November/December 2001 volume 10, issue 6 In this issue: NLM Projects Enhance Public Access to Health Information   Kudos to Network Members for National Medical Librarians Month!   Redesigned PSRML Website   Membership Renewal is About to Begin!   Report on Orientation Meeting for Exhibits Volunteers   Toxicological Profiles from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry   MEDLINEplus Milestones   MEDLINE is 30 Years Old!   MeSH 2002: Online and in Print   NLM Technical Bulletin Highlights   In every issue: Table of Contents for the NLM Technical Bulletin   Upcoming Events - 2001 to 2002   Publication Information

NLM Funded Projects Enhance Public Access to Health Information In 2000, six NN/LM Pacific Southwest Region libraries were awarded funding for projects developed in response to the NLM Request for Proposals: Access to Electronic Health Information for the Public. PSRML administered these fifteen-to-eighteen-month subcontract projects, among 53 funded nationwide. They all concluded in July and provided their target audiences some valuable new skills and tools to access health information! CHILE A partnership was established between the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library and the Tucson-Pima Public Library to improve access to health information resources for the residents of Tucson and surrounding Pima County. CHILE, a perfect southwest acronym for Consumer Health Information Links for Everyone, developed a web site, provided training to public librarians, and succeeded in forging a strong partnership between medical and public librarians. The CHILE web site is supported by a backend database that facilitates input of resources by library staff. It includes medical topics, links to MEDLINEplus, Gale's Health and Wellness Center, SOAHR (Southern Arizona Health Referral), and AHSL's and TPPL's catalogs. Site visitors can also "ask a librarian", suggest topics, request document delivery, and use the search feature of the site. Jeannette McCray and her AHSL team provided training to nearly 100 public librarians in health reference and resources through the CHILE project. The partnership formed through the project is serving as a basis for possible expansion of CHILE statewide, enhancing public access to health information for all of Arizona's citizens! Health Information @ Preuss Health Information @ Preuss was the result of a unique partnership between the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center Library and the Preuss School UCSD. Preuss School prepares low income and educationally underserved middle school students for eventual admission to and graduation from a university. The primary goal of the project was to provide access to electronic health information appropriate for middle school students. Medical librarian Craig Haynes and school librarian Marsha Korobkin provided training to the faculty, and to over 250 seventh, eighth and ninth graders at the school. The project also produced a highly interactive (and fun!) web site for the students, faculty, school nurse, and parents. A Health Information @ Preuss competition generated student excitement and interest as the project drew to a close. The competition provided tangible evidence of the health information knowledge and skills acquired by the more than 200 students who submitted video productions, skits, PowerPoint presentations, and posters on a variety of health topics, as part of the competition. The quality and originality of the student submissions served as a fitting tribute to an effective project and a highly successful librarian partnership! Hawaii Partnership for MEDLINE Training The Hawaii Medical Library (HML) developed the Hawaii Partnership for MEDLINE Training project with the Hawaii State Public Library System to introduce PubMed® and MEDLINEplus to the general public and to provide computers to participating public libraries. Medical librarians Christine Sato, Tina Okamoto, and Marlene Cuenco conducted 29 training sessions for the public and a mix of healthcare providers, librarians, library staff, and students on the islands of Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, Kauai, and Molokai. Two online tutorials were created in conjunction with the training sessions (see the links at http://hml.org/CHIS/wsonline.html). The project librarians trained 354 people -- an impressive number! The project strengthened the existing partnership HML has with the Hawaii State Public Library System, which not only facilitated the training effort, but also received 5 computers and printers through the project. HML will continue to offer monthly training sessions beyond the end of the project. A gift to Hawaii in the "Aloha" spirit! LINCS Clearinghouse The LINCS (Linking Information about Children with Special Needs) Clearinghouse project was conducted by Cheryl Warren, medical librarian at the ValleyCare Health Library. The goal of the project was to make available to parents, caregivers, educators, health professionals and local agency personnel a comprehensive clearinghouse for information and referral sources for the special needs child. LINCS is a collection of reference, circulating and electronic information on special needs children for the Tri-Valley community, which includes the California cities of Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore. Training and promotion complemented the development of the project web site. LINCS resources can be accessed at the ValleyCare Health Library & Ryan Comer Cancer Resource Center site at http://www.valleycare.com/library.html. LINCS--for some very special children! PlaneTree at the Grail The San Jose PlaneTree Health Resource Center, in partnership with the Grail Community Resource Center and the Gardner Family Health Network, Inc., developed a neighborhood-based Planetree satellite library in East San Jose, California. Staff at the satellite location focused on the health information needs of minority and low-income families in East San Jose and of the health care professionals who provide medical services for them. Health information access training was conducted for these target audiences, equipment was installed, enhanced Internet connection was established, and a Spanish-language web site was piloted at the Grail. Through this project, the mission of PlaneTree San Jose was expanded to include non-English speakers, funding was secured for a subsequent satellite library, and guidelines and material lists were developed for other consumer health libraries that want to expand services to underserved populations. Felicidades to project director Candace Ford and her successful partners! Consumer Health Connection The Consumer Health Connection project was a partnership between the Health Science Library, located in the West Charleston Library in Las Vegas, and the main and branch libraries of the Las Vegas Clark County Library District (LVCCLD). To meet the increasing public demand for health care information, the Health Science Library, a specialty collection of LVCCLD, developed a web page (http://www.lvccld.org/special_collections/medical/consumer_health.htm) to meet the health information needs of the Las Vegas/Clark County community. Project director Florence Jakus and her staff also trained library personnel, conducted workshops for the public, and promoted the project and its resources through various outreach activities. The project resulted in stronger partnerships with other library districts in Southern Nevada, and with local and regional health and social service organizations. Consumer Health Connection--an oasis in the vast desert of electronic health information resources for the public.  HS

