The Secretary of Agriculture has allocated $100 million in United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Community Facilities funding for public libraries to provide educational opportunities and improve public services in rural communities. The funding will be provided primarily through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Funds may be used to construct, enlarge or improve public libraries. This can include costs to acquire land needed for a facility, pay necessary professional fees and purchase equipment required for operation. Funds can be used to purchase shelving, furniture, computers, audio-visual equipment, distance learning equipment and bookmobiles.

For more information on the program and how to apply: http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/USDA.pdf

Hello all! My name is Emily Hurst, and I am the new Technology Coordinator for the NN/LM South Central Region. I started the position this week and have already learned a lot about what is going on in the region.

In the near future I will teach technology classes, review e-licensing options, and serve as the technology adviser for our region. I will also be the state liaison for Louisiana.

Prior to beginning this position, I worked as an Instructional Services Librarian at the Briscoe Library at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio where I taught classes that ranged from PubMed to monthly Emerging Technology Brown Bag luncheons. I have worked in medical libraries for the past several few, first as a Graduate Assistant at the University of North Carolina Health Sciences Library and later as the Library Intern at Rex Healthcare in Raleigh, North Carolina. I also have experience in public as well as academic library settings. I earned my Master of Science in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

In my free time I enjoy baking, watching old movies and exploring the city. I am an avid sports fan and love attending games. I also enjoy traveling and I am currently on a mission to fill my National Parks Passport.

I have a passion for technology and its integration into library and medical environments. I am very excited to be part of the NN/LM SCR, and look forward to the challenges ahead. I look forward to working with and for you, and I hope to be able to meet many of you personally very soon. Please feel free to contact me with questions, comments, or concerns.

Email: emily.hurst@exch.library.tmc.edu
Phone: 713.799.7880

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics released new estimates of the use of health information on the Internet from the National Health Interview Survey, January-June 2009.

The survey results showed that among men and women aged 18-64:

• 51% of adults had used the Internet to look up health information during the past 12 months
• Over 3% had used an online chat group to learn about health topics in the past 12 months
• Almost 5% had communicated with a health care provider by e-mail in the past 12 months
• 6% of adults aged 18-64 requested a refill of a prescription on the Internet
• Almost 3% had made an appointment with a health care provider in the past 12 months using the Internet
• Women were more likely than men to look up health information on the Internet (58.0% versus 43.4%), to use online chat groups to learn about health topics (4.1% versus 2.5%), to request a prescription refill on the Internet (6.6% versus 5.3%), make an appointment using the Internet (3.5% versus 1.8%), and communicate with a health care provider over e-mail (5.6% versus 4.2 %)

For more information on the survey: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/healthinfo2009/healthinfo2009.htm

Today, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) made some changes to PubMed.

Limits

• There is a link to a Limits page from the PubMed homepage.
• The Limits have been separated from the rest of the Advanced Search page into a page of its own.
• Limiting by dates is possible from the Limits page.
• On the Results page, the Limit Activated message in yellow is more prominently displayed.

Advanced Search

• The Advanced Search page now has a Search Builder section. This replaces the Search by Author, Journal, Publication Date and more section. The Search Builder allows users to construct a search using different fields and Boolean operators.
• Instructions on how to use the Search Builder are also accessible on this page.

Emailing Results

• A larger number of citations can now can be sent using the Send to Email option. The Start from citation field allows users to send the results in batches of up to 200 at a time.

My NCBI

• Within My Bibliography, users can download citations in the MEDLINE format.
• Preferences now includes an option to turn off Details. The default is to have it turned on.
• eRA Commons users can now use My Bibliography to manage their compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.

For more information see the following NLM Technical Bulletin articles:

Canese K. PubMed® Advanced Search, Limits, and Homepage Revised. NLM Tech Bull. 2010 Jan-Feb;(372):e7.

Hutcherson L. My NCBI: Managing Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy Using My Bibliography. NLM Tech Bull. 2010 Jan-Feb;(372):e8.

Hutcherson L. My NCBI Enhancements. NLM Tech Bull. 2010 Jan-Feb;(372):e9.

Nahin AM. Easy E-mailing of Large Search Results Restored in PubMed®. NLM Tech Bull. 2010 Jan-Feb;(372):e11.

In time for National Children’s Dental Health Month in February, the Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University in collaboration with the National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center (OHRC) has released a new edition of the knowledge path about oral health for infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women. The knowledge path is available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_oralhealth.html .

This electronic guide points to resources that analyze data, describe effective programs, and report on policy and research aimed at improving access to and the quality of oral health care. The knowledge path contains sections with resources for professionals, resources for consumers, and resources on specific aspects of oral health. Topics include child care and Head Start, dental caries, dental sealants, fluoride varnish, K-12 education, pregnancy, school-based care, and special health care needs.

