuity Preparation

Click here to view slide show presentation of “A 10-Step Approach to Service Continuity Planning” that Dan Wilson used for a virtual class he presented to Network members of the Pacific Southwest and Mid-Continental regions of the NN/LM.

Step 1: Assess risks

Make a list of events for which your library could be at risk.

• talk with long-term staff members at your library and gather anecdotal information about emergencies or disasters that have happened in the past. Add to the list such emergencies as fire and bio-terrorism that may not have happened but which can happen anytime and anywhere.
• check federal, state and local emergency preparedness web sites for more information about potential emergency events.

Map of Presidential Disaster Declarations 1964-2007

Step 2: Protect yourself, your staff, and your patrons

Develop written procedures, specific to your building and environment, to provide for safety of people in the building in the event of an emergency, i,e,shelter-in-place procedures for tornadoes, dealing with a violent incident, preventing mold growth on wet materials, medical emergency, evacuating the building, standing water/flooded areas, chemical spill, and epidemics. Provide training to everyone who works in the building so they become familiar with the procedures. Hold periodic drills.

Step 3: Determine your core services

Identify services that would be most needed immediately following some kind of major service disruption (i.e. Interlibrary Loan, bibliographic searches, reference help).

Step 4: Create procedures for remote access to core services

Based on your list of core services, develop strategies for maintaining access to these services from an off-site location (i.e. someone’s home or a temporary location away from your building).

Step 5: Determine your core electronic resources

Identify electronic resources that would be needed most immediately following a disaster (i.e. Medline, CINAHL, UpToDate, DynaMed, MDConsult, Stat!Ref).

Step 6: Develop a continuity of access plan for your essential electronic resources

Determine whether back-up power will be available, and whether access to internet-based resources and your home page will be possible. If back-up power will be available, find out how long this would be the case.

Step 7: Identify your core print collection

List and prioritize print materials that would likely be needed by your patrons if your core online materials were not available (i.e. textbooks, reference materials, core journals). Create a salvage “map” using a floor plan of your library, showing where core print materials are stored or shelved.

Step 8: Identify your unique resources

List unique resources, such as institutional records, historical materials and artifacts, and works of art. Note in your disaster plan where these resources are located in the building and how they can be accessed by library staff or first-responders.

Step 9: Proactively plan for the recovery of your unique resources

Based on your list of unique resources,

• determine which resources you would be willing to spend a significant amount of money on, in order to save them in the event that they are damaged in a disaster
• contact a commercial salvage company (i.e. BMS, Munters, Belfor) to get an idea about costs involved in saving these materials, should freeze-drying, mold abatement, or other services be required
• remember that mold will normally grow on wet materials in about 48 hours,
  and sometimes less, depending on the environment–the best way to save valuable
  materials that are wet is to freeze them, thus stopping the growth of mold
  until they can be professionally treated.

Step 10: Know how to obtain outside assistance

• develop a relationship with a back-up library
• call a 24/7 emergency assistance service for damaged paper collections (NEDCC, WESTPAS, SOLINET, AMIGOS, etc.)
• NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Toolkit: http://nnlm.gov/ep
• NN/LM Regional Offices: 1-800-DEV-ROKS

by John P. Rees, Curator, NLM Archives and Modern Manuscripts Program reesj@mail.nlm.nih.gov

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/hmdfindaid.html

The Archives and Modern Manuscripts Program at the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine has released its new finding aids search and delivery platform, based on the University of Michigan’s DLXS software. http://oculus.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=nlmfindaid

Now users can search and browse the content of the 190+ existing Encoded Archival Description (EAD) collection guides. Plans are to soon add 300+ EADs describing all the manuscript holdings, many of which have never before been described beyond their catalog records.

Users can perform Basic and Advanced Boolean searches limited by:

Entire Finding Aid Content
Container List only
Names
Places
Subjects
Biographical/Historical Note
Any Scope and Content Note

These search features are available both across the entire set of finding aids and within each individual guide. Additional features include a Save to Bookbag option with an Email function.
Look for more DLXS content beyond EAD in the near future!

http://www.medicare.gov/caregivers.

Chances are you know a Linda. Linda takes care of her mother, a widow, who lives 1200 miles away, and takes care of her recently disabled husband at home. Linda also commutes 45 minutes to and from a full-time office job.

