MAR is pleased to announce four new funding opportunities:

Leadership Institute Planning and Implementation Award

http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/leadership.html

MAR is accepting letters of interest from Full and Affiliate Network members to plan and implement a MAR Leadership Institute. One award up to $65,000 will allow a member to develop a program to teach business, management, and leadership skills, which will help librarians advocate for themselves and their libraries with their institution’s administrators, other funding agencies, government bodies, and user groups. The Strategic Plan includes a Library Improvement objective to “broaden training opportunities with emphasis on management, advocacy, and leadership skills through Web opportunities for training in a ‘MAR Leadership Institute.’” The Leadership Institute is intended to be broad enough in scope to appeal to librarians with a range of experience, working in different types of institutions, and located throughout the region. Deadline for letters of interest is September 30, 2009.

Outreach Training

http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/outreachtraining.html

This award for Full and Affiliate Network members it intended to support  training for and promote awareness of the products and services of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and NN/LM. Two awards up to $10,000 each are available. Deadline for applications is October 2, 2009.

Health Literacy Awards (New Projects)

http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/healthlitnew.html

These awards are designed to support and encourage Full and Affiliate Network members to create or develop new health literacy projects within their library or organization or by partnering with other libraries or organizations. Health literacy projects should address issues of the target population’s ability to read, listen, analyze, and make decisions, and the ability to apply these skills to health situations. Two awards up to $30,000 each are available. Deadline for applications is October 9, 2009.

Technology/Library Improvement Awards

http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/technology.html

These awards are designed to support and encourage Full and Affiliate Network members to upgrade or purchase new technology. Eleven awards up to $7500 each are available. Deadline for applications and all supporting materials is October 2, 2009.

NN/LM MAR is pleased to announce the first three of a number of award categories for 2009-2010:  Small Project, Exhibit and Presentation/Professional Development.  Funding is available for up to 20 Small Project Awards of $1000 each, three Exhibit Awards of $1500 each, and two Professional Presentation/Professional Development Awards of $2500 each. Awards will be funded on a cost reimbursement basis. Applications will be considered as long as funding is available. More information and an application form can be found on the MAR website. Specifically, the

• Small Projects Award can be found at http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/microawards.html
• Exhibit Award can be found at http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/exhibit.html
• Presentation/Professional Development award can be found at http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/profdev.html

Your projects, exhibits, and professional development enhance access to health information. Let us help you fund those efforts.

Look for more announcements on 2009-2010 award categories in August, September and October.

The Medical Library of the Northport VA Medical Center has always been the “go to” place for medical information. Now, thanks in part to a grant from NN/LM MAR it is now a “go to” place for small group learning.

Library Chief Mary Lou Glazer used the funds she was awarded to purchase a large screen flat-panel T.V./monitor.   With support from the Northport VA’s facilities and IT departments, the bookshelves that were no longer necessary to house print journals were removed.  In their place are now two conference tables, chairs, two computers/desks, a teleconferencing phone, and the flat-panel T.V./monitor on the wall.

The space is already popular and has been used for Online Ethics Journal Club meetings, Podiatry department lectures and seminars, new employee orientation, patient education programs, and a variety of large group meetings such as nurse training and telecommunications planning.  Mini-med school, a popular health education program, is a monthly series of classes provided by clinical staff to the veterans/patients on a variety of health related topics.  It is scheduled to now take place this coming year in our new conference area.  The addition of the large screen flat-panel T.V./monitor allows for our attendees to comfortably view the presenters and their enhancements (PowerPoint presentations, slides, photos).

This reconfigured area allows the Northport VA Medical Library to enhance their educational services with this award.  The records clearly indicate the increase in traffic in the library and bookings for educational use of the new space.

Thank you MM/LM Middle Atlantic Region for the opportunity to move the Medical Library into the  future by creating a better learning envirornment!

Members of HILNNEP (Health Information Library Network of Northeastern Pennsylvania) have been struggling to develop innovative ways to offer health information to the local general public, as well as to their own constituencies, with little or no money or staffing.  Currently there are three hospitals that offer consumer health information, but only one has staff dedicated to that purpose.  The HILNNEP group thought that Web 2.0 technologies might provide some avenues for all members to work together in a joint project to develop a web presence to benefit the local communities. Some members had taken the MLA Web 2.0 courses, but the majority had not.  The group decided to sponsor a CE course that would acquaint everyone with the tools that might be needed in accomplishing the joint project.

HILNNEP received a MAR NN/LM Small Project Grant to help defray some of the costs of a CE Double Header event.  Instructors for “eXtreme Searching: Getting the Most from PubMed and Google” were Karen Heskett and Arpita Bose.  Gregg Headrick taught “Geeks Bearing Gifts: Unwrapping New Technology Trends.”  There were sixteen attendees, including ten from HILNNEP, one from Central Pennsylvania Health Sciences Library Association, and five from local college libraries.

