The Ohio Health Sciences Library Association (OHSLA) spring meeting will be held on Monday, April, 19, 2010, at Mount Carmel Health Sciences Library, Mount Carmel Health Systems, Columbus, Ohio, from 9:30am-3:30pm. Beyond conducting the business of the organization, this meeting will feature two MLA continuing education classes. Holly Burt, GMR Outreach and Exhibits Coordinator, will present a 2-hour class on PubMed for Experts where she will highlight advanced searching techniques. Max Anderson, GMR Technology Coordinator, will also provide a 2-hour class titled Geeks Bearing Lite Gifts.

Please contact Bette Sydelko, OHSLA President/Program Chair, for additional details.
bette.sydelko at wright.edu or 937-775-3840.

The Rolling Prairie Library System hosted R3: A Reference Spree: Retool, Renew, ReDo, Monday, February 22, 2010. We presented Consumer Health Reference to public librarians at the workshop.

Topics covered print and online consumer health resources and ethical issues related to providing consumer health reference information. MedlinePlus, Health E Illinois, and Population Groups Health were some of the databases the librarians searched during the class.

Judith Weinstein, MA, MPH
Associate Director
Heartland Alliance Refugee Health Programs
(part of Heartland Health Outreach)
Chicago, IL

The health messages are simple: dress warmly when it’s cold; don’t forget to floss; look left, then right—then left again!–before crossing a street. But the challenge of reaching newly arrived refugees with this basic information is great. Our work in refugee health education is complicated by refugees’ limited English skills, often low literacy levels, the number of different languages spoken, as well as their cultural and ethnic diversity.

Expanding Multi-lingual Health Information for Immigrants and Refugees, made possible with an Outreach Express award from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Greater Midwest Region, allowed us to translate the scripts of five slide presentations on basic health topics in to four key refugee languages, to be recorded by native speakers. Eventually, these multi-media, multi-lingual presentations will be available online for free access and downloading by health promoters and immigrants and refugees themselves. (more…)

by Brenda Fay
Lead Librarian
Aurora Libraries-Aurora Sinai Medical Center
Milwaukee, WI

61^st Annual Wisconsin Student Nurses’ Association Conference, Wisconsin Dells

Wisconsin Health Sciences Library Association (WHSLA) exhibited at the annual Wisconsin Student Nurses’ Annual Convention on February 6, 2010, at Chula Vista Resort and Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells, WI. Two hundred sixty-five nursing students, faculty, and nursing leaders from across Wisconsin attended the meeting. (more…)

by Mary Ann Urbashich
Associate Director
Green-Field Library and Resource Center
Chicago, IL

The Alzheimer’s Association Green-Field Library is pleased to announce a new Virtual Library at http://www.alz.org/library.  The new web page has been made possible by an Outreach Express Award from NN/LM Greater Midwest Region.   Green-Field Library serves diverse populations and an expansive geographic area through the national headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, and a network of 74 chapter organizations nationwide.  Since 1991 the library has grown to house a collection of 6,000 books and videos and 150 journals.  In 2009 we responded to 4500 questions and distributed a thousand articles through interlibrary loan. (more…)

by Diane Nordeng
Medical Librarian
VA Medical Center
Fargo, ND

MyHealtheVet (http://www.myhealth.va.gov) is an award-winning website that was developed for the veterans in the Fall of 2003. It is an online Personal Health Record and offers veterans access to Veterans Administration (VA) health care any time through the internet. MyHealtheVet is the gateway to web-based tools that empower veterans to become better partners in their health care. The site is constantly adding new features and the latest is the capability of the veteran to order prescriptions online by seeing the names of the drugs–not just numbers. Future features will include access to lab results, appointments and secure messaging to the provider.

At the Fargo North Dakota VA Medical Center, the Library and Education staff work together to assist veterans with MyHealtheVet registration, In-Person-Authentication and general orientation to the website. One of the Medical Library links on this website is a link to Medlineplus®, and it seemed like a natural fit to have copies of the NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine available to give to the veterans in connection with registering for this website and also an excellent opportunity to advertise this great magazine. They can take a copy home and if they like it, sign up for a free subscription with the card included.

It’s a win-win situation for the veterans and NLM!

By Kate Saylor
Outreach Librarian
Health Sciences Libraries
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI

In recognition of October as Health Literacy Month, the University of Michigan Health Sciences Libraries organized a two-day forum with the aim of building a community network to improve health communication. This event closed our health literacy project that was funded with a GMR Health Disparities Subcontract. Another portion of this project included creating an online toolkit for improving health literacy that can be viewed here: http://guides.lib.umich.edu/healthliteracy.

On the evening of Thursday, October 22nd 2009, the Health Science Libraries (HSL) hosted a panel discussion of literacy statistics and local programs aimed at improving health literacy and health communication. A poster session followed, featuring 18 posters that covered a wide array of health literacy issues, research and tools. (more…)

Anna Ercoli Schnitzer
InfoPoint Librarian
Health Sciences Libraries
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI

On the morning of November 4th, the staff of the Health Sciences Libraries, plus about a dozen visitors from the Health System, were treated to a demonstration by representatives from Paws with a Cause–of how a trained service dog can help a client who happens to be paralyzed or otherwise physically challenged.

Becky and her black lab Dart (short for D’Artagnan) worked together to illustrate how the dog can pick up fallen objects–some as small as a dime, pull off clothing (gloves, jacket, shoes) and even help an individual to rise from a sitting or supine position. We met another dog, a golden retriever puppy, who was being socialized by Diane, another Paws representative before being put through its training, a regimen that costs about $20,000 for each dog. Paws with a Cause pays for everything except the annual maintenance (vet’s fees, food) for the working dogs when they are placed.

(more…)

Network and GMR Regional Advisory Council member Mark Homan and the Sitting Bull College Library were recently featured on the front page of the North Dakota State Library newsletter, Flickertale. Mark is the director of the Sitting Bull College Library. The library, located in Fort Yates, North Dakota, has been the recipient of NLM funding for Native American Outreach through the GMR.

Congratulations to Mark on the dedication of the new library at Sitting Bull College.
http://www.library.nd.gov/flickertale/2009novdec.pdf

Thanks to Nancy Brothers, Coordinator of Programming and Public Relations at the Morton Grove Public Library for sharing this report:

The third annual Low Vision Fair was held September 26, 2009, at the Niles Senior Center, Niles, Illinois. The Fair, sponsored by eight north suburban Chicago public libraries, featured speakers, supportive service providers, and vendors of equipment and assistive devices. The intent of the Fair was to provide practical and useful information about new developments in eye care, retina and glaucoma screenings, and products and services available to help persons with limited vision.

An Exhibit Award from the GMR made it possible for the librarians to expand promotional efforts and to provide an honorarium for each of the speakers. The NN/LM briefcase exhibit and a variety of NLM brochures were positioned in the main meeting room, where two speakers gave presentations on diagnosis and treatment of retina disorders and current advances in eye and vision research. Everyone who attended the speakers’ sessions or who picked up refreshments passed by the display and had an opportunity to talk with the librarians and to pick up brochures. (more…)