National Network of Libraries of Medicine

Pacific Northwest Region

Quarterly Report
November 2002 to January 2003

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Table of Contents

A. NETWORK PROGRAMS

1. Health Professional Access to Information
2. Assess Needs of Health Science Librarians
3. Network Membership Program
4. Document Delivery
5. Resource Libraries
6. Communication
7. Regional Advisory Committee
8. Monitor Region's Programs
9. User Feedback
10. Training Facility
11. NLM User/Non-User Needs Assessment
12. NLM Grants
13. Follow-up with NLM-funded Projects

B. OUTREACH PROGRAMS

1. Outreach to Health Professionals
2. Consumer Health Information Services
3. Training to Support Electronic Access to Health Information
4. Exhibits and Presentations at Meetings
5. Technology Awareness and Integration
6. Library Improvement
7. Connections

C. ENHANCEMENTS

D. NN/LM WEB SERVICE

E. ADMINISTRATION, STAFF AND OTHER

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A. NETWORK PROGRAMS

1. Health Professional Access to Information
The group subscription to 140 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins electronic journals was successfully renewed for 2003. Twenty-two libraries from four states and one Canadian province are participating, serving a population of 17,878 FTE with access to a large collection of high quality e-journals. Once again, just as last year, negotiations -- led by Susan Barnes, Resource Sharing Coordinator, on behalf of the participants -- regarding participation and cost sharing continued until almost the last minute. The Washington Medical Librarians Association is acting as the fiscal agent for this agreement.

2. Assess Needs of Health Science Librarians
Maryanne Blake, Education/Communication Coordinator, conducted the joint Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association and NN/LM PNR professional development survey of librarians in the region. The survey was Web-based for the first time and many of the questions were different from previous versions. A total of 68 people completed the survey, a 28% increase over last year. The top suggestions for classes were digital libraries and electronic resources, including journals, and how to market to administration and other user groups. A copy of the survey results is included in the appendix.

3. Network Membership Program
In this region as of the end of this quarter:

• 159 Full Members -- 1 new one: the library at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 office, in Seattle, WA; and one, which had been closed in the past but not removed from membership, taken out. (Note that this number does not include WAUPNR, which is counted as a full member by DOCUSER because it is active in DOCLINE. However, WAUPNR is the LIBID for the NN/LM PNR office.)
• 149 Affiliate Members -- 2 new this quarter: Multnomah County Library in Portland, OR, and Everett Community College Library in Everett, WA.
• 163 DOCLINE participants -- 1 new one: US EPA Region 10 library. (Note: 4 of these are borrow-only libraries and therefore not full members.) (Also, note that this number also omits WAUPNR, which is an active DOCLINE participant but is the LIBID for the NN/LM PNR office.)
• 14 Public Libraries, one of which is a DOCLINE participant (and therefore a full member) -- 1 new public library -- Multnomah County Library -- this quarter.
• 149 SERHOLD participants -- 1 new one: the US EPA Region 10 library, and one taken out: the closed library mentioned above. (Note that this number omits 2 demonstration libraries plus WAUPNR from DOCUSER's list of SERHOLD participants.)

The Directory of Health Science Libraries in the Pacific Northwest is in its final editing stages.

4. Document Delivery
Participation in the Electronic Funds Transfer System (EFTS) began in this region in November, with Virginia Mason Medical Center of Seattle, WA, the first library to join. Since then, four additional libraries have joined: Willamette Falls Hospital in Oregon City, OR; Swedish Medical Center-First Hill and Swedish Medical Center-Providence in Seattle, WA; and Linfield College Portland Campus, Portland, OR.

An effort to encourage libraries in this region to use electronic document delivery (EDD) began, based on results from the survey conducted by the Pacific Northwest Chapter/Medical Library Association Technology Committee, chaired by Ms. Barnes, Resource Sharing Coordinator. The library at the Intercollegiate College of Nursing -- a resource library -- is sending a test TIFF file to libraries so that they can learn whether they can open and read this standard format used by the Ariel EDD software. This ability to receive documents is the first, least complicated step toward EDD participation. The test was announced on our regional e-mail discussion list, HLIB-NW on January 23. By the end of the quarter, 26 libraries had requested test TIFF files to be sent (this includes two Canadian libraries, a library in Wyoming, and a library in North Dakota -- evidence of the broad reach of our regional discussion list). Libraries that open this test file successfully will be encouraged to change their DOCUSER records to indicate that they can receive via e-mail in TIFF format. The PNC/MLA Technology Committee will conduct further educational efforts to help DOCLINE libraries in this region expand their EDD capacities.

