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DragonflyNewsletter of the NN/LM PNR
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Claudia Jones, director of the Wallowa County Library, traveled to Atlanta last month to accept the Public Library Association's Excellence in Small and/or Rural Public Library Service Award for 2002. The award was presented in a ceremony at Turner Stadium as part of the American Library Association annual meeting, and NLM staff members were there to join in the celebration.
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(from left to right: Toni Garvey, PLA President; Joe
Weed, EBSCO Vice President of Marketing; and Claudia
Jones as she receives the award for her library)
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(from left to right: Duane Arenales, Chief of NLM's
Technical Services Division, Claudia Jones, and Christa
Hoffmann, Head of NLM's Cataloging Division)
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You may remember this library; Nancy Press described it last year in her article, "What Happens When a Whole County Is Connected for Health Information?". The Wallowa County Library serves a population of 7,000 from its headquarters in a former church in Enterprise, Oregon. The library is particularly active in working with childcare providers, preschools, parent support groups, and local agencies serving children and families. It has also become a community focal point for consumer health information, after receiving an NLM Health Connections Grant for equipment, connectivity, and training in 2001. "There are weeks when the phone never stops ringing and a steady stream of people show up asking for consumer health references, items from the parenting and family resource collections, curriculum support materials for 5th grade students studying the Civil War, or preschool books and educational toys from the Training Wheels lending libraries," Ms. Jones says.
The recent publicity that the library has received has helped bring a better awareness to the community. A glance at the Wallowa County Library's Web site gives an idea of the wide range of activities and services that the library provides. In a county like Wallowa, where the unemployment rate is among the state's highest, recognition like the Public Library Association's award and NLM's grant are extremely important in helping bring the library to the notice of the Board of Commissioners, and puts the library in a stronger position when funding priorities are being set. Ms. Jones talks about the fact that, when the NLM Health Connections Grant was awarded, there were only two DSL sites in the entire county. Now that the library also has a DSL connection, Ms. Jones has begun to provide advice to others in the county about this option for acquiring a high-bandwidth Internet connection. The advantages to the library of improved connectivity reinforced the county courthouse decision to obtain a DSL connection, so that the county assessors would no longer have to wait for maps to download over a slow telephone line.
Requests for consumer health information have become more frequent since the library's capacity to answer them was upgraded through NLM support. In addition, an increasing number of retirees is moving to the canyon areas of the county and they bring along their own health information needs. Ms. Jones says, "MEDLINEplus is fabulous. It's wonderful to be able to help community members who come in with obscure medical topics. Having access to reliable health information lets people feel like they have some control over their treatment, rather than feeling like victims."
Read a fascinating interview with Claudia in the summer, 2002 issue of Eastern Oregon Link News. Wallowa County Library is one of the new public library members of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, and we offer them our most enthusiastic congratulations!
Dragonfly, Spring - Summer 2002 - Volume 33, Number 2
(posted on PNRNews on July 31, 2002)
By Neil Rambo
Associate Director, NN/LM
PNR
Nancy Press has been a mainstay in the Regional Medical Library program for the past 23 years. She is the longest serving RML staff member in the country. She has served two regions with distinction.
Nancy began her career in health sciences librarianship as the Medical Librarian at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound's Eastside Hospital in suburban Seattle, from 1977 to 1979. She then moved to Boston and found her way to Harvard's Countway Library where she served as Program Coordinator for the New England Regional Medical Library Service, from 1979-1982. Nancy returned to Seattle and has worked at the Pacific Northwest Regional Medical Library ever since-June 1, 1982 through May 31, 2002.
Her first task for the PNRML was to write the proposal for the contract that was then up for renewal, a job not for the faint hearted. She has been instrumental in writing contract proposals ever since -through seven different contract periods! That is a record that is unlikely to be approached, let alone matched, by anyone
Nancy has served in many roles throughout 20 years with PNRML:
Some of the classes she developed and taught to colleagues around the country include:
A few of Nancy's many accomplishments:
Nancy plans to take the summer off to enjoy her family. Fortunately the library community will not be losing her as she will be Library Director and faculty member-teaching history and religious studies-at the Mars Hill Graduate School in the Seattle area.
