Our August “Midday at the Oasis” will be held on Tuesday, August 11 at 11:30 AM (PT), 8:30 AM (HT). We are making an exception to the usual Midday schedule in order to reprise David Gillikin’s 2009 MLA presentation—a preview of the upcoming PubMed redesign. (more…)

A few years ago, I was co-teaching a consumer health class to library school students. In addition to the traditional health websites, my colleague presented a few examples of user-generated content—sites where ordinary people were posting stories about their own health conditions on discussion lists or on their personal blogs for anyone to see. One particular example involved a young woman who had a suspicious mole that turned out to be a type of skin cancer. She posted her story and pictures on her blog, which elicited a flood of responses from people with their own stories. Another example was Ronda’s Migraine page, a support community that offers a journal area where people can post their own stories, a live chat area and discussion forums. This site was started in 1996 and is still going strong! (more…)

This spring, our office conducted a survey of Network members about outreach strategies for community-based organizations (CBOs). The purpose of this survey was to define the most effective strategies being used by Network members to reach out to CBOs. The survey included topics such as strategies used to establish partnerships and approaches used to raise awareness about NLM resources among CBOs. (more…)

By Amy Knehans
Pharmacy/Health Sciences Librarian
Edwin H. Mookini Library
University of Hawai’i at Hilo
knehans@hawaii.edu

I moved to Hilo, Hawaii, in 2005. Hilo is located on the east side (windward) of Hawaii Island, also known as the “Big Island“. The town overlooks Hilo Bay and is surrounded by two volcanoes, Mauna Loa, considered active, and Mauna Kea, dormant. Disasters are not unknown in this area. (more…)