The content of HEALTHINFOQUEST is based on workshops presented by Maureen Carleton, Medical Reference Specialist, King County Library System (KCLS), Bellevue, Washington. These workshops demonstrated authoritative and reliable Web sites library staff could use to locate health information. At the end of every workshop, staff invariably asked for pathfinders. HEALTHINFOQUEST is the result.

Maureen Carleton, HEALTHINFOQUEST Project Director, worked closely with Jane Saxton, Reference Librarian, Bastyr University Library, to integrate complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) resources into appropriate pathfinder categories and questions. Bastyr University, Kenmore, Washington, is an accredited, private institution, internationally recognized as a pioneer in the study of natural medicine.

A major goal in the development of HEALTHINFOQUEST was to ensure that the primary audience, public librarians who respond to requests for medical or health information, would find the Web site useful. Three reference librarians from the King County Library System provided peer review throughout the creative process:

Judith A. Hammett, MLIS, PhD, Issaquah Library, Issaquah, Washington
Jane L. Peterson, MLS, Covington Library, Covington, Washington
Martha B. Thayer, MLS, Bothell Regional Library, Bothell, Washington

The Web design team from the University of Washington Educational Technology Services deserves full credit for the overall look of HEALTHINFOQUEST and the easy-to-use, interactive pathfinders. Working from an outline of the workshops and anecdotal data about them, Barbara Macfadden, Project Manager, and Becky Smurr, Instructional Technology/Web Designer and library school graduate, transformed reams of content into a series of pathfinders that do exactly what our prototype test audiences told us they wanted. The professional graphic presence of this site is the work of David Ehlert, Medical Illustrator and Graphic Designer.