The Pacific Northwest Region, and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, will miss Nancy's brilliance, her energy, and her strong advocacy of all that she passionately believes in. We at the PNRML, and all her colleagues, wish Nancy the best and hope her voice continues to be part of our conversation.
Here are remembrances of Nancy Press from some of her colleagues
Dragonfly, Spring - Summer 2002 - Volume 33, Number 2
(posted on PNRNews on June 6, 2002)
By Jane Saxton, MLIS, Library Director
Bastyr University, Kenmore, Washington
This article was originally a handout for a presentation given by Jane Saxton at the 2002 Annual WMLA Meeting. Dragonfly is grateful for the permission to reprint it. A printable version of the handout is at: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/train/cammedline.doc
MEDLINE (http://pubmed.gov) is the world's premier biomedical database. Currently, it indexes around 600 journals relating to the field of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). The MeSH Browser allows you to explore current Medical Subject Headings by providing definitions of terms and detailed subject hierarchies, or MeSH trees. The MeSH Browser is located on the left sidebar of the PubMed search screen.
Selected MeSH Headings for CAM Topics
Acupuncture Therapy
Homeopathy
Massage
Medicine, Chinese Traditional
Mind-Body Relations (Metaphysics)
Naturopathy
Phytotherapy
Psychoneuroimmunology
Relaxation Techniques
Sensory Art Therapies
| MeSH Headings: | Selected Keywords: |
|---|---|
|
Medicine, Chinese Traditional -- Acupuncture -- (refers to the health profession only) Acupuncture Therapy -- (includes Acupressure, Moxibustion and headings related to theory and practice) Drugs, Chinese Herbal -- Individual names of Chinese herbs that are MeSH headings, e.g. Astragulus Pulse -- (use in conjunction with other headings, such as Medicine, Chinese Traditional or Acupuncture Therapy) Tai Ji tao (or dao) |
Individual names of Chinese herbs (not MeSH) channel or channels -- (use in conjunction with other headings, such as Medicine, Chinese Traditional or Acupuncture Therapy) ch'i -- (still useful as a keyword even though Qi is the new MeSH heading) qi gong, and the alternate spelling qigong* -- Possible spelling variations of this term: (qi or chi or ki) with (kong or gung or kung or gong) tongue diagnosis -- (use in conjunction with the heading Medicine, Chinese Traditional) tuina or tui na *Both qi gong and qigong are associated with the MeSH term Breathing Exercises and will retrieve citations on this broader heading. |
MEDLINE indexes such research under the common and/or scientific name of the whole plant, and/or under its active constituents. For example, both milk thistle (a plant with well-researched liver-protective properties) and one of its major constituents, silymarin, are MeSH headings, but most of the research is indexed only under the latter term. Genistein and daidzein are both constituents of soybeans and much of the research on soy is indexed under them, either as a MeSH tem or a Substance Name.
Constituents and whole plants live in separate MeSH trees, or subject areas, that are not linked. Constituents are in the Chemicals and Drugs Category, while whole plants are in Plant Families and Groups.
With these facts in mind, be creative. Experiment
with searches that include some or all of the following,
ORing them together: the plant's common name;
the plant's scientific name or genus; and/or active
constituent(s) specific to that particular plant, or the
group of plants to which it belongs, that have been suggested
as producing a therapeutic effect.
For example:
(soybeans OR genistein) AND menopause;
(licorice OR glycerrhiza OR glycyrrhetinic acid) AND cancer.
Note: Important constituents can often be
identified by entering the plant name in the MeSH Browser and
perusing the definition and/or by scanning pertinent
abstracts and subject headings, especially the Substance
Names list. (See the later section, MEDLINE
Fundamentals, for instructions on how to display MeSH
headings in addition to abstracts.)
Print resources are also helpful. See the Botanical
Medicine Resources tip sheet, available from the Bastyr University
Library, for a bibliography.