The DOCLINE Tutorial at http://nnlm.gov/train/tutor/docline/ -- and linked from the DOCLINE Help section -- was updated to reflect version 1.4 improvements plus changes in PubMed and LOCATORplus. Most of the tutorial required revision.

The Web site that offers public access to SERHOLD data grew to cover three regions (Pacific Northwest, South Central, and Midcontinental) and two Canadian provinces.

5. Resource Libraries
Sherrilynne Fuller, Director, Neil Rambo, Associate Director, and Ms. Barnes, conducted the first of a planned series of site visits to resource libraries by traveling to the Oregon Health & Sciences University library in Portland, OR, for a 1-day visit. Wide-ranging discussions included research into information needs of county public health workers; access to electronic content from remote locations; an Internet Access to Digital Libraries grant-funded project to provide e-journal and e-book access to licensed nurses in Oregon, and issues in adopting EFTS by large libraries whose document delivery operations depend on cost recovery.

6. Communication
The December 2002 issue of Medicine on the Net featured an article on the newly launched Indian Health Service Consumer Health Information page which was developed by PNR staff. The page can be accessed at http://www.ihs.gov/medicalprograms/consumer-health/index.asp. The article is on page 10. A copy is attached to this report.

The fall issue of Dragonfly, the PNR newsletter, was closed in December with six articles. Topics included new outreach projects funded by the RML, EFTS and DOCLINE, and PubMed.

The Tribal Connections project Web site -- www.tribalconnections.org -- was redesigned to become more of a portal for AI/AN health information resources with a focus on NLM resources. Work continued on refining and organizing the content.

There were 248 messages on HLIB-NW, the regional discussion list. Forty-eight of these messages, or 19%, were sent from PNRNews, the official PNR announcement list.

Ms. Blake, Ms. Barnes and Linda Milgrom, Outreach Coordinator, attended the Washington Medical Librarians Association (WMLA) Internet Users Group meeting in November in Seattle, WA. Ms. Milgrom presented a PubMed update and Ms. Barnes informed the attendees on the progress of the regional group purchase of e-journals.

Ms. Blake attended the Public Health Grand Rounds satellite broadcast "Wired Communities: Putting the e in Public Health" on January 31, at the DHHS Region X offices in Seattle, WA, with Steve Rauch and Margaret Shields of the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. This was an opportunity to see the Region X facility for receiving satellite broadcasts and discuss the possibility of the RML using the facility in the future.

RML staff members participated in all teleconference calls depending on availability.

7. Regional Advisory Committee.

8. Monitor Region's Programs

9. User Feedback

10. Training Facility

11. NLM User/Nonuser Needs Assessment

12. NLM Grants
Sharon Pirente of Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg, ID, contacted Ms. Milgrom after receiving word that her IADL proposal had not been funded. Ms. Milgrom offered to review her application and provided detailed feedback for a possible re-submission.

13. Follow-up with NLM-funded Projects
Ms. Milgrom spoke with Ron O'Halloran, PI of an Internet Connections project in Ferry County, WA. As soon as equipment purchased with grant funds is installed and tested, they will contact the RML for training.

B. OUTREACH PROGRAM
New Outreach Project Awards were made to Washington State University (Pullman, WA) for information support for professionals who see migrant and seasonal workers in Central Washington; the EthnoMed project group at Harborview Medical Center (Seattle, WA) to work with PEI to create an interactive tutorial in Vietnamese on breast cancer; and to the Oregon Pacific AHEC (Corvallis, OR) for internet training for rural mental health professionals. Start dates for these projects was December 1, 2002. It should be noted that proposals had been received and reviewed by RML and outside reviewers in July. By the time reviews and questions were sent back and forth between NLM, the RML, the bidders, and the University of Washington grants and contracts offices, five months had passed. This seems an excessive amount of time spent on largely administrative matters for $15,000 projects!