Family caregivers like Linda actually hold down more than one full-time job. They respond to the demands of the workplace, and then come home to meet the needs of elderly or disabled loved ones. In fact, family caregivers provide almost 80 percent of long term-care in the US. They’re providing this service, which some estimates place at a staggering $350 billion a year, for free.

Now Medicare offers some help.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a new service called Ask Medicare, to support Linda and the more than 44 million Americans— one in five adults—who provide care to a loved one.

Ask Medicare provides information on a wide range of issues and help navigating social services network around the country. Linda and others can click on www.medicare.gov/caregivers and browse such topics as: Medicare basics; planning for a healthy future; help with hospitalization; home health care and community services; nursing homes and housing options, and many others.

Ask Medicare is a one-stop shop with online tools to compare health plan choices across the country, find a prescription drug plan or find a doctor. It can point searchers to helpful telephone numbers, links to partner websites, and help them connect with financial assistance.

Caregivers can use Ask Medicare to find information on how to take better care of the people close to them, and take better care of themselves. According to a recent study, about one in six caregivers report they are in fair or poor health.

Chances are, you recognize Linda. She may even bear a strong resemblance to you. If that’s the case we hope we hope you’ll go online to www.medicare.gov/caregivers.

https://www.llis.dhs.gov/index.do

As part of its continual effort to improve information sharing across the emergency response and homeland security communities, LLIS.gov launched a new partnership with the US Fire Administration (USFA). The USFA strives to provide national leadership to local fire and emergency services departments. To highlight the new partnership, LLIS.gov has created a new USFA Resource Page where members can access USFA technical and special reports, related LLIS.gov original content, featured documents, and valuable links. To access the resource page, log onto LLIS.gov and click on US Fire Administration under LLIS.GOV PARTNERS.

Receiving Automated Updates on New LLIS.gov Content:
LLIS.gov members can choose specific areas of interest by discipline and/or topic, as well as choose how often they receive LLIS.gov Dispatch. To sign-up or modify preferences for LLIS.gov Dispatch, log onto LLIS.gov, click on SETTINGS in the top navigation bar, and click the link next to “Manage LLIS Dispatch” Preferences.

LLIS.gov also points to a guide, by Save the Children, for managing the unique needs of children in emergencies, titled: A Guide for the Inclusion of Children in Emergency Operations Plans. As a project of Save the Children’s Domestic Emergencies Unit, this guide was created to help local and state emergency managers/coordinators in their efforts to develop and maintain a Children in Emergencies supplemental document to the community’s standard Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) that addresses the special needs of children. This guide is meant to drive the active planning process, not to take its place. There is no single format that can adequately fit every community – developing this capacity is both the legal and the moral responsibility of the community leaders themselves. http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/emergencies/Children-in-Emergencies-Planning-Guide.pdf

http://www.researchandmarkets.com

The study presents data from more than 100 library and museum digitization programs from academic, public and special libraries in the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, the UK and other countries. The mean annual budget for the digitization projects that contributed to the sample was $122,408, with a range from $0 to $1.963 million.

The report presents data and narrative on staffing, training, funding, technology selection, outsourcing, permissions and copyright clearance, cataloging, digital asset management, software and applications selection, marketing and many other issues of interest to libraries and museums that are digitizing aspects of their collections.

Data are broken out by size and type of digitization project and by size and type of institution. Data is presented separately for text, photograph, audio, and film/video intensive projects.

Contents are broken down as follows:

For more information click on:
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/81b4a2/the_international_survey_of_library_museum

http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov

A new version of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Drug Information Portal was released in October. The portal now covers over 16,000 drugs.

The update includes:

1. Direct searching of drug categories, which are derived from the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH®) Pharmacological Action field http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/mesh/paterms.html
2. Name and category suggestions, to eliminate common spelling errors
3. Phrase parser that assists users in finding drug names within phrases
4. The addition of the MeSH notes, when available, to spell checker results to make selection of a possible answer easier
5. Searches retrieving multiple results now sorted by frequency of citation in PubMed®, from highest to lowest. This tends to show the most commonly used drugs first.

