MIDDLE ATLANTIC PERSPECTIVE
Newsletter of the
National Network of Libraries of Medicine
Middle Atlantic Region
New York New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware
| The New York Academy of Medicine - 1216 Fifth Avenue - New York, NY 10029 |
| Volume 11 Number 6 | November - December 2001 |
In This Issue...
New Director
NN/LM Seeks New Affiliate Members
Biochemical Terrorism Resources Program
Four New Educational Tools
DOCLINE Resubmit Feature
Training Manuals Now Available
Library Closing in the Middle Atlantic Region
EFTS Participant
Notice of Name Changes
NLM Technical Bulletin
Internet Connection Grants
Technology Program Funds Available
We are very pleased to announce that the New York Academy of Medicine has appointed Maxine L. Rockoff, Ph.D., as Director of the Division of Information Management with overall responsibility for the Academy's Library, Department of Information Systems, Historical Programs, and the Regional Medical Library. She joined the staff in November.
Dr. Rockoff has a broad and varied background with extensive experience in information technology. Of particular relevance for the RML, she is particularly interested in the potential for distance learning. Dr. Rockoff has worked with settlement houses and other urban institutions, as well as on projects related to rural and inner-city health initiatives, and has published a number of papers on these subjects. She has worked with and for academic, for-profit, not-for-profit, and government organizations, as well as having had her own consulting practice.
We are delighted to have her with us and hope that many of you will soon have the opportunity to meet her in person.
In the past year the National Library of Medicine has expanded membership in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) to include the new category of Affiliate Member. As of this writing, most of you reading this are from Member libraries, that is, health sciences libraries of all types- hospital libraries, medical schools, or other directly health-care institutions. The new category of Affiliate Member encompasses libraries and information or resource centers or other organizations that are called on for health information by their patrons, but which do not meet all the criteria for full member participation. While a number of types of organizations will fit this definition, the most obvious one is public libraries, and they are the focus of our initial recruiting endeavors.
Providing consumer health information is an important component of the overall mission of the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The object of the Affiliate Member program is to provide easier access to the information services available through the NLM, for both consumers and public librarians in many places there are already cooperative relationships in place between health sciences libraries and public libraries, and many of you are working with public librarians in providing health and wellness information to the general public.
Any eligible library is welcome to join at any time, but our regional recruiting efforts will be conducted on a state-by-state basis. Over the past few weeks, invitations have been going to libraries in New York State, and in fact a number have already responded and joined the Network. The rest of the states in the region will follow over the next few months.
Eligibility requirements, responsibilities and benefits of NN/LM membership are described in the fact sheet available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/ factsheets/nnlmem.html
We at the RML certainly encourage cooperation and collaboration. However, no Member library, large or small, is expected as a matter of course to provide services, directly or indirectly, either to the public library or the consumer. We do look forward to welcoming many new Affiliate Members and to fostering cooperative ventures that will benefit consumers of health information and the librarians who supply it. Anyone with questions should feel free to call Mary Mylenki or Joanne Jahr in the RML office, 212-876-8793 or 1-800-338-RMLS.
On December 5, 2001, the Middle Atlantic Region, NN/LM, and the New Jersey Hospital Association(NJHA) co-sponsored a program entitled Thinking the Unthinkable ~ Biochemical Terrorism and Disasters: Information Resources for Medical Librarians. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, there was an obvious need and desire for information, and we were pleased to respond quickly and to have the collaborative opportunity with NJHA. While the threat of weapons of mass destruction, dirty bombs, nerve gas and biological attacks with smallpox may seem slim or imminent, depending upon one's perspective, we know the threat is here. The agenda was designed for health sciences librarians, to help them with readiness to assist in the public health and clinical response to biochemical terrorism - while hoping we would never need to use such information in a crisis situation.
Michelle Volesko, Director of Library and Corporate Information Services, NJHA, opened the program with a quotation from D. A. Henderson, Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Defense: "Specialists in infectious diseases thus constitute the front line of defense. The rapidity with which they and emergency room personnel reach a proper diagnosis3and the speed with which they apply preventive and therapeutic measures could spell the difference between thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of casualties. Indeed, the survival of physicians and health-care staff caring for the patients may be at stake...." Dr. Henderson made that statement onJuly 1, 1998.