Reports from RML-funded outreach projects at Oregon Health & Sciences University, Southwest Oregon AHEC, and Cross Cultural Resource Center are attached. Outreach Reporting Forms for three training sessions conducted by Southwest Oregon AHEC's CyberCamp project are also appended. The RML continues to monitor these projects and to offer assistance if needed. Quarterly reports for the new projects mentioned above will be included beginning with the February-April 2003 quarter, since they had no significant progress to mention in December and January.

Date	Location	Sponsor	Activity	Focus	No. of Attendees	Staff
11/15/02	Seattle, WA	WMLA	Train	HP	18	Milgrom
11/26/02	Central Point, OR	SW Oregon AHEC	Train	Cons	8	Brendan Ashby
12/04/02	Medford, OR	SW Oregon AHEC	Train	Cons	3	Brendan Ashby
12/04/02	Medford, OR	SW Oregon AHEC	Train	Cons	8	Brendan Ashby
12/04/02	Ellensburg, WA	Kittitas Valley Hospital	Train	HP	20	Melanie Jones
12/04/02	Ellensburg, WA	Kittitas Valley Hospital	Train	HP	20	Melanie Jones
12/30/02	Seattle, WA	NN/LM PNR	Train	Cons	1	Blake
1/31/03	Seattle, WA	UW Continuing Nurses Education	Train	HP	150	Milgrom
				TOTAL	228

Focus (targeted program area): HP=health professional, Cons=consumer, TA=technology awareness, LI=library improvement, Conn=connections

1. Outreach to Health Professionals
Ms. Milgrom presented a PubMed update to the Washington Medical Librarians Association Internet Users Group in Seattle, WA, in November.

Melanie Jones, librarian at Kittitas Valley Community Hospital in Ellensburg, WA, gave two MEDLINEplus/PubMed training sessions to nurses and community members in the area in December.

Ms. Milgrom gave a presentation -- "Navigating the Web: Internet Resources for School Nurses" -- at a University of Washington-sponsored Continuing Nursing Education Conference, in January. Outreach Reporting Forms for these sessions are appended and have also been submitted via the web-based outreach report system.

Mr. Rambo chaired the NN/LM Public Health Outreach Evaluation Task Force and participated in several task force conference calls. Work on the logic model defining the plan for outreach to the public health workforce was largely complete by December. Mr. Rambo attended the American Public Health Association annual conference in Philadelphia in November. He attended sessions on health literacy and public health informatics. He participated in a meeting on the feasibility of organizing a public health informatics special interest group.

2. Consumer Health Information Services
Staff provided referral information to NLM for the office of Representative George Nethercutt, Jr. of the 5th Legislative District in eastern Washington. Constituents were seeking specialists to provide treatment for their child. Using the relevant MeSH (CHOLANGITIS, SCLEROSING) combined with geographic terms (SPOKANE or SEATTLE) revealed U. of Washington clinicians who work in this area; MEDLINEplus revealed a local consumer health library; and the U. of Washington Medical Center Web site led to the UW's MEDCON referral service.

Mr. Rambo participated in the review of proposals for the Electronic Access to Health Information awards held in Chicago, IL, in November. As with other Associate Directors, he served as a resource person to answer questions about the region's proposals. The Pacific Northwest Region had eight proposals that were reviewed.

Mr. Rambo was appointed chair of the newly approved Medical Library Association Task Force on Health Information Literacy and began recruiting members for the task force in November and December. An initial task force conference call took place in January. A focus of the task force is defining roles for librarians in health literacy and improving health information service to patients and the general public.

3. Training to Support Electronic Access to Health Information
Ms. Blake provided a 1.5 hour one-on-one PubMed training for Kiki Tommila, a librarian from Salish Kootenai College. Ms. Tommila came to the RML office in Seattle for the training.

4. Exhibits and Presentations at Meetings
This was a quiet quarter for exhibits. Vicki Croft (Washington State University) exhibited at the 4th Inland Northwest Cancer Conference, Spokane, WA, November 8-9, 2002. The RML supported her exhibit with a $500 mini-award. Exhibit report is appended.

The RML also granted an exhibit award to Bill Kehler (Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT) to support an exhibit at the Montana Library Association meeting to be held in April 2003.

Ms. Blake did significant updating of the 2002-2003 NN/LM Exhibit Schedule on the NN/LM Intranet.

Date	Location	Sponsor	Activity	Focus	No. of Attendees	Staff
11/08/02	Spokane, WA	Inland NW Cancer Conference	Exhibit	HP	25	Vicki Croft Bob Pringle
				TOTAL	25

Focus (targeted program area): HP=health professional, Cons=consumer, TA=technology awareness, LI=library improvement, Conn=connections

5. Technology Awareness and Integration

6. Library Improvement

7. Connections
Roy Sahali, Tribal Connection project manager and Community Resources Coordinator:

• Provided continuing support to Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) technology director Elstun Lawsten and executive direction Mark Ufkas; discussion topics included possible health resources for a proposed mobile technology van and the setup on an Internet Cafe for the Feb. regional conference held in Portland.
• Began the planning for the ATNI-sponsored Tribal Technology Visioning Conference II, scheduled for May 2003. Mr. Sahali also began project planning discussions with Carla Schafer, fundraiser for Everett Community College, for a project with the Sauk-Suiattle tribe in Darrington, WA, having to do with an inventory of medicinal plants and herbs in their area.
• Negotiated with the Muckelshoot tribe about supporting the production of documentation for the Visioning Conference II and discussed continuing support for new features on the Tribal Connections website, including adding editorial content and streaming audio and video.
• Provided support for the African American Reach and Teach Health Ministry consumer health project until the consumer health coordinator was hired in Jan.
• Opened discussions with Randy Ross of the American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC) -- www.adec.edu -- for future satellite web cast and distribution of health information content for tribes.
• Discussed with Amy Phillipson, Director of the UW Research Channel, about providing health programming from our PNR/Tribal Connections office for replay on the Research Channel.

C. ENHANCEMENTS
Tribal Connections Project, Phase 3:

Ms. Barnes assisted with the Samish Tribe's (Anacortes, WA) development of a ten-year health plan by facilitating the Tribal Health Committee's discussions regarding priorities. Notes from these discussions were compiled and given to the director of the Samish Department of Health and Human Services for use in crafting the plan. These notes were accompanied by information and references from the health planning literature, especially that which related to Healthy People 2010.

Ms. Milgrom continued to work with members of the community health staff of the Nez Perce Tribe in Lapwai, ID. During the quarter the key contact person (Julie Keller) was identified, and the project was clarified to include: the production of short videos on diabetes topics, training for staff, and design of a health information space in the new clinic), and a memorandum of agreement was drafted.

Mr. Sahali assisted the three staff librarians -- Ms. Barnes, Ms. Blake, and Ms. Milgrom -- in working with the three tribal reservation communities.

Mr. Sahali provided continuing support to Molly McGretrick for the Gates Foundation-funded Tribal Health Connections project in the Four Corners region.

Mr Sahali participated in discussions with Claire Hamasu, associate director of the MCR, regarding inter-regional collaboration and support for Tribal Health Connections, the NLM-funded School Mental Health (Molly McGetrick), and the MCR-based Tribal Connections Four Corners projects.

D. NN/LM WEB SERVICE
The Tribal Connections website was moved from florence.hslib.washington.edu to the new NN/LM Linux servers.

NN/LM Web Service: Visits per Month
Year	November	December	January
2003			88512
2002	90785	75248	95478
2001	86781	75480

NN/LM Web Service: /members/reports/Transmitted
Year	November	December	January
2003			3645
2002	5181	2664	6196
2001	6233	4506

E. ADMINISTRATION, STAFF AND OTHER

Ms. Blake and Ms. Milgrom participated in testing of the NNO/ National Outreach Mapping Center Web-based Outreach Reporting system and attended the teleconference training session. They also tested and provided feedback on NLM's outreach projects database/system.
Michael Boer is participating in the National Outreach Mapping Center Technical Advisory Committee. In addition to weekly conference calls, his role includes training staff to use the NOMC.Projects table and maintaining the NOMC.Role_Assignments table.

Ms. Milgrom and Ms. Blake were on the screening committee for the Consumer Health Coordinator search. Gail Kouame joined the RML as Consumer Health Coordinator on January 15.

Mr. Rambo participated in the winter 2003 Medical Library Association Board of Directors meeting in Chicago, IL, at the end of January/beginning of February.