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Dragonfly, Spring 2001 The Pacific Northwest in the Desert Southwest

The Pacific Northwest regional office of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine has embarked upon a new effort, the Tribal Connections Southwest Project, in which we will be working with tribal communities in the Four Corners area, providing training and resources to support access to health information. How has the Pacific Northwest found itself working in the desert Southwest? It all began with Tribal Connections. The Tribal Connections project, which brought computer equipment, Internet connectivity, and training to 16 tribes in the Pacific Northwest, has been an exciting and rewarding effort. The overall project goal has been to minimize isolation and improve access to remote social and health resources, and these efforts have extended to all five states in our region: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. (A list of the participating American Indian and Alaska Native communities is at http://www.tribalconnections.org/participants/phase1.html).

Meanwhile, in a separate but parallel effort, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation embarked upon its Native American Access to Technology Program (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/publicinfoaccess/nativeamerican.htm). The goal of this program is "to empower Native communities through increased access to digital information resources." The equipment, connectivity, training, and support provided by the Gates Foundation are intended to address the basic information needs of participating communities. As this program has progressed, the Gates Foundation has perceived a need for additional training beyond the instruction in using basic applications provided by Gates Foundation trainers. In response to this need, and with the conviction that health information is a crucial subject domain of great interest and importance to everyone, the Foundation has selected a group with a proven track record. It has funded the University of Washington's Health Sciences Library - the regional medical library for the Pacific Northwest - to provide training in finding and using electronic health information resources coupled with access to these resources. We will be working with librarians, health professionals, and community members from a selection of tribes in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah -- the region known as the Four Corners area.

At about the same time, the National Library of Medicine decided that the Tribal Connections project had proven successful enough to warrant expansion to other areas where tribal life is characterized by isolation, great distances, and inadequate access to computing and telecommunications technologies. Knowing that Gates funding would take us to the Four Corners area, we aimed this expansion at the Southwest. Following a request for proposals that was issued in fall, 2000, the Pacific Northwest regional office of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine provided funding to the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Parker, Arizona; the Pueblo of Jemez in New Mexico; the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico; and the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes at the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada.

The Southwest Project, then, is the result of support from both the National Library of Medicine and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We look forward to collaborating with our health library colleagues in these four states, which are each served by a strong and active Resource Library. In addition, these states are members of three different regions within the National Network of Libraries of Medicine: Arizona is part of the Pacific Southwest region; New Mexico is within the South Central region; and Utah and Colorado are in the Midcontinental region (which has a brand-new regional medical library in the Eccles Library at the University of Utah). During these initial weeks of our Southwest Project, we have participated in meetings with interested representatives from most of these institutions. We have also been recruiting two new staff members who will join our team for the duration of this two-year project. One will be primarily responsible for assessing training needs, building community relationships, and conducting training. The other will assess health information needs and create a collection of resources - principally electronic - to address these needs. These two new staff members will form a working group with Roy Sahali, the architect of our previous Tribal Connections work.

The Southwest Project will combine the health information outreach of Tribal Connections with the technology infrastructure provided by the Gates Foundation in order to help bridge the digital divide. As the project proceeds, we'll keep you posted! Meanwhile, if you have questions about this project feel free to contact Roy Sahali (rs@u.washington.edu, 206-543-9253) or Neil Rambo (nrambo@u.washington.edu, 206-543-3402).

Dragonfly, Spring 2001 -- Vol. 32, Number 2
(posted on PNRNews June 15, 2001)

URL: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/news/200104/southwest.html