It was determined in advance that the success of the activity would be measured by whether or not individual HILNNEP members actually used any of the new technologies to offer services to their own Library users, and if HILNNEP members eventually developed a plan to offer health information to the general public and to specific targeted populations using Web 2.0 tools.

At the June 18 HILNNEP meeting, members were polled to determine whether or not any of the tools had been put into practice.  A surprising number of tools had been utilized by the majority of attendees either within the library, in the performance of other organizational responsibilities, or for extracurricular activities.  Among the tools employed were blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Meebo, Library Thing, Tiny URL, and Google Alert.   One member of HILNNEP has become an instructor to others in her organization on the use of Google Docs.

During the meeting, HILNNEP members held a planning session to outline the beginnings of a consortium website for the local population.  One member volunteered to research the prevalent DRGs in the community to give a focus to the project.  The group was excited about the possibilities of using Google Sites to create the website.  The Go Local model will be investigated and the group will be searching for local health agency websites, free clinics, clinical trials, and health issues and opportunities with a focus on prevention for the local Northeastern Pennsylvania population.  The Hispanic population has grown tremendously in NEPA and information for this sector of the population will be added after the project is operational

The grant monies awarded was used to purchase two new public use computers for our medical library.  The computers that the library had previously were over 10 years old and could not handle some of the newer programs that the residents and staff use.  It is also anticipated that newer computers will attract more patients and their family members to the library for consumer health information.

The announcement of the grant award will go into the monthly in-house publication “News and Notes” which should help get the word out that the library has updated technology that is free to all hospital employees and visitors.  The Forbes Regional Campus library does not have a blog to put this information on.

The Touro-Harlem Medical Library received a Tech Grant Award in the spring of 2008 to increase our instructional capacity by purchasing a notebook computer, high intensity portable projector, and a wheeled case to hold both items. We originally visualized primarily using the equipment offsite to deliver instruction as part of the Colleges’ community outreach programs, but rapidly found more uses for the technology. Since we had full administrative rights to the notebook it was much easier to configure it and use it within the library for instruction than one of the public access desktop computers which needed IT staff to make changes in the setup (though I should say our IT staff is very cooperative and usually makes requested changes in a timely manner).
While we regularly provide faculty orientations in the library, we’re occasionally asked to come to a Dean’s or faculty member’s office to show them how to access some resource or make a mini-presentation on using a resource. Bringing the pre-configured computer has made such sessions easier, since we can show how to setup or use the resource while the faculty member clicks along. Having the notebook was particularly handy when we were asked to a dean’s office to show a hospital administrators the resources our students would have available while on rotation at their institution. I was able to set up the machine at the conference table and, after a brief demo and introduction, have the administrator test drive some of the databases.
Library staff has used the computer alone and/or the computer and projector to make presentations on PubMed and other library resources on and off-site at faculty meetings, faculty development sessions, student workshops and training sessions and for community outreach. Members of Be One, Teach One, a student community health literacy outreach group, has used the equipment in presenting to middle school students, using in part material developed by library staff.
In addition to a wired network with 28 public access PCs and 6 public access Macs, our library has a wireless network which can be used to print to the library’s printers. The bulk of our students bring their own notebook which need to be configured to use the printers. Having the notebook makes it much easier to test drive and demonstrate installation instructions. It also makes it possible for us to demonstrate how to login to the wireless network and to test wireless access to our resources, as well as showing students how to create a bookmark to the PubMed URL that provides on and off campus access to a login that indicates our holdings.
In short we’ve found that the grant allowed us to purchase equipment that has helped increase our instructional capacity in both anticipated and unanticipated ways and are pleased that NLM/MAR choose the Touro-Harlem Medical Library as a grant recipient.
Shelly Warwick, M.L.S., Ph.D. Director, Touro-Harlem Medical Library

In order to raise the profile of the Community Health Library (CHL) at Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC), the CHL librarian participates in local community health fairs.  A Small Project Award allowed the purchase of an eye-catching, easily transported, tabletop presentation board as well as 50 USB drives to be used as giveaways at the health fair displays.  Both the USB drives and the header of the presentation board were customized with the library name and/or logo.  The USB drives were also preloaded with three documents providing consumers with information to use to evaluate health websites, tips on using search engines, and a suggested list of highly regarded, authoritative health websites for quick access to credible consumer health information resources.  The goal of the project was to increase usage of the CHL and its resources.

