There were two community service projects funded by the GMR held during the MLA ‘08 Conference in Chicago. I had the opportunity to participate in one of them - the Rush University Free Health Fair: Spring into Health and Fitness. I was between jobs at the time, so I was representing Ohio University Health Sciences Library and the GMR. After staffing numerous health fair booths in the past, this was still a new and exciting experience.

The event started quite early and it was nice to get coffee and dough nuts to start the day! There were a large number of volunteers from various organizations, and we all worked diligently helping the participants to make the best out of this health fair. It was impressive to see some of the MLA award winners staffing the tables. I had the opportunity to work with Vijay Pawal; Cunningham Fellow from India and Sarah McCord who was honored with Lucretia W. McClure Excellence in Education Award. The medical librarians at the Rush Medical Center did a great job making sure all the MLA volunteers were doing fine.

Health fair participants were able get free health screenings, dental and vision screenings, rapid HIV testing, geriatric services, access to health information, resources and services, including free books, exercise sessions, free massages and plenty of food and drinks. The food was good and nonea of us were hungry! It was impressive to see the generosity of the sponsors. I quite enjoyed participating in this event, helping out at the booths and meeting and getting to know other librarians. Everyone had lots of great ideas for a future Fair.

The American Library Association had a health initiative and capped it with a Wellness Fair at the ALA ‘08 Conference. Join the Circle of Wellness at your Library (http://www.ala-apa.org/wellness/home.html), was one of the initiatives by the ALA president Dr. Loriene Roy. This event was very well received and attended by the ALA participants. I was able to attend this event as well as staff a booth set up by the NLM at the Wellness Fair.

It appears that health information outreach and community service may become a recurring theme at future MLA conferences.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 11:35 am and is filed under Consumer Health, From the GMR, News from the Region. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.