Michelle welcomed the guests and the speakers, acknowledging the distances traveled by many and the new realities of travel in the post-terrorist attack world. Mary Mylenki, Associate Director of the NN/LM Middle Atlantic Region, joined in the welcome and thanked Michelle and the staff at NJHA for their efforts in providing the meeting site and handling registration and the speakers' logistics.
The four guest speakers included a clinician, James Pruden, MD, FACEP, Chairman of the Emergency Medicine Department, St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center, Paterson, NJ; Onnalee Henneberry, from the library at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Stacey Arnesen from the National Library of Medicine's Specialized Information Services; and Barbara Schultz from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Chemical Defense.
Dr. Pruden spoke on the clinical view of biological terrorism and included some diverting and fascinating historical perspectives. Ms. Henneberry described bioterrorism information resources, and Ms. Arnesen gave an overview of NLM's resources on bioterrorism, chemical and biological weapons, with an emphasis on TOXNET databases. Barbara Schultz, a librarian with Astrox Corporation under contract with the U.S. Army, informed the audience with an overview of chemical warfare agents, and a description of the Department of Defense resources available to the public. Michelle Volesko rounded off the day with a wrap-up providing a checklist for action.
The entire program was very well received by the audience of approximately 80 health sciences librarians. All the speakers have graciously agreed to have their slides and handouts mounted on the NJHA website. They can be viewed at http://www.njha.com/njresponse/bio.asp under "Additional Resources."
As part of the NLM mandate to increase consumer access to health information the RML has acquired two videocassettes which may be requested from our office.
In Plain Language, produced by the Department of Health and
Social
Behavior of the Harvard School of Public Health
and
Low Health
Literacy:
You Can't Tell By Looking, produced by the American Medical
Association.
In 1992 the National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education conducted a national adult literacy survey which revealed that approximately 50% of all adults read at or below 8th grade level while most materials written for the public are at the college or graduate school level. How this affects the health disparities addressed by the Healthy People 2010 initiative was the focus of the 10th annual Jane Root Summer Institute on Low Literacy Communication Skills for Health Professionals: Write It Easy To Read which I was privileged to attend this past June. Recognizing the need for health information that consumers can read, understand and effectively use is a vital component of evaluating and providing consumer health information and integral to collection development.
In addition to these videocassettes, we received a digital videodisc called "Breath of Life." Developed by NLM and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, it "covers the subject of asthma from just about every conceivable angle" (Donald AB Lindberg, MD). We have six copies of this disc, which can be played on any computer with a DVD player.
Finally, we have a videotape of the recent satellite broadcast, "Anthrax: What Every Clinician Should Know," transmitted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2001.
We encourage you to borrow these videocassettes for use by your staff and by the professional education department at your institution. If you would like to borrow any of these products, please call Dorothy Weyeneth, the RML Administrative Assistant at (212) 822-7351 or email her at: dweyeneth@nyam.org
Based on user feedback DOCLINE 1.3 instituted the nifty "Resubmit" feature, which allows you to re-enter a request back into the system without having to recreate the entire entry from square one. But you can use the resubmit feature just once, so look at the rejection reasons carefully and modify your request accordingly.
Some libraries are resubmitting their requests without making any modifications to them. This can be a problem. If the request was unfilled the first time, and it is resubmitted without making any changes, it's likely to go unfilled the second time, too!
If your request was retired as Expired, Canceled, Not Filled (Canceled), Not Filled (Copyright), or Not Filled (Cost), be sure to make the necessary modifications to ensure successful routing.
If your request was retired as Beyond Routing Map ,review your Routing Instructions (especially routing cells and delivery fields) and, if needed, use SERHOLD to find additional potential lenders.
More detailed information about the Resubmit feature can be found in the DOCLINE manual at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/docline_manual/requests/statuscancel.html#Home
The October 2001 editions of the PubMed, NLM Gateway, ClinicalTrials.gov and TOXNET Training Manuals are now available for downloading from the NLM Web site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/web_based.html
The workbooks were updated to reflect changes to PubMed, the NLM Gateway and ClinicalTrials.gov since March 2001. The manuals are available for downloading in Portable Document Format (PDF) and Microsoft® Word formats. They are broken down into sections so you can choose the areas of interest to you. These materials correspond to the NLM's National Training Center and Clearinghouse training courses described at: http://nnlm.gov/mar/online/description.html..
Lecture guides used in training on Toxicology and Environmental Health Web Resources (i.e., TOXNET and ChemIDplus) are also available from this Web site.
These workbooks are not copyrighted. Feel free to use any part of the workbooks-you may customize parts for training programs, demonstrations, or workshops you conduct.
Time to update your records once again. Community General Hospital (NYUZUG) and Crouse Hospital (NYUZUZ) merged to form the Health Alliance of Central New York (CNY). Withthe merger, the two libraries also merged, the collections were consolidated, and all ILL requests are being handled at the Crouse location. Please remove Community General Hospital, NYUZUG, from your routing tables.
The Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL (ILUNWU) is now an EFTS participant http://www.galter.nwu.edu It is a Resource Library and permitted to charge $11.00.May we remind everyone that if you are a member of EFTS to check your DOCUSER record to ensure that it is correctly annotated in two places: EFTS should be listed under Codes > Library Group and, under Library Group > ILL Services, "participates in electronic payment" should have a check mark.
Please note that if you are looking for Community General Hospital of Sullivan County (NYUSGS) in DOCUSER and can't find it…it underwent a name change and is now the Catskill Regional Medical Center.
Also remember that Crouse Hospital (NYUZUZ) is now the Health Alliance of Central New York.
If your institution has undergone a name change and it is not reflected
in your DOCUSER record, please make the necessary changes
post-haste. The institutional and library names on the new NLM
certificates to be issued within the next two months will be taken
directly from the DOCUSER record. What we see is what you'll get.
To make corrections, from the home page select DOCUSER
> Update. The first screen to come up will be your Document Delivery
screen. Make any needed
corrections and click on SAVE at the bottom of the screen. Click the back
button on your browser and, back on the document delivery screen, click on
the arrow in the small grey box in the left hand corner to select the
Institution address. Make any necessary changes on that screen and click
on SAVE.
The following articles from the current Technical Bulletin are available on the Web at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/tb.html.
2001 September - October; 322
Space Life Sciences Citations Added to
PubMed® and the NLM Gateway - e2
Space Life Sciences and Bioethics - New
PubMed® Subsets - e3
History of Medicine-related Journal Citations
Added to PubMed® - e4
Bioethics Citations Added to PubMed® - e5
Technical Notes: - e1
NLM's Internet Connection program was created in recognition that many health-related organizations, particularly smaller ones and those in rural or urban health-underserved areas, lack resources to initiate internet access or to enhance low-bandwidth dial-up connectivity. The NLM Internet Connection grant supports the purchase and installation of equipment and services for connectivity to the Internet for one year. The 100 th NLM Internet Connection grant was awarded earlier this year. Awardees may use the grant to initiate Internet service, to extend service to other centers or field locations, or to expand the bandwidth of their existing service. Of the 34 grants awarded, two went to institutions in Region 1. For complete information on the grants awarded, see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/grantstohealth01.html For information on applying for the grant itself, see: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ep/connect.html
Philadelphia FIGHT, Philadelphia, PAThe National Network of Libraries of Medicine Mid-Atlantic Region (NN/LM MAR) has issued a request for quotation (RFQ) for network members to cosponsor a technology awareness program or conference. The purpose of the award is to improve awareness of and access to biomedical information for health professionals or consumers. The award is for $7, 500 and proposals must be received by January 31, 2002. Complete information about the RFQ may be found at: http://nnlm.gov/mar/techno.html.
Middle Atlantic Perspective Index | NN/LM
 |
NN/LM-
Middle Atlantic
Region New York Academy of Medicine 1216 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10029 Site maintained by MAR STAFF Revised: December 18, 2001 URL: http://www.nnlm.gov/mar/perspec/2001/0006.html |