Kudos to Network Members for National Medical Librarians Month!

In recognition of the Medical Library Association's National Medical Librarians Month in October, the National Library of Medicine created a web page to spotlight several noteworthy projects by medical librarians in some of the member libraries of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. A description of these projects and links to project Web sites is available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/lo/profiles01.

Go to "Pacific Southwest Region" for outreach projects conducted by:

• Craig Haynes and Marsha Korobkin for the University of California, San Diego project HIP: Health Information @ Preuss
• Sharon Bergland, Ginny Tanji, and John Breinich for the Hawaii Medical Library project HiPHIVE: Hawaii Public Health Virtual Emporium
• Joan Zenan and Terry Henner for the University of Nevada School of Medicine Savitt Medical Library project PHIL: Public Health Information Links for Nevada

Congratulations, Network Librarians!  EG

Redesigned PSRML Web Site

We welcome you to the new PSRML web site — take a look at http://nnlm.gov/psr/. Michael Miller has spearheaded this renovation which is the result of collaboration from the entire PSRML team. We now ask that you explore the site — and let us know your suggestions for additional content!  JKK

Membership Renewal is About to Begin!

During the latter part of November, PSRML will send letters inviting you to renew your membership in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Now that DOCUSER records form the basis of our membership information, we hope to improve the accuracy and completeness of the data through this renewal process. Each of you will be asked to update your DOCUSER records. New membership certificates will be mailed early in the new year. Please look out for the membership renewal letter!  JKK

Report on Orientation Meeting for Exhibits Volunteers

On September 25, 2001, we offered a PSRML Exhibits Orientation meeting in Orange, California, at the Anaheim Kaiser Medical Center. Dyan Martin of Kaiser was our host. Several librarians who are interested in helping out with PSRML exhibits attended including Marsha Kmec of Olive View Medical Center, Judy Kraemer of the Norris Medical Library, USC, and Dennis Ritchey of Kaiser Permanente Drug Information Service. We reviewed exhibit events, highlighted PubMed/MEDLINE and MEDLINEplus features, and demonstrated the NLM Gateway.

