The Homer Public Library, in collaboation with the Friends of the Homer Public Library and local emergency responders, held a month of activities aimed at increasing the community’s emergency preparedness thanks to a $5000 NN/LM Community Preparedness Day Award.  Events, which were timed to coincide with national Disaster Preparedness Month, kicked off on September 21st with a special Story Time about safety and natural phenomena that occur locally, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

On September 24th the library hosted a Community Preparedness Day. Area emergency responders gave 15-minutes presentations throughout the day on emergency preparedness issues.  In addition, the public was invited to visit information booths operated by various agencies, including the Alaska Division of Forestry, the Homer Volunteer Fire Department, the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management and the Homer Senior Citizens.

One of the biggest draws of the day was the bright orange buckets, used to distribute 75 emergency preparedness kits funded by the award.  These buckets included a first aid kit, an emergency radio, and pamphlets from FEMA and the local veterinary clinic on how to prepare for an emergency.  The bucket itself was a useful water-storage device.  Community members, including the Homer City mayor, flocked to the library to pick up their buckets and then stopped by the booths to fill those bucket with more safety information.

Additionally, on September 28th the library hosted a forum for survivors of the 1964 Good Friday earthquake to tell their stories.  More than a dozen survivors shared compelling stories to an audience of over 30 people, imparting wisdom and perspective about the very real risks faced by Alaskans living on the “ring of fire.”

The Homer Public Library is also purchasing materials on emergency preparedness, survival, self-sufficiency and related topics to better serve this end-of-the-road community.  The activities and material funded by the NN/LM award have improved community awareness about emergency preparedness and placed helpful tools into the hands of Southern Kenai Peninsula residents.

Note: If you organization is interested in holding a Community Preparedness Day event, we are currently offering funding.  Please see the funding announcement – applications are due December 16, 2011.

Hope Leman, MLIS, research information technologist with the Center, accepted the award and a $1,000 check in Chicago at the Interlending and Document Supply (ILDS) Conference, “Resource Sharing in the Digital Age.”

The award monies will be used to advance scholarly research by Samaritan employees. Congratulations to librarian Hope Leman and the rest of the team!

The goals of Community Preparedness Day are to:

• Encourage, strengthen and/or expand library partnerships with first responders and community emergency management personnel
• Provide access to emergency management information tools and resources for families or other target populations
• Integrate and involve libraries in emergency preparedness, response, and recovery planning
• Promote and publicize the roles libraries, faith, or community organizations can play in emergency preparedness
• Strengthen and expand medical and public library partnerships

Applications from libraries and other organizations are welcome.

Consideration of requests for funding will begin on December 16, 2011. Proposals should be submitted using the Community Preparedness Day Award Application.

For additional information, see the full funding announcement or contact Gail Kouame, NN/LM PNR Consumer Health Outreach Coordinator at gmarie@uw.edu, 1-800-338-7657.

Highlighting the fact that medical librarians are the best resource when searching for health information, the theme for this year’s Medical Librarians Month (sponsored by the Medical Library Association) is “Medical Librarians: Your Ultimate Search Engine.”

Librarians have long demonstrated their benefit to their institutions, educating about their services, performing vital roles, and advocating for themselves and their libraries. This increases awareness of the value of libraries to hospital administrators and health care professionals.

What have you done to advocate for your library and increase your visibility in your organization? Share your story for a chance to win a $500 scholarship for MLA 2012 in Seattle. Stories will be published during the Month of October in the Dragonfly, and winners will be announced after October 31.

Tell us how you’ve shown your worth, added a new service, talked to patients or providers about medical libraries, reached out to a new user population, or provided information. Submit your entries by October 31 to Patricia Devine.

Flickr Commons Image - No known copyright

NN/LM PNR has learned of several upcoming free webinars that may be of interest:

• Tuesday, August 23rd: 11am – 12pm Pacific

Incorporating Ethics into Emergency Planning and Response to Ensure Health Equity

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This seminar will focus on the incorporation of ethics into emergency planning and response to promote health equity. A local jurisdiction’s approach to the development of an ethics framework will be highlighted, and an example of equitable distribution of vaccine with hospitals and culturally-specific communities will be described.  For more information and to register, visit this link: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e4e3j1ok8114fea7&llr=pf7m85dab&source=govdelivery

• Wednesday, August 31st and Wednesday, September 7th: 10am – 11am Pacific

Health Technology Assessment: 101 and Comparative Effectiveness Research – A 2-part Webinar Series

From the National Library of Medicine’s National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR)

We live in an age of abundant choice, especially mystifying in the choice of health care options and technologies. Too often, patients, providers, administrators, insurers, and policy makers are faced with an increasing array of decisions with few tools to help them make informed decisions. Health technology assessment (HTA) and comparative effectiveness research (CER) are two related approaches for helping to make better informed decisions. This two-part webinar series will provide a brief introductory overview of HTA and CER respectively, the methods used in each form of policy analysis, some of the major organizations involved in HTA and CER, how HTA and CER differ, and the role of HTA and CER in the individual as well as the collective healthcare decision-making process.

