Summer has not slowed us down, and PSRML staff have been traveling throughout the region, and beyond, during the past few months.
Beryl Glitz provided a PSRML update to the Medical Library Association, Hawaii Pacific Chapter (MLAHPC) members in Honolulu describing a variety of recent activities designed to assist Network members to gain access to the Internet and better utilize its resources. Members volunteered ideas for advanced Internet training and shared their concerns about the quality of connections and the need for reliable, twenty-four-hour access to NLM online resources. She also visited the state's Resource Library, Hawaii Medical Library, Primary Access Libraries at Straub Clinic and Hospital, Kuakini Medical Center, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and met with the interim State Librarian, Caroline Spencer. Thanks to all the Hawaii librarians for their gracious hospitality and beautiful traditional lei greeting!
Beryl may have won the prize for distance traveled this summer. Before embarking on her trip to Hawaii, she attended a one-day meeting at the National Library of Medicine to lead one of three focus group discussions with public librarians. The discussions were part of a meeting of public and health sciences libraries involved in the NLM and NN/LM consumer health information pilot project (See Latitudes volume 7, no. 4, for further details). This project will be conducted in three regions: the Middle Atlantic, the South Central, and the Southeastern Atlantic, starting in October 1998. If successful, similar partnerships between public and health sciences libraries will be established in other areas of the Network, to improve consumers' access to health information.
One of the health professions PSRML decided to target in this contract is nursing, so we were delighted that the American Nurses Association selected San Diego as the site for its biennial meeting. Jenny Reiswig, UC San Diego; Chris Drew, VA La Jolla; Claire Hamasu, and Beryl Glitz worked to entice nurses into the NLM exhibit booth to hear about NLM's resources on the Internet and to try an Internet Grateful Med (IGM) or PubMed search. Our most interested audience was nurses returning to school who were relieved that research did not have to be done on campus, but could start at home on their personal computer.
One of the benefits of exhibiting at professional meetings is the contacts we make with health professionals in our own region. This often leads to invitations to their home institutions to give a workshop or demonstration. Such was the case which led Claire Hamasu to Doctors Medical Center in Modesto, CA on July 9th to give a PubMed presentation. It turned out to be a day when the technology we have grown so dependent upon decided to throw a tantrum. The PSRML laptop's on/off switch broke so that the laptop could not be booted. A workstation in the back of the room was put into service which required that the room be rearranged. While moving the projector back to the computer, a clip on one of the cables broke off so that the computer/projector connection had to be taped to the projector in order for an image to be shown on the screen. But the PubMed presentation was able to go on! Following the session Claire talked with Mary Silva from the Merced Community Medical Center library and Jane Johnson from the Doctors Medical Center library about services at their institutions. Despite the number of end user interfaces to MEDLINE, their patrons are still requesting mediated searches. It is not unusual for them to do 100 searches a month.
Judy Consales packed up her gear and headed out to Grass Valley, CA. Once the richest gold mining town in the state, Grass Valley is located in the heart of the Gold Country. On June 22nd she presented Internet Resources for Health Care Providers to an over- flow audience of hospital ad-ministrators, physicians, nurses, telemedicine special-ists, and other healthcare providers at the Telemedicine and Rural Health: New Developments and Practicial Applications symposium jointly sponsored by the Northern Sierra Rural Health Network, The California Telehealth/Telemedicine Center, and Continuing Medical Edu-cation-UC Davis Health System. While in Grass Valley, Judy visited Tonya Kraft at the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital health sciences library.
The week of June 22nd continued eventfully for Judy when she returned from Grass Valley to finish out the week presenting a PubMed/Internet Resources continuing medical education program at Washington Medical Center in Culver City, CA and a PubMed class for the Inland Empire Medical Library Cooperative at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, CA. Washington Medical Center agreed to become the first Internet Connectivity Support Program site since the library is currently not connected to the Internet (see Internet Connectivity Support Program article) Judy will be conducting training and follow-up in the months ahead.
The high turnover among hospital staff is frequently a barrier when PSRML tries to do outreach. It often happens that we work our way through 2 or 3 contacts a year when working on a project with an institution. However, an invitation to provide IGM training at the Van Nuys Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Van Nuys, CA resulted because of staff moving on. Our liaison at the El Centro Regional Medical Center left and took a position in Van Nuys. She contacted PSRML and Claire Hamasu spent an afternoon with the staff training them to search MEDLINE using Internet Grateful Med on a computer that had recently been connected to the Internet. The staff was very interested, especially a nurse who thought that the only way to get to MEDLINE was through Lexis-Nexis.
In July, Judy continued her efforts to entice hospitals to participate in the Internet Connectivity Support Program. Responding to a letter which was sent to libraries that are not Internet connected was Pacita Estepa from Queen of Angels Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA. Judy decided to spend a day visiting libraries in the Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles corridor of hospitals including Queen of Angels Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, and Childrens Hospital. After navigating the LA freeway traffic, it was easy to walk from hospital to hospital. Kaiser and Childrens are Internet connected but it was a perfect opportunity to see "real" medical libraries in action. Thanks to Judy Dowd, Kati Kreie, Doreen Keough, and Pacita for their hospitality. As it turns out, Queen of Angels Hollywood Presbyterian is owned by Tenet and Pacita will soon be getting an institutional Internet connection through Tenet. The Los Angeles visits that week continued with a drive to the eastern section of Los Angeles and an Internet demonstration for Diane Pflueger and Modest Schwartz at Alhambra Hospital. Alhambra has agreed to be our second Internet Connectivity Support site. It's easy for PSRML staff to demonstrate the Internet's capabilities on our laptop computers so please invite us to visit soon so that we can continue the on the road sagas.