The National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and the
National Library of Medicine (NLM), both at the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
created this subset. This feature is especially useful for
finding CAM information on specific health conditions, or to
limit concepts such as placebo.
Enter search terms in the PubMed search box, then click the
Limits button, open the Subsets menu and select
Complementary Medicine.
The Complementary Medicine subset is updated daily, except
Sunday and Monday. You can look at the complex search strategy
used to identify citations at
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pubmed_subsets/comp_med_strategy.html.
Caution: The Complementary Medicine subset is generally more useful for health conditions and concepts than for botanical substances, many of which have little research to begin with, or are already included in the subset. Be careful limiting searches on complementary and alternative medicine. Do some preliminary work collecting search terms and then run the search. If you get too many hits, or many that aren't on target, revise your search and consider using a limiting feature such as this Complementary Medicine subset.
Using the Complementary Medicine Subset with PubMed's Clinical Queries Feature*
Click Clinical
Queries on the left sidebar of the PubMed search screen.
Choose either Clinical Queries Using Methodology
Filters or Systematic Reviews.
(Explanations of these options are available on the site.)
Use the following format to enter search terms, where cam
[sb] specifies the Complementary Medicine
subset:
arthritis AND cam [sb].
You can also search for clinical or review information on botanical and nutritional substances by entering terms such as st john's wort or beta carotene in the search box.
* We thank Andrew Hamilton, of the National
Online Training Center, National Library of Medicine, for his
insights in developing this CAM search
methodology.
Natural language text words and phrases are especially useful when researching CAM topics. MEDLINE automatically compares phrases to a Phrase Index. If the phrase you enter is not found, MEDLINE will break the terms apart, combine them with AND and search for them separately. Examples of natural language search terms are:
| craniosacral therapy | medicinal herbs |
| drug herb (or -nutrient) interactions | magnet therapy |
| functional foods | meditative state |
| heal fasting | phytotherapeutics |
| herbal medicine | wellness |
Dragonfly, Spring - Summer 2002 - Volume 33, Number 2
(posted on PNRNews on May 30, 2002)
Five libraries in the Pacific Northwest have been selected to host the touring exhibit, Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature. The libraries are: Missoula Public Library, Missoula, MT; Multnomah County Public Library, Portland, OR; Salem Public Library, Salem, OR; Tacoma Public Library, Tacoma, WA and the University of Washington Libraries, Seattle, WA.
A partnership between the National Library Medicine (NLM), the American Library Association's (ALA) Public Programs Office, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), who provided grant funding, made the tour possible. Public, academic and medical libraries throughout the country could apply for grant funding to host the Frankenstein exhibit. The forty recipients were announced on March 30th, 2002.
The traveling exhibition, and its related materials, are based on a larger one originally developed at NLM's History of Medicine Division. The exhibit is intended to encourage audiences not merely to look at Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the monster myth popularized by Hollywood, but also to explore "broader questions about the public's fear of science and its powers" 1 and "their own views about personal and societal responsibility as it relates to science and other areas of life." 2
The six main sections of the exhibition focus on:
1. Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein; its metaphorical aspects; and the literary, scientific and political environment that influenced Mary Shelley as she created the scientist and his monster; the complexities of Shelley's monster - his sensitivity and yearning for acceptance into the human community.
2. The focus of scientific development in the late 18th and early 19th centuries on reanimation and resuscitation of the dead; and the belief that the world's problems could be solved through science.
3. Passages from the novel and how they illuminate the dilemmas raised by Dr. Frankenstein's ability to create life and his failure to take responsibility for what he has created.
4. The interpretations and distortions of the Frankenstein story in the 19th and 20th centuries in various media, such as theatre, political cartoons, and film; and the uses of the Frankenstein metaphor in the political and scientific spheres.
5. Popular scientific developments in the 1930s when the Frankenstein films attracted a large following, including the glass heart co-developed by Charles Lindebergh and cardiac pace makers.
6. Contrasts between science as conducted in Mary Shelley's novel and science as it is pursued in the 21st century, and the ways citizens and experts negotiate the moral and social boundaries of acceptable society, especially in controversial areas such as cloning.3
The exhibit will be touring the country from October 2002 through December 2005.
1. "Frankenstein Invades NIH!" NIH UPDATE. Press Release on October 27, 1997. National Institutes of Health Web Site [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Institutes of Health ; [cited 2002 April 24] Available from: http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/oct97/nlm-27.htm
2." Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature." American Library Association Public Programs Office Web site [Internet]. Chicago (IL): American Library Association; [cited 2002 Apr 24] Available from: http://www.ala.org/publicprograms/frankenstein/
3. "Frankenstein Exhibit Outline & Dimensions.". American Library Association Public Programs Office Web site [Internet]. Chicago (IL): American Library Association; [cited 2002 Apr 24] Available from: http://www.ala.org/publicprograms/frankenstein/exhibit.html
Dragonfly, Spring - Summer 2002 -- Volume 33, Number 2
(posted on PNRNews April 24, 2002)
Note from your RML: If you already link to MEDLINEplus from your Web site, or decide to link because of this article, please let us know. Tell us if you have received any feedback about the link.
Does your institution's web site need consumer health information? If it does, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) invites you to link from your web site to MEDLINEplus at http://medlineplus.gov/. MEDLINEplus brings together, by health topic, authoritative information from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), other government, non-profit and other health-related organizations. Preformulated MEDLINE searches are included in MEDLINEplus and give easy access to the medical research literature. It also provides a database of full-text drug information, interactive health tutorials and an illustrated medical encyclopedia.
Advantages of linking to MEDLINEplus include:
What's the best way to link to MEDLINEplus? You are welcome to link to MEDLINEplus or any of the over 500 health topic pages, either directly or by opening a new window. The advantage of opening a new window is that your users still have a browser window with your web site available. One proviso, because of arrangements with licensed content providers please do not place any pages in a frame. Here are some images and text to assist you in coding your HTML link to MEDLINEplus. Be sure to observe the form of the MEDLINEplus name, which should always begin with "MEDLINE" in capital letters and "plus" in lower-case letters.
To point to MEDLINEplus, the code is:
<a
href=http://medlineplus.gov/>MEDLINEplus</A>
To point users to MEDLINEplus and open the results in a new window, the code is:
<a href="http://medlineplus.gov/" target="medlinepluswindow">MEDLINEplus</a>
To put the MEDLINEplus search box on your own page, the code is:
<form method="post" action="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/medlineplus/search2.pl"> Search <a href="http://medlineplus.gov/">MEDLINEplus</a>: <input type="text" name="words" size="20" maxlength="60"> <input type="hidden" name="config" value="medplus_fuzzy"> <input type="hidden" name="method" value="and"> <input type="hidden" name="format" value="builtin-short"> <input type="hidden" name="restrict" value=""> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go"> </form>
To put the MEDLINEplus search box on your own page and open the results in a new window, the code is:
<form method="post" action="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/medlineplus/search2.pl" target="resultwindow"> Search <a href="http://medlineplus.gov/">MEDLINEplus</a>: <input type="text" name="words" size="20" maxlength="60"> <input type="hidden" name="config" value="medplus_fuzzy"> <input type="hidden" name="method" value="and"> <input type="hidden" name="format" value="builtin-short"> <input type="hidden" name="restrict" value=""> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Go"> </form>
We hope this information will be useful. Additional text to describe MEDLINEplus and graphics are available from the Linking to MEDLINEplus page at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/linking.html.
Dragonfly, Spring - Summer 2002 - Volume 33, Number
2
(posted on PNRNews on April 29, 2002)
Produced by the NN/LM PNR
Maryanne Blake, Editor
Michael Boer, Publication Manager
This publication is funded in whole with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. N01-LM-1-3516.
NLM | MedlinePlus | PubMed | NLM Gateway | TOXNET | LOCATORplus
NN/LM | UW HSL | NN/LM PNR | Contact us: nnlm@u.washington.edu | Revised: September 5, 2002