National Network of Libraries of Medicine

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Dragonfly

Spring - Summer 2002 -- Volume 33, Number 2

Oregon Library Wins Excellence Award!

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.


(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)	(from left to right: Duane Arenales, Chief of NLM's Technical Services Division, Claudia Jones, and Christa Hoffmann, Head of NLM's Cataloging Division)

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)

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.

NN/LM | UW HSL | NN/LM PNR | Contact us: nnlm@u.washington.edu | Revised: September 5, 2002

National Network of Libraries of Medicine

nnlm.gov

Dragonfly

Spring - Summer 2002 -- Volume 33, Number 2

Oregon Library Wins Excellence Award!

URL: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/news/200204/wallowa.html