The CHL librarian attended two community health fairs in the spring of 2009.  The CHL display included the presentation board, which prominently featured resources available for use at the CHL, and the USB drives as well as pamphlets, CHL brochures, and NLM promotional items featuring MedlinePlus. Print copies of the handouts that had been preloaded onto the USB drives were also available. The CHL table was visited by approximately 100 people over the course of the two health fairs.  The display was well received and all of the USB drives were given to interested consumers.  Request for four consumer health literature searches were received and completed.

The Small Project Award allowed the library staff to test the use of USB drives as a promotional item for health fair displays and an important lesson was learned.  Many people who stopped at the CHL table were older adults, and this has been the case at some other community fairs as well.  A significant number of these senior citizens either did not use a computer or thought they would need assistance to use a USB drive, consequently the USB drives were of less interest to them than were the print materials provided on the table.  The CHL librarian has attended other health fairs where the target population was families and the USB drive might have been better utilized as a tool at such a health fair.  This lesson reinforced the importance of research prior to attending a health fair. By learning more details about the target population, promotional items can be selected that would be most appealing to that particular group.

The CHL at HUMC provides consumer health information to patients, family members and friends, employees and the community at large in Bergen County, New Jersey.  Information is sent via mail, email or fax and reference requests can be submitted by all of these methods as well as by telephone. The CHL is located within the Samuel and Sandra Hekemian Medical Library at HUMC.

Deborah Magnan - Hackensack University Medical Center- Samuel & Sandra Hekemian Medical Library.  Hackensack, NJ

On May 27, 2009, the Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce (”Partners”) released a description of a Funding Opportunity in FY 2009 to promote quality improvement in public health. Since the release of this notice, we have received many requests for information and clarification. These questions have underscored the need for formal clarification of the solicitation and the related application process. In order to be consistent in our responses and fair to all potential applicants, we have decided to retract the current notice and to formally reissue it as soon as possible as a formal solicitation in www.FedBizOpps.gov.

As a consequence of our decision, the due date for proposals in response to this solicitation has been postponed and is NOT Friday, June 19.

In early July, the National Library of Medicine, on behalf of the Partners, expects to post a Statement of Work and a Request for Proposals on www.FedBizOpps.gov that will specifically describe the submission instructions and criteria for selection. The new due date for submission of proposals will be no earlier than mid-July.

As soon as the solicitation becomes available, it will be posted via the NN/LM Regional listservs and announced on the Partners website (www.PHPartners.org).

We regret any inconvenience this delay might have caused you or your organizations.

Questions may be emailed to Lisa Lang, at nichsr@nlm.nih.gov.

A hot fun day was had by all at the Healthy Kids Day at the State Fair on July 22^nd in Delaware. The Delaware Academy of Medicine”s Consumer Health Services exhibit table was well placed at the front of the kid”s tent and was visited by more than 1000 kids and adults. The kids attended from all over Delaware with Day Camps, Head Start programs and families. We provided pencil cases, pencils, bookmarks and magnets with our new logo, as well as toothbrushes to all who visited the table. There were activities for the kids, including exercises led by Miss Delaware 2007, demonstrations of the Delaware Champion Cup Stackers and visits by the Titans. We even had a visit by Grover! Thanks for all your support in making this a successful event.

Linda Leonard- Delaware Academy of Medicine.  Newark, De.

The Lankenau Hospital Medical Library”s mission is to support the clinical research and educational requirements of the Lankenau Hospital medical staff, nursing, ancillary staff, and other personnel through the maintenance of a comprehensive and current  collection of educational materials.  The primary objective is to teach medical staff and hospital personnel to access medical and health information so that they are better able to perform their duties and responsibilities.  The presentation primarily introduces and demonstrates how to research information on the library”s web site.  We increase awareness and focus on the resource sites available on NLM/PubMed, such as, LinkOut, MedLine Plus (Consumer Health), Clinical Trials and other PubMed Services.

The presentation is given by the Lankenau Hospital Medical Library Director, Mazen Hassan, M.D., as well as Library Staff, Kary Heller, BA, MLS and Maria Panoc, MT, MBA.  At the presentation, the participants are shown how to access the system intranet and log onto the Medical Library Web Site. The audience is introduced to all the respective services available to our patrons.  The emphasis is on performing a literature search utilizing NLM/PubMed and LinkOut.  The presenters are quite interactive with the audience and it is a dynamic exchange of questions and answers.

At the end of the presentation, each participant receives an evaluation form.  They evaluate both the presentation and presenters on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) on whether or not the objectives were achieved.  The presentations have been quite successful with most objectives having a score of 5.  The Library has experienced an increase in the utilization of our services by the nursing staff.  The audience realized the breath and depth of information on our site and, in turn, the library web site has been linked to the nursing home web page.

Maria Panoc- The Lankenau Hosptial Medical Library.  Wynnewood, PA