A new widget available at http://disaster.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/haitiearthquake.html can be added to any webpage to link users to the Haiti Earthquake page from the National Library of Medicine. The widget is available in two different sizes, and the code for both sizes is provied. The widget will then link users to the webpage of Haiti earthquake health information links created by The Disaster Information Management Research Center, Specialized Information Services Division (SIS), of NLM.

The NN/LM SCR is pleased to announce the recipients of the Year 04 Access to Electronic Consumer Health Information Award.

Cancer Services of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Blaire Larson
Project Title: Cancer Services of New Mexico’s Legal, Insurance & Paperwork Assistance (LIPA) Website
Brief description: Cancer Services of New Mexico will develop a website that facilitates access to information on cancer-related legal, insurance, and paperwork issues as well as increasing access to information on MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus Go Local. Major activities will include development of a website that facilitates access to information on these issues; training the program manager and volunteers on how to use the website to assist clients, and developing a plan for promoting the website to cancer services providers and cancer patients/survivors statewide.

Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma
Wyandotte, OK
Principal Investigator: Dr. Bob Murray
Project Title: Eastern Shawnee Consumer Health Information Project (CHIP)
Brief description: The primary emphasis of this project is to provide a computer lab that has access to National Library of Medicine and other health websites, and to provide training to tribal members, especially elderly tribal members, to be knowledgeable about health information searching on the Internet. The computer lab will be placed in the Wellness Center and will provide valuable information to the Registered Nurse and all participants in the new Eastern Shawnee Diabetes Program.

City of Houston, Department of Health and Human Services
Houston, TX
Principal Investigator: Dr. Janice Paul
Project Title: Gulf Coast Aging and Disability Consumer Health Information Initiative
Brief description: Computers with Internet access and assisted technologies software will be placed in a central location of three locations of the Gulf Coast Aging and Disability Resource Center for the purpose of searching for health information using the many user-friendly features of MedlinePlus and NIHSeniorHealth. This yearlong initiative will feature quarterly training and educational workshops at the various multi-service centers in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery Counties.

Greater Houston Area Health Education Center
Bellaire, TX
Principal Investigator: Dana S. Smith, Ph.D., LMSW, MPA
Project Title: Operation CLICKS (Computer Literacy: Increasing Consumer Knowledge for Seniors)
Brief description: Operation CLICKS is a computer literacy program that provides education on basic computer and Internet usage skills for senior citizens in the Harris County, Texas area. The program will allow this population to gain vital computer and Internet abilities which in turn will increase each participant’s independence and overall health. The program curriculum will incorporate modules covering usage of MedlinePlus and NIHSeniorHealth websites for electronic health information retrieval and education.

Congratulations to Cancer Services of New Mexico, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, City of Houston Department of Health and Human Services, and Greater Houston Area Health Education Center!

The Disaster Information Management Research Center, Specialized Information Services Division (SIS), of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has complied two lists of organizations which are using Facebook and Twitter to provide health information and/or news relevant to the situation in Haiti.

Below are two lists: the first is sites with health information and the second list is organizations’ sites that are reporting their activities.

Read the rest of this entry »

A recent article in the NLM Technical Bulletin, PubMed® Advanced Search, Limits, and Homepage Revised, describes the changes that will be available in early February.  The biggest changes included a new Limits page and a redesigned Advanced Search page.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), in partnership with members of the Professional & Scholarly Publishing division of the Association of American Publishers announce the availability of free full-text articles from over 200 biomedical journals and over 65 reference books for libraries and hospitals affected by the earthquake in Haiti.  The collection is also intended for healthcare personnel responding to the disaster.

The Emergency Access Initiative collection is a combination of common biomedical journal titles and reference books, and also emergency medicine related titles.  The Emergency Access Initiative serves as a temporary collection replacement and/or supplement for libraries affected by disasters that need to continue to serve medical staff and affiliated users.  It is also intended for medical personnel responding to the specified disaster.

The literature is being provided as part of the Emergency Access Initiative – a collaborative partnership between NLM, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) and participating publishers to provide free access to full-text articles and select reference books to healthcare professionals and libraries affected by disasters.  While the project was established to assist libraries affected by disasters in the United States, NLM and the publishers are activating the Emergency Access Initiative today in light of the medical disaster unfolding in the aftermath of the earthquake.

NLM thanks the participating publishers for their generous support of this initiative:  American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American College of Physicians, American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists, ASM Press, B.C. Decker, BMJ, Elsevier, FA Davis, Mary Ann Liebert, Massachusetts Medical Society, McGraw-Hill, Merck Publishing, Oxford University Press, People’s Medical Publishing House, Springer, University of Chicago Press, Wiley, and Wolters Kluwer.

If your library is working with a library or organization involved in relief efforts or was impacted by the Haitian earthquake, please let them know of this service.

Emergency Access Initiative:  http://eai.nlm.nih.gov

For questions regarding the Emergency Access Initiative, please email custserv@nlm.nih.gov or call 1-888-346-3656 in the United States, or 301-594-5983 internationally.  Libraries in the United States can contact their Regional Medical Library for assistance and support at 1-800-338-7657.