The NLM Technical Bulletin recent announced a change which went into effect at the end of last week.

The Limits Page has been replaced by an easy-to-use Filters Sidebar. Similar to the way Limits worked, Filters will remain in effect, once selected, until they are cleared. The Filters Sidebar will not be visible until the search results are displayed, so this will require a slight change in searching habits for some. A new tutorial about Filters has been published on YouTube.

Another recent change to PubMed is the ability to click on an author name in a citation to execute a more relevant search. PubMed will search for the same author by comparing metadata for more precise results.

Your feedback on these and other changes to PubMed is welcome! Please use the “Write to the Help Desk” link at the bottom of every PubMed screen.

There are a limited number of spaces available for these free training opportunities from the National Library of Medicine Training Center (NTC) in Portland, OR next month. The PubMed online sessions begin on May 30th – don’t miss your chance! Details about the classes and how to register are below.

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The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies has made available a discussion paper, describing 10 attributes of a helath literate organization, to guide health care organizations that seek to ensure that everyone gets the greatest benefit possible from health care information and services. The authors are participants in  the Workgroup on Attributes of a Health Literate Organization of the IOM Roundtable on Health Literacy.

A PDF of the discussion paper is available free of charge.

By Joana Ramos
Founding member, Board member, and Chair, Healthcare Committee,
Washington State Coalition for Language Access

The Washington State Coalition for Language Access (WASCLA) is a young organization that seeks to eliminate language barriers in all areas of public life in the state, through education and advocacy. WASCLA is currently an all-volunteer group with very limited resources, so members were excited to learn that the 2011 National Immigrant Integration Conference would be held in Seattle. Not many major national conferences are held here, let alone one so specific to our mission. Travel costs usually limit the possibilities for those of us in the helping professions and community services sector from being able to participate in such venues, as important as they are for our work. We soon realized however, that the registration fees for the NIIC were beyond the reach of our organization. (more…)

Sarah Caldwell is a student in the Master of Library and Information Science program at the University of Washington Information School. She is interning with the NNLM PNR office until she graduates in June. She can be contacted at scald3@uw.edu.

So many physical objects have digital equivalents — the computer “desktop.” the email “inbox,” even the sticky note — so why not a digital pinboard? Pinterest is the latest tool for sharing web content, and it is geared specifically to images. Its popularity is growing quickly, and libraries and librarians are exploring ways to use Pinterest to engage users. On March 28, librarians and library staff at the University of Washington participated in a webinar titled “Pinterest for Museums & Libraries” presented by Joe Murphy.

So, what is Pinterest? Joe described it a number of ways: as “a social sharing and visual discovery tool,” “a way to connect people through shared tastes and interests,” “a platform for search and discovery,” and “a way to curate hopes and dreams.” That’s powerful stuff! (more…)

Edit: A recording is now available at https://webmeeting.nih.gov/p35281543/, and you may be interested in a link to NLM tools for EHR Certification and Meaningful Use.

Have you heard that the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is specifically mentioned in proposed objectives to help healthcare providers achieve Meaningful Use of electronic health records (EHRs) as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act? Want to know more about MedlinePlus Connect and how the use of free high quality patient information from MedlinePlus via EHRs helps to achieve Meaningful Use? (more…)