The Drug Information Portal is a free Web resource from the NLM that provides an informative, user friendly entry-way to current drug information for over 16,000 drugs. Links to sources span the breadth of NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies. Current information regarding consumer health, clinical trials, AIDS–related drug information, MeSH pharmacological actions, PubMed biomedical literature, and physical properties and structure is easily retrieved by searching on a drug name. A varied selection of focused topics in medicine and drug–related information is also available from displayed subject headings.

Comments and suggestions are welcome at tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov.

Diabetes is a leading cause of kidney failure, blindness and amputations, and a major cause of heart disease and stroke. Nearly 24 million Americans have diabetes, and about one quarter (or 5.7 million) of them don’t know that they have the disease. Millions more are at risk of developing diabetes. It is variously referred to by the public as “Sugar”, Adult onset diabetes, and Non-insulin dependent diabetes.

To raise awareness about diabetes in your locale, use the “State-Specific Incidence of Diabetes Among Adults — Participating States,1995–1997 and 2005–2007.” MMWR 008;57(43):1169–73 that can be found at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5743a2.htm?s_cid=mm5743a2_e

About 25 percent of those with diabetes don’t know they have the disease. In the early stages of diabetes, there may be no symptoms or mild symptoms, such as excessive thirst and hunger, frequent urination, and fatigue. It’s important to know if you have diabetes so that you can take steps to prevent serious complications and premature death. Use the American Diabetes Association’s Risk Calculator from the to help determine your risk level.
http://www.diabetes.org/risk-test.jsp

Diabetes is a costly disease associated with serious complications and premature death. It is a major cause of heart disease and stroke and a leading cause of leg and foot amputations unrelated to injury, kidney failure, and new blindness in adults.

At http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/diabetes.html MedlinePlus suggests starting with the following three links for dependable, accurate introductory material:

• Diabetes - Introduction Interactive Tutorial (Patient Education Institute) - Requires Flash Player, Also available in Spanish
• Diabetes Overview NIH (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases)
• Your Guide to Diabetes: Type 1 and Type 2 Easy-to-Read NIH (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases), Also available in Spanish.

http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/

The November issue of NIH News in Health is available. Featured stories cover attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the possible health risks of plastic bottles. Also check out the health capsules and the featured Web site.

Contents also include “Health Capsules” on:

• “Virtual” Colon Scans Show Promise
• Information on Drug Abuse and Addiction
• Featured Web Site: Children & Clinical Studies

Six times a year, the SE/A will be hosting region wide web conferences that
include:

• Invited Speakers from the National Library of Medicine
• Updates on NN/LM members and resources

Our first conference will feature a presentation by Dr. Stuart Nelson. Dr. Nelson is Head of Medical Subject Headings Section at the National Library of Medicine. Stuart J. Nelson, MD, was born and raised in California. His undergraduate education was at the University of California at Berkeley. He took a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 1970, and moved to Brooklyn, New York, to attend medical school at the State University of New York.

After obtaining the MD degree, he interned at Philadelphia General Hospital on the University of Pennsylvania’s medical service, and completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Metropolitan Hospital Center in New York City. He was certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1978. From 1978 to 1991, he served on the faculty of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1991 he moved to the Medical College of Georgia.

His research interests are in the area of computer applications to medicine, and he collaborated for several years with Dr. Marsden S. Blois, one of the founders of the field of Medical Informatics. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.

In 1996 he came to the National Library of Medicine as the Head of the Medical Subject Headings Section. He has published extensively in the field of medical informatics, especially in the area of computerized vocabularies.

Presentation: All About MeSH, 2008-2009

Date: Wednesday, November 19th

Time: 12:00 Noon - 1:00 pm

Attending the web conference is easy!

No reservation or registration needed

Open to all SE/A libraries

What do you need to join these conferences?

A computer (with Flash installed)

A telephone

How do I connect?

Go to this URL: http://webmeeting.nih.gov/beyondthesea

Enter as a Guest

Sign in with your first and last name

Follow the instructions in the meeting room to have Adobe Connect call your phone or call 1-800-605-5167 and enter the participant code 227471 when prompted.

Check out the web conference page at the SE/A website for more information and dates:

http://nnlm.gov/sea/services/webconf/

If you have any questions, please call the SE/A office at 800-338-7657 or 410-706-2855 or chat with us via Instant Messaging at: http://nnlm.gov/sea/outreach/seachat/