MLA News: Selected Articles

February 1999

Medical Librarians, Give Yourselves a Hand!

Submitted by Tomi Gunn, MLA Advocacy Programs Assistant

The October 1998 National Medical Librarians Month (NMLM) celebration was a great success. Librarians across the country participated in the annual event created by MLA to celebrate medical librarians and their many contributions to quality health care. Library staff found many innovative and creative ways to publicize the NMLM celebration at their institutions including hosting receptions, creating posters and displays, sponsoring raffles and contests, and publicizing the event in their newsletters.

Kennestone Memorial Hospital’s Celebration
A standing ovation goes out to the library staff at Kennestone Memorial Hospital in Marietta, GA, this year’s recipient of the MLA Creative Promotions Award for their extraordinary efforts in promoting NMLM. The award, created in honor of NMLM, is given to the library staff who design and implement the most creative promotional ideas with which to celebrate NMLM in their institution as judged by MLA’s public relations consultant, PCI.

Kennestone staff librarian Linda Venis felt that NMLM was a great way to make people aware of the library. “Our library has grown so much and the NMLM celebration was a perfect opportunity to allow new and old employees to find out about our library and its services,” she said.

The Kennestone Hospital Medical Library got an early start promoting NMLM in the May 1998 issue of their newsletter by soliciting the hospital staff for published articles or books to be displayed during NMLM. A week prior to the open house, the staff placed flyers in each department, in each physician’s mailbox, and on bulletin boards. Tent cards were also placed on cafeteria tables and arrows were hung in the hallways to direct people to the library on the day of the open house. Because the open house took place during the Halloween season, the staff also floated a life-sized Frankenstein Mylar balloon in the halls, with attached open house flyers inviting everyone to the celebration in the library (Figure 1).

In addition to flyers, the Kennestone staff also provided giveaways in hopes of keeping the hospital staff continuously aware of their library. Venis designed bookmarks and Internet address brochures for guests with the library’s hours and phone number. She also solicited major pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer for donated giveaways including pens, note pads, mouse pads, stress balls, and document holders. Other companies such as Majors Scientific Books, Saunders, and Mosby donated books and CD-ROMs as prizes for contests and drawings. The staff also conducted an Internet scavenger hunt for guests at the open house, showed three PowerPoint demonstrations, and continuously ran videos featuring Internet health care sources. A similar open house was also given in their branch library at Cobb Hospital in Austell, GA (Figure 2).

As the winner of the Creative Promotions Award, the Kennestone Hospital Medical Library staff will receive $100 in “MLA Money” applicable towards any MLA dues, fees, publications, or annual meeting registrations.

Other NMLM Celebrations

• The University of Mississippi’s Rowland Medical Library in Jackson celebrated by inviting the entire campus to a luncheon hosted by the Friends of the Rowland Medical Library (a fund-raising support group) in honor of library personnel. During the luncheon, a slide presentation was continuously displayed, featuring profiles of each library staff member including their position and the services they provide to their health care community.
• Some libraries used a Halloween theme to promote their libraries. The VA Medical Center in Omaha, NE, sponsored a scavenger hunt, displayed Halloween decorations, and served Halloween-inspired treats during their open house.
• A free lunch at a neighborhood cafe was the donated prize in a drawing conducted by the library staff at the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
• University Medical Center in Lafayette, LA, created a poster entitled “Something to Cheer About” filled with compliments the staff has received from the health professionals, personnel, and students in their institution. They also sponsored a contest offering a prize to the person who guessed the number of book-shaped gummy candy in a jar.
• Karen Zundel of the McKeesport Hospital in McKeesport, PA, used several MLA posters in her glass case display to highlight MLA’s Centennial Celebration and Pittsburgh Chapter members who belong to the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

As a result of the extra effort from library staff across the country, hundreds of health care professionals became more aware and appreciative of their institutions’ library services and staff. Venis puts it best by saying, “The best resources are worthless unless the information is shared with and accessible to those who need it.” Congratulations to all who participated in NMLM. Be an early bird by beginning to prepare and thinking of ideas for this year’s celebration.

Health Source Plus

Edited by Melissa L. Just

Submitted by Lily Liu, AHIP, Medical Library, Arkansas Children's Hospital, Little Rock

Health Source Plus, a consumer health database produced by EBSCO Publishing, provides indexing and abstracts for nearly 500 medical journals, consumer-oriented health magazines, and newsletters. Also included in the database are more than 1,000 pamphlets, the complete United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Drug Information (DI) Advice for the Lay Patient, and seventeen health books subtitled “questions you have, answers you need,” published by the People’s Medical Society. Years of coverage vary among the journal titles. Two hundred forty full-text journal articles are available beginning with dates in 1990 while journals with abstracts range from 1984 to present. The brief abstracts are different from those of the same articles covered in MEDLINE because they are written by the EBSCO editorial staff in lay-person language. In several cases, articles without abstracts in MEDLINE are given brief summaries in Health Source Plus.

Health Source Plus is available in CD-ROM for Windows format or accessable on the Web. Internet access is provided through the EBSCOhost interface, which allows simple or advanced keyword and natural language searching. Search features include Boolean operators, wildcards (?), truncation (*) and proximity, limiters, and expanders. With limiters, search results can be limited within full text, cover story articles, articles with illustrations, magazine titles, and dates, whereas expanders will search for related words within full-text articles, as well as abstracts. Natural Language Searching allows the user to query the database using words, phrases, or even complete sentences and the results of a query are presented in ranked order with the most relevant article displayed first. The more words that appear in an article, the more relevant the record is and the closer to the top of the result list it will appear. Search results can then be viewed with titles only or full citations, and can be downloaded or printed. One shortcoming of the search feature is that searches cannot be limited to include pamphlets or journals only.

Five searches were performed to evaluate the contents of the databases: Tourette syndrome in children, respiratory syncytial virus in children, cystic fibrosis in children, breast cancer prevention, and prostate cancer. For the first three searches, an average of 30 full-text articles and pamphlets were retrieved. Breast cancer prