We are excited to announce a funding opportunity from the NN/LM GMR to support purchase, installation, and/or upgrading of hardware and software that enhance access to health information.  This funding opportunity is the Technology Improvement Award.  Awards may be used to improve information services to health professionals and health care consumers through the use of technology.  What types of projects can you fund with this award? Some ideas include:

•    Purchasing equipment and/or software (i.e. a scanner, web server, public access computer) to aid in delivering health information electronically;
•    Paying for Internet access for one year;
•    Paying for wiring and/or installation of new connections;
•    Upgrading computer equipment.

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Now, where is that library? I know I put it here somewhere! Thanks to a mashup of Google Maps and your location in DOCLINE by Web Services Technology Operations Center (Web-STOC) programmer Aron Beal in Seattle, you can find other institutions more easily via NN/LM Member Maps. Before I get into too much detail about the member maps, let me briefly explain about Web-STOC.  This team keeps our websites in good running order and keeps us compliant with federal guidelines related to accessibility.  They are located at the University of Washington, which is home to the NN/LM - Pacific Northwest Region.

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Once the domain of the television show Star Trek, a whole new world of communication allows users to communicate instantaneously with each other. The Vocera Communications Badge (http://www.vocera.com) is what enables this instant communication. Via an identification badge like those already worn by many, on a lanyard or clipped to a shirt or a suit coat, and using wireless communication protocols, people can communicate using voice recognition. Read the rest of this entry »

Margaret (Peggy) Richwine, MS, MLS, AHIP, will retire September 30, 2008 as Outreach Services Director at Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) Libraries. Ms. Richwine has over twenty years at IUSM Libraries serving in Reference, Cataloging, Interlibrary Loan, and Outreach Services. With grants from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), she created Shared Hospital Electronic Library of Southern Indiana (SHELSI) http://library.medicine.iu.edu/body.cfm?id=77, the consortium of hospital libraries in Southern Indiana that share access to electronic resources.

She was also awarded a series of contracts to manage a team of Indiana librarians that assisted the National Library of Medicine in the development and maintenance of MedlinePlus. As a capstone to a long and productive career, Ms. Richwine led the Indiana team to establish InHealthConnect http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/local/indiana/homepage.cfm?areaid=13, one of the pioneer Go Local projects to use the NLM system.

We are very proud of Peggy and her accomplishments and wish her the very best.

Carole Gall, MLS, AHIP
Gift Officer & Medical Resources Consultant
Indiana University School of Medicine Libraries

Anna Ercoli Schnitzer
InfoPoint Librarian
Health Sciences Libraries
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI

The four-day Ann Arbor Art Fair in its 49th year, came to a close on Saturday evening, July 19, 2008, and this year for the first time the University of Michigan Library was part of the action. Although Booth #12 in the Non-Profit section of this huge fair was originally reserved and rented by the Health Sciences Libraries, we opened our tent flaps to affiliated library volunteers from the Science, Graduate, Undergraduate and Business libraries as well. It was an extra pleasure to have a cross-section of library collaboration, and we needed all the help we could get, since we had to provide staffing for a total of 45 hours. Read the rest of this entry »

There were two community service projects funded by the GMR held during the MLA ‘08 Conference in Chicago. I had the opportunity to participate in one of them - the Rush University Free Health Fair: Spring into Health and Fitness. I was between jobs at the time, so I was representing Ohio University Health Sciences Library and the GMR. After staffing numerous health fair booths in the past, this was still a new and exciting experience.

The event started quite early and it was nice to get coffee and dough nuts to start the day! There were a large number of volunteers from various organizations, and we all worked diligently helping the participants to make the best out of this health fair. It was impressive to see some of the MLA award winners staffing the tables. I had the opportunity to work with Vijay Pawal; Cunningham Fellow from India and Sarah McCord who was honored with Lucretia W. McClure Excellence in Education Award. The medical librarians at the Rush Medical Center did a great job making sure all the MLA volunteers were doing fine. Read the rest of this entry »

Patricia W Martin
Taubman Medical Library
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI

The National Library of Medicine through the GMR awarded an 18 month health disparities subcontract to the University of Michigan Health Sciences Libraries for their proposal Michigan Health Literacy Awareness Training Program. HSL is partnering with Washtenaw Literacy, a county-based literacy training effort, to raise awareness among area health professionals of the issue of low literacy and poor health literacy among their patients, and to provide communication techniques and resources to improve patient care. Read the rest of this entry »

Christopher J. Shaffer has accepted an appointment as University Librarian at Oregon Health and Science University Library, Portland, which he will assume on August 1, 2008. Chris has most recently been the Assistant Director, Technology and Outreach, at Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa.

Many of you will remember that Chris was Technology Coordinator at the GMR from 1996 to 2002. Congratulations and best wishes, Chris!

Maureen Watson, Reference Librarian, Ferris State University, Michigan College of Optometry Reading Room, shares the following information from MLA-FOCUS: Michigan librarians and GMR network members Misa Mi, Sandra Swanson, and Marie Lise-Shams received the Hospital Librarian Research Award for their poster Health Sciences Librarians in Michigan: Connecting to Emerging 2.0 Technologies. Congratulations!

The Outreach Express Award entitled Only Connect….to the Community was funded by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Greater Midwest Region (NN/LM GMR). This award allowed the Medical Library Association’s (MLA) National Planning Committee ‘08 to provide the first annual community service events. The two community service events held in Chicago, Illinois, allowed medical librarians to put words such as advocacy and visibility into action by creating partnerships with public librarians and volunteering in the neediest community, North Lawndale on the west side of Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »