From the NLM:

MedlinePlus enhanced its Health News RSS feeds this week. The MedlinePlus Health News feeds now include images and hyperlinks to corresponding MedlinePlus Health Topics. The images add visual interest to the feeds and the Health Topic links allow subscribers to quickly and easily access information on the diseases, conditions, and wellness issues that are discussed in the news stories and press announcements.

You can subscribe to the Health News RSS feeds by copying and pasting the URLs below into your preferred RSS reader/aggregator:

MedlinePlus Health News (English): http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/feeds/news_en.xml

MedlinePlus Health News (Spanish): http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/feeds/news_es.xml

There were many wonderful posters shown at the Medical Library Association conference held in Hawaii this year.  They are now available online for you to view.  Trapeze Media Solutions has partnered with MLA to digitize the posters and put them online. The posters are even searchable! If you’d like to see what posters librarians from our region and beyond have done, please take a look at the visual display below.  Move your mouse along the display to move the images.  You can use your scroll wheel to zoom in and out.  (If you are having trouble viewing this display, make sure you ahve the most recent version of the Flash Player installed on your machine, available at: http://www.adobe.com.  Otherwise you can go here to see them: http://posterexperience.com/index.php.)

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released the results from a survey this week on the way people are seeking out health information.  Before the advent of podcasts, widespread use of the Internet, the public used traditional means to locate health information.  Visits to the doctor, phone calls to health professionals or trusted friends were the norm.  While these methods are still being used today, the landscape has been altered quite a bit and people have many more options.  What do we do with the information we find online? Do we take that information to our health professionals to augment the discussion? Do we simply trust what we find online and become “armchair physicians?”  The survey results refer to the more technologically integrated health seekers as ‘e-patients.’

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I would like to personally thank the recipients of the Technology Improvement Awards for Year 3 for their hard work, determination in offering services to their users.  It is always interesting to review applications for these awards.  You tend to get a really good idea of what our member libraries need and the projects they are working on - and this information not only helps the library applying for the award but others thinking about applying for an award.

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The creators of the Second Life, Linden Lab announced their 1st Linden Prize winners last week (http://lindenlab.com/lindenprize). Among the two winners was “Virtual Ability Island”; the virtual island that was created as a part of the Alliance Virtual Library. This is a group of virtual islands use by people with chronic health and disabilities.

The Alliance Library System (ALS) in Illinois, a member of the GMR, worked with the Virtual Ability Organization to plan and build this award winning orientation center. Virtual Ability Island was partially funded by the NN/LM consumer health subcontract - “Share the Health”. The ALS will have the distinction of being the first NN/LM supported project that has received this prestigious virtual award. ALS and Virtual Ability continue to partner on health information services in Second Life.

Prestigious Linden Prize was given to two winners chosen out of 230 applications and 10 finalists. The winners were awarded $10,000 each. Here is the announcement from the Linden Lab: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/04/30/the-linden-prize-goes-to-studio-wikitecture-and-virtual-ability

Please contact Lori Bell (lbell927@gmail.com), if you would like to know more about this award winning virtual island or the partnership! Congratulations!!

Kathryn Carpenter, Director, University of Illinois at Chicago Library of the Health Sciences, the Regional Medical Library for the GMR, has turned her Spring 2009 blog message into a podcast. The audio file is 5:03 minutes long and is an MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 file, commonly referred to as mp3. Here is a chance to hear Kate in a new format: (.mp3 file). The text of this message is available in pdf: A Message from the RML Director Spring 2009 .

The podcast was recorded using the free software Audacity and then encoded to an mp3, playable on a variety of media players including an iPod, with such software as QuickTime, iTunes or Media Player. Listen to this podcast and use the Comments section let us know your thoughts on what you hear.

If you would like to learn how to make your own podcast, consider taking the podcasting class taught by GMR Technology Coordinator, Max Anderson. To find out more about this class, see: Can You Hear Me Now? How to Make a Podcast.

Today at the Amazon Kindle Event, a new, improved Kindle has been shown to the public.  The vision from Amazon is: “to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds on Kindle. We won’t stop until we get there. ” Named Kindle 2, some of the more impressive features include:

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Thinking of hosting an NN/LM GMR technology class at your institution? Here are a few opportunities for you to do so.

Whether you are interested in keeping up with emerging technology trends or just want a review of technologies currently being used by library’s - Geeks Bearing Gifts: Unwrapping New Technology Trends is the class for you.  This class can be 4-hours or 8-hours long and is limited to 20 participants. Requirements for the host institution: computers with Internet access for each participant.  Projector and instructor station for Instructor. More information on the class can be found: http://nnlm.gov/training/geekgifts/.  This class has been approved for 4 or 8 hours of MLA CE Credit.

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Have you ever tried to find a particular page, person or phone number on an NN/LM website and not know where to look? As much as the we try to make our pages easy to navigate, sometimes the information might not be readily found. Here is a tool that is right under our noses. (more…)

Have I mentioned to you lately that the GMR has a Lending Library? Max chuckles softly to himself.

Anyway.  I wanted to let you all know about some continuing education opportunities - you can even do them in your pajamas if you want!

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