Librarians who help us exhibit earn one to three points for exhibitor participation at local or national meetings for AHIP credit. AHIP refers to MLA's Academy of Health Information Professionals. If you are interested in helping us exhibit, check out our upcoming schedule at http://nnlm.gov/psr/schedule.html and email me at kdeeney@library.ucla.edu.  KD

Toxicological Profiles from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services whose mission is to prevent exposure and adverse human health effects and diminished quality of life associated with exposure to hazardous substances from waste sites, unplanned releases, and other sources of pollution present in the environment. ATSDR produces "toxicological profiles" for hazardous substances found at National Priorities List (NPL) sites. These hazardous substances are ranked based on frequency of occurrence at NPL sites, toxicity, and potential for human exposure. Toxicological profiles are developed from a priority list of 275 substances. Over 250 of these profiles are now available on the ATSDR web site at http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/. Additional information about ATSDR is available on their web site at http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/.  KD

MEDLINEplus Milestones

In October, MEDLINEplus, NLM's consumer health information web site, passed its third birthday and reached a 500-topic milestone. MEDLINEplus debuted with 22 health topics on October 22, 1998 (view the press release of that date at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/press_releases/medplus.html). The site now includes many more features to help the public use and understand health information. In the past year, Health News, Interactive Tutorials, and Email Announcement Lists have been added to MEDLINEplus. Fourteen Pacific Southwest consumer health libraries are now listed on the MEDLINEplus Libraries page.

A Visitor Profile Survey was conducted on the MEDLINEplus web site in February (results of this survey are available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/survey/msurveyresults.html). The survey, along with your specific feedback and suggestions, and promotion of this great resource in the Pacific Southwest, has helped to make MEDLINEplus the terrific site that it is today.  HS

MEDLINE is 30 Years Old!

For those of us who remember the birth of MEDLINE, it is a bit daunting to think that it is now older than some of our colleagues! Here are some interesting facts about MEDLINE and its predecessors:

• Index Medicus was the first computer-generated index printed for a large audience. And, with an electronic version of a book in hand, the concept of a searchable database was not far away.
• An early MEDLARS search would take three to four weeks to complete; that included the generation of the ancient input device — punched cards, sending the cards to NLM, and waiting for the search results to return.
• MEDLINE's first incarnation, AIM-TWX, was the first generally-available database which was mounted on a central computer and accessible by individuals throughout the country.
• In 1971 NLM believed that physicians would search the database themselves, but it wasn't until the personal computer replaced the dumb terminal that this would happen on a wide scale.

More about early MEDLINE searching is available in Michel C. Atlas's article "The rise and fall of the medical mediated searcher" from the January 2000 issue of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association; this is now available full-text from Pubmed Central.

What a delight it now is to have MEDLINE accessible anytime, anyplace, by anyone — and at no charge — and increasingly with full-text links!  JKK

MeSH 2002: Online and in Print

The MeSH 2002 is now available on NLM's Medical Subject Headings page. You can search the 2002 MeSH online and read the inroduction to the annotated alphabetic list. This page also includes instructions for obtaining downloaded copies of MeSH in XML and ASCII formats.

The paper versions MeSH tools for 2002 may now be ordered from NTIS. The following order information was obtained from the MeSH Publications page on the NLM web site. Orders require either a credit card or NTIS deposit account.

2002 MeSH, Annotated Alphabetic List
Order number: PB2002-964801
Price $51.95 U.S., Canada, and Mexico; $103.90 others.
Phone: 800-553-NTIS (6847) or 703-605-6000
FAX: 703-321-8547

2002 MeSH Tree Structures
Order number: PB2002-964901
Price $46.95 U.S., Canada, and Mexico; $93.90 others.
Phone: 800-553-NTIS (6847) or 703-487-4650 (NTIS)
FAX: 703-321-8547

2002 Permuted MeSH
Order number: PB2002-965101
Credit card or NTIS deposit account required.
Phone: 800-553-NTIS (6847) or 703-487-4650 (NTIS)
FAX: 703-321-8547

If you would like to read about the history of MeSH, take a look at Carolyn Lipscomb's article "Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)" published in the July 2000 issue of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association in honor of MeSH's 40^th anniversary. BMLA is now available full-text on Pubmed Central.  JKK

NLM Technical Bulletin Highlights

The September - October 2001 issue of the NLM Technical Bulletin featured news about topical additions to PubMed:

• Approximately 7,200 space life sciences citations from the former SPACELINE database have been added to MEDLINE and can be searched in PubMed. SPACELINE included additional datafields for Space Flight / Mission; data from these fields is included in the XML display format and will be searchable in PubMed in the future. SPACELINE also included approximately 900 meeting abstracts; these are now accessible via the NLM Gateway. There is also a new Space Life Sciences subset available in PubMed's Limits feature.
• Approximately 33,000 history-related journal citations unique to the former HISTLINE database are now in MEDLINE and can be searched in PubMed. In the future there will be a History of Medicine subset in PubMed. Until that time, you can search for history of medicine in several ways. First, you can include 'historical article [pt]' in your search to capture articles indexed with the Historical Article Publication Type. Second, you can use specific MeSH terms relating to medical history. Try searching PubMed's MeSH Browser for 'history of medicine'.
• Approximately 22,600 bioethics-related journal citations unique to the former BIOETHICSLINE database are now in MEDLINE and can be searched in PubMed. There are additional data fields in these records; these new fields will be searchable in the future. There is also a new Bioethics subset avaialble in PubMed's Limits feature.

Other news from this issue includes:

• A new version of the NLM Gateway was released September 5, 2001.
• Internet Grateful Med was retired at the end of September 2001.
• PubMed's Related Articles feature has been expanded. You can now find related articles for multiple citations. Check the articles in which you are interested and then click on the Related Articles from the Display pull-down menu.
• LinkOut has been added to the PubMed sidebar under PubMed Services. This link takes you to a new LinkOut home page with information about this program.
• The October 2001 editions of the training manuals are now available for downloading from the NLM Web site -- PubMed, NLM Gateway, ClinicalTrials.gov and TOXNET Training Manuals.  JKK

Table of Contents for the NLM Technical Bulletin

Table of Contents for the September-October 2001 issue:

In this issue:

Space Life Sciences Citations Added to PubMed^® and the NLM Gateway - e2
Space Life Sciences and Bioethics - New PubMed^®Subsets - e3
History of Medicine-related Journal Citations Added to PubMed^® - e4
Bioethics Citations Added to PubMed^® - e5

Technical Notes - e1:

New Version of NLM Gateway Released - September 5, 2001
Watch the National Training Center and Clearinghouse Web Site for 2001 and 2002 Training Classes
Reminder - Internet Grateful Med to be Retired Soon!
PubMed's Related Articles Feature Modified
Printing with PubMed - [Editor's Note added on October 05, 2001.]
Changes on PubMed's Sidebar
Simplified URLs for Five NLM Resources
Renamed Buttons Corrects Printing Problem in PubMed
Searching HSRPRoj via the NLM Gateway
Revised LinkOut Documentation
October 2001 PubMed, NLM Gateway and ClinicalTrials.gov Training Manuals Now Available
MEDLINE^® Turns 30
MeSH^® Tools 2002 Available for Purchase

Upcoming Events - 2001 to 2002*

*Please visit the PSRML Library Professional Development Award web page to apply for an award to attend educational events. PSRML will make available awards up to $1,000 to individuals in Primary Access Libraries in Region 7. Applications may be made at any time.

Publication Information

Please send items and contributed articles for Latitudes to Julie Kwan, Editor, at jkkwan@library.ucla.edu.

Pacific Southwest Regional Medical Library (PSRML), Headquarters for Region 7, NN/LM

UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library/PSRML
12-077 CHS
Box 951798
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1798
Phone: (310)825-1200 or (800)338-7657
Fax: (310)825-5389
URL: http://nnlm.gov/psr/

PSRML Staff

Alison Bunting, MLS, Director, abunting@library.ucla.edu
 
Elaine Graham, MLS, Associate Director, elgraham@library.ucla.edu
 
VACANT, Health Information Services Coordinator
 
Kay Deeney, MLS, AHIP, Education & Exhibit Coordinator, kdeeney@library.ucla.edu
 
Heidi Sandstrom, RN, MLIS, Consumer Health Information Services Coordinator, heidits@library.ucla.edu
 
Julie Kwan, MLS, AHIP, Library Network Coordinator, jkkwan@library.ucla.edu
 
Andrea Lynch, Network Assistant, andlynch@library.ucla.edu
 
Michael Miller, Computer Resource Specialist, mmiller@library.ucla.edu
 
Karen Ricard, Administrative Assistant, kricard@library.ucla.edu

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Latitudes: Newsletter of the Pacific Southwest Region, National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) is published bi-monthly by PSRML.

Funded by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under a contract (#N01-LM-1-3517) with the UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library.