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The Upper Corner

• New Staff Member—Lauri Kolakoski Fennell
• Historical Collections
• Connecticut Goes Local
• Tidbits

New Staff Member—Lauri Kolakoski Fennell

With a strong interest in collaboration and outreach, Lauri submitted, managed, and carried out all phases of Franklin Medical Center’s Library Connections for Health NER-funded project. This project provided resources and training for public libraries in rural western Massachusetts. Lauri also received LSTA funds for a Community Languages collaborative project.

Lauri has lived in eastern and western Massachusetts, is a graduate of Simmons College GSLIS, and a former dairy farmer.

Here are a few questions for Lauri...

On your outreach project you connected with libraries in a number of rural communities, tell us about that.
I love outreach but it can be difficult knowing whether or not you are reaching people. One thing I learned from this project is to be persistent. I visited each of the 25 libraries in the county even if I didn’t get a response from my letters. People seemed to appreciate it. One person surprised me by saying they were expecting me. I never would have known had I not followed up.

You've worked as a solo librarian and at a larger hospital library, again what's been the difference.
As a solo librarian I had my hands in all aspects of managing the library. It was a great experience but lonely at times. I sought outreach opportunities partly because of that. I learned so much in that role. In the larger setting I had coworkers to bounce ideas off of. I enjoyed the brainstorming and projects that we came up with. I am glad I did both.

Dairy farming?
People are curious about the dairy farming. I always wanted to be a farmer when I was a kid. I can’t explain why. I was a dairy farmer in my younger years, when I didn’t mind getting no sleep and working all hours of the day. I didn’t know anything about Pubmed then. If I had, I believe I would have used it to look up mastitis treatment or better calving practices.

Historical Collections

Regional Medical Libraries have been charged with assisting the National Library of Medicine with identifying historical collections in the health sciences. To that end NER recently convened a meeting of the Historical Collection Task Force. The group consists of special collections librarians, archivists, and others representing twelve institutions throughout the region. While serving as a resource to each other, the group will also help identify collections of historical and unique materials related to the health sciences.

These collections will be represented in the Directory of History of Medicine Collections available from NLM at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/directory/index.html. This Directory describes collections that provide research, reference, and interlibrary loan services to scholars interested in the history of the health sciences. There are less than ten entries representing the New England region. Given the history of medicine and health sciences in New England, many more collections in the region can be identified for the History of Medicine Directory.

If you are aware of any historical collections in the health sciences, please assist the work of the Task Force. Contact us. NER will make a standard form available to record information about the collection. NER will then forward this information to the National Library of Medicine’s History of Medicine Division.

Connecticut Goes Local

The University of Connecticut Health Center’s Lyman Maynard Stowe Library has recently been approved to implement a Connecticut Go Local project to add Connecticut’s health-related services and resources to MedlinePlus. Connecticut will be the third state in the Region with a Go Local Implementation project. The project builds on the library’s successful Connecticut HealthNet consumer health program.

While the Lyman Maynard Stowe Library leadership and staff will be taking the lead in the implementation, the project will involve many other member libraries such as Hartford Hospital, Midstate Medical Center, Middlesex Hospital, Yale University, Hospital for Special Care, St. Mary’s Hospital, Stamford Hospital, and Waterbury Hospital.

We’ll keep you posted on the launch date! Congratulations UCHC!

TidBits

NN/LM uses Google Analytics to compile statistics related to web usage or all NNLM websites included NER’s website. The locally maintained Health Literacy web page recently generated over 700 visits from keyword searches on many search engines. The average visit to that page lasts just under 2-minutes, and more than 75% of the visitors to that page do not visit other nnlm.gov pages. The health literacy page at http://nnlm.gov/outreach/consumer/hlthlit.html is maintained by Penny Glassman and is an extensive revision of a previous version of that page.

Michelle Eberle has been selected to participate in the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ National Center for Health Marketing’s Expert Panel on Improving Health Literacy for Older Adults. The panel will assess health literacy issues for older adults and identify opportunities for public health professionals to better meet the health communication needs of older adults. The charge of the panel is to:

1. Review and discuss the evidence for health literacy improvement as a critical issue for serving older adults;
2. Identify research gaps in the area; and
3. Integrate experiences from the field serving older adults’ with research findings

1. key questions and issues to inform a research agenda for health literacy improvement for older adults;
2. priorities for health literacy improvement for older adults in a public health context; and
3. a preliminary set of best practices based on the evidence to inform CDC and HHS investments in health information for older adults.

Javier Crespo, Associate Director
Javier.Crespo@umassmed.edu