Partnering in Minot
Jerry Kaup
Minot Public Library Director
516 2nd Ave SW
Minot, ND 58701
Karen Anderson
University of North Dakota Clinical Campus Librarian
Angus L. Cameron Medical Library Director
20 Burdick Expy W
Minot, ND 58701
Jerry Kaup, the Minot Public Library Director and I, Karen Anderson, University of North Dakota’s Northwest Clinical Campus Librarian, Angus L Cameron Medical Library Director at Trinity Health in Minot, are in the used book room at the Bagel Stop and Book Nook for lunch, talking about our cooperative library adventures. We are composing this article as we eat. We were asked to write an article about how we have partnered with our libraries, both of them being members of the Greater Midwest Region (GMR).A key element of successful partnerships is communication with each other. Jerry Kaup and I have known each other for many years. When I was a school librarian in the mid-nineties we worked together in a cooperative library group. I did training on how to use the Internet and on Internet resources for librarians with that group. Soon after that I became a medical librarian at the Angus Cameron Medical Library at Trinity Health in Minot (for the Harley E French Library at the University of North Dakota as their Northwest Clinical Campus librarian).
Shortly after starting at the Medical Library we collaborated on a LSTA (Library Services & Technology Act) grant that Jerry received for the Minot Public Library from the North Dakota State Library to train librarians on using reliable Internet resources. It focused on publishing brochures for librarians on Internet sites and giving workshops on various Internet resources that the public could use. Four Internet subject brochures on government, parenting, genealogy, and medical websites were published. My part in that collaboration was to provide the links for the medical websites in the brochure and to give workshops on consumer health topics. Ten thousand brochures on each subject were distributed to school and public libraries throughout the state of North Dakota I gave consumer health workshops in Mohall, Williston, Minot and Kenmare with the LSTA grant funds. I also trained the Minot Public Library staff and area librarians. This was done at a time when libraries and schools were first beginning to use and to provide access to the Internet. I have given consumer health and Internet training at various times for the Minot Public Library even when we didn’t have a grant.
Our most recent collaboration occurred when I was going to call Jerry about working with me on a subcontract with National Library of Medicine (NLM) for consumer training, but he contacted me first with a request to work with him on a brochure to promote consumer health resource books, DVDs, and medical websites. I said, “That’s great! We can partner with my grant, too!” Jerry wanted me to help develop the consumer health brochure with him. He used funds received in a grant from the St Joseph’s Community Health Foundation and the Friends of the Minot Public Library to buy over 150 consumer health books and DVDs and to promote access to consumer health materials and websites. He asked me to highlight medical Internet sites for the public because he knew of my awareness of quality medical resources on the Internet. I developed a list of websites for the brochure. Jerry found photos and designed the brochures in cooperation with the design staff at a local printer. Click here to see a copy of the brochure.
On my side, I worked under the outreach subcontract from the Greater Midwest Region to the University of North Dakota Library of the Health Sciences. By partnering on the brochures and workshops, we were working with both of our grants, which complemented each other. Jerry arranged for the Minot Public Library to promote the workshops through the Library’s newsletter, the media, and fliers at the Library. The workshops were held in the Minot Public Library’s computer lab, and I used the brochures while giving the workshops. He displayed the new books that were purchased with the grant at the workshops. We have given three presentations, one was for the Public Library Staff and the other two were for the public. Another workshop is planned for February 2008. I also have copies of the brochures available to the public in the Cameron Library.
Five thousand brochures were printed and distributed to the clinics, hospitals, and public libraries in northwest North Dakota to promote access points for books and medical websites for the consumer. The brochure contains MedlinePlus, DIRLINE, Genetics Home Reference, Household Products database as well as other resources. In the workshops these sites and other NLM resources were highlighted. The brochure and the workshops include the Cameron Library consumer page that I created at http://minot.com/karen/patient.html.
People attending the workshops were happy to learn more about their medical concerns. They were glad to find resources that they knew had reliable medical information on them and to learn how to evaluate what they found on the Internet. They were delighted to get the brochures with medical books and Internet sites. Some attendees checked out books addressing their particular medical concerns.
It has been a very productive collaboration. We are reaching more people to make them aware of the quality health care information that is freely available to them and at the same time we are also promoting the public libraries and the medical libraries as access points.
Although we will only reach a small portion of the population directly we know it will create a snowball effect because the people we have reached will tell other people what they have learned about health care resources. This is an ongoing educational process to make people aware of the quality health care resources available in print and on the Internet.
Jerry and I worked on a news release that was sent out to the media about the workshops which prompted interviews of both of us from the Minot Daily News. As a result there was a half page feature news article in the Regional section of the Minot Daily News. The title was Surfing the med-Web: What Consumers Need to Know.
Jerry and I are looking forward to future collaborative adventures, but now we are going to finish our bagels.
This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. N01-LM-6-3503 with the University of Illinois at Chicago.