No registration required.  For more information about the series and how to access the webinars, visit this link: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/htawebinars/index.html

• Wednesday, September 14th: 10am – 11:30am Pacific
  

New Strategies for Engaging Consumers in Development and Use of Evidence

From Academy Health

As health care evolves to become more patient-centered, the role of patients and consumers in the evidence generation process is expanding.  This expansion has given rise to a growing set of questions for comparative effectiveness research (CER) projects around how, when, and to what extent to engage patients and consumers in figuring out what works best for whom, and under what conditions. The research community will increasingly be called upon to take into account new perspectives and priorities according to the needs and interest of patients and consumers, but how?

Registration for this session is free, but space is limited.  For more information and to register, visit this link: http://www.academyhealth.org/Training/ResourceDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=7377

All timely and relevant topics – pick one, or two, or all three!

If you would like to participate in a one-hour online focus group, please answer this brief survey  to let us know a time that works for you. Focus groups will be August 3 at noon, August 10 at noon, or August 10 at 2:00 p.m.

Thank you for your interest! Please contact Pat Devine, 206-543-8275 or devine@uw.edu if you have any questions.

photo by erix! on flickr

Here at NN/LM PNR, our mission is to improve access to quality information for health professionals and health consumers in the Pacific Northwest. We need your help! If you work in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, or Washington and have a great idea for health information outreach or improving library services, we would love to provide the funds to set your project in motion. We’ve announced five new funding opportunities over the past few weeks, bringing our total number of available awards types to nine. To help you (and us!) keep it all straight, we are summarizing the possibilities for you here in one handy blog post. Here are our currently available awards listed in order of application deadline. Our funding page will be continuously updated with the latest information about available awards and descriptions of projects we’ve funded.

Outreach to Under-Connected Health Organizations
Amount:  up to $25,000,  2 awards available
Proposals due: Wednesday, August 10
PNR Contact: Cathy Burroughs, Associate Director

Technology Improvement Awards
Amount: up to $5000, 3 awards available
Proposals due: Friday, August 12
PNR Contact:  Cathy Burroughs, Associate Director

Community Preparedness Day Awards
Amount:  up to $5000, 2 awards available
Proposals due: Friday, August 12
PNR Contact: Gail Kouame, Consumer Health Outreach Coordinator

Express Outreach Awards
Amount: up to $15,000, 4 awards available
Proposals due: Friday, August 26
PNR Contacts: Gail Kouame, Consumer Health Outreach Coordinator or Alison Aldrich, Public Health Outreach Coordinator

Professional Development Awards
Amount: up to $1000, multiple awards available
Proposals are accepted on an ongoing basis
PNR Contact: Patricia Devine, Network Outreach Coordinator

Electronic Fund Transfer System Awards
Amount: up to $200, multiple awards available
Proposals are accepted on an ongoing basis
PNR Contact: Patricia Devine, Network Outreach Coordinator

Exhibit Awards
Amount: up to $500, multiple awards available
Proposals are accepted on an ongoing basis
PNR Contact: Patricia Devine, Network Outreach Coordinator

Training Awards
Amount: up to $500, multiple awards available
Proposals are accepted on an ongoing basis
PNR Contact: Patricia Devine, Network Outreach Coordinator

Assessment and Planning Awards
Amount: up to $2000, multiple awards available
Proposals are accepted on an ongoing basis
PNR Contact: Patricia Devine, Network Outreach Coordinator

Awards will be available until funds are expended.  Proposals should be submitted using the Professional Development Award Application.

For additional information, see the full funding announcement, or contact:

Patricia Devine, NN/LM PNR Network Outreach Coordinator, devine@uw.edu, 1-800-338-7657.

• To improve use of quality online health information resources by priority populations
• To promote health information literacy in health education and health care
• To build or strengthen partnerships between network members and other community organizations
• To foster local health information expertise in community organizations
• To promote awareness and use of the products and services of the National Library of Medicine and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine

Applications from libraries and other organizations are welcome.

Consideration of requests for funding will begin on August 26, 2011. Proposals should be submitted using the Application for 2011 Express Outreach Awards.

For additional information, see the full funding announcement, or contact:

Gail Kouame, NN/LM PNR Consumer Health Outreach Coordinator at gmarie@uw.edu, 1-800-338-7657
Alison Aldrich, NN/LM PNR Public Health Outreach Coordinator at aldrich3@uw.edu, 1-800-338-7657

photo by K. Constant

We received the following report from Kathryn Constant, Librarian at Birthingway College of Midwifery, who received a Technology Improvement Award from NN/LM PNR in the spring of 2010. You can be like Kathryn! Proposals for the next round of Technology Improvement Award funding are due on August 12.

Birthingway College of Midwifery Library is a small, one-person-run library in a small non-profit accredited school in Portland, Oregon. Technology is not a word usually associated with midwives. So it really was astounding to receive a Technology Improvement Award from the NN/LM PNR in 2010 for Sharing the S.T.O.R.E. of midwifery-related material.

Sharing the S.T.O.R.E created a new digital health information collection and service to Birthingway College of Midwifery’s Library and the birth-related community the library serves. The project initiated the digitization of the 15 year plus collections of slides, original research-based student theses, sound and video instructional recordings, diagrams, handouts, etc. (S.T.O.R.E.) While this project is far from being completed, its debut has proved very successful.

The project really began with a revised Statement of Work from the NN/LM PNR reviewers. Their wisdom was immediately apparent and appreciated. The proposal was written to include digitization of everything and dissemination to all. The reviewers appreciated the enthusiasm and worthiness of this plan, but realized it was far beyond the scope of a one-year project. “Yes” to digitization of many, but the dissemination could wait. First lessons learned— keep it real and make good use of advice from experts.

In the beginning, the award check arrived and the spending was fun. The library acquired a lovely, fast new computer with a high quality wide screen monitor and an 8 TB Network Area Server (NAS), complete with cables to connect and distribute. It was set up library centric, shiny and new. Then, the technology-here-today-gone-tomorrow phenomena reared its ever-changing data. The all-in-one photo/slide/auto-fed document scanner budgeted for the project not only went up in price, but couldn’t be found in stock anywhere! The scanner, of course, was key to digitizing almost everything. Many deep breaths were had before a solution appeared. We had to get another brand, and it seemed we waited just long enough since an even better all-in-one-do-it-all scanner came down in price to make it within our budget. It even came with some software we knew we needed. Scanner in place, we purchased Adobe Acrobat Pro to covert, copyright-protect, watermark and make our student research projects/thesis Section 508 accessible. Additional modules for the library automation software also arrived and were installed to handle our new media types, tasks, and demands. Most pieces assembled, the digitization experiments began.Summer arrived and the scanning was fine! The tech dude and I giggled with glee with how easy this would be. The research project/thesis papers flowed through the scanner like water. Photographs and slides lit up the computer screen like sunsets. Tests run, we were ready to digitize the S.T.O.R.E.

At first, the copyright assistant for the college was enthused to gain permissions for the S.T.O.R.E. project. It was summer and slower at the college than usual. We would begin by asking for permission of the students to digitize and disseminate their completed thesis/research project papers. Students were emailed and many replied quickly in the affirmative. By the start of fall term, we had more than a dozen papers completed and available in digital format through the library catalog. Birthingway College Library had entered the 21st century!

Fall term was the perfect time to test our project. Fall term is the quarter I teach Research Methods to the advanced students. I use completed research projects as a teaching tool to provide examples of concepts and to show finished products. The problem with using the papers this way was that students always wanted to take the papers home to use as examples when completing their homework tasks. Library policy was that these papers did not circulate. In fact, the only time research papers were ever out of library was for one evening of Research Methods class each year. Students could look at them inside the library, but could not copy them without the authoress’ written permission, which they had to acquire themselves. The disconnect between resource sharing/protecting is obvious by now.

The “test” class started as usual. I walked in carrying an armload of research papers. At the appropriate moment, I passed the papers out to students and everyone started going through them with intense interest. They passed them between themselves. “This is so cool.” “They are all so different-you’d love to read this one.” “Now that I see them, I totally get the idea.” Before I even asked to collect the papers, it happened. “Kathryn, can we take these home with us?” For the first time, I didn’t feel dread when I answered this question. “Sorry to say you can’t take the originals home with you, BUT they are available online through the library catalog.” “No way! That’s awesome!”

And awesome it was and continues to be. Fall term the dozen papers were accessed over 45 times and there were only 8 students enrolled in the class. Without a doubt, I received the best quality assignments in the history of teaching Research Methods. The level of enthusiasm from the students was also remarkable. This class had often been sleeptime for over-tired midwives-in-training.

As the school year continued and these students moved forward into doing their research projects, an unforeseen benefit and measure of success appeared. “Now that my paper is going to be published on the Internet, I really want it to be excellent and meaningful. Midwives from all over the world could see it.” “I was so excited to show my family my research paper. When they saw it download from the library catalog, read it, and saw how much work went in it, they were really impressed and proud of me.” Success? I’d say so and this is just the beginning of Sharing the S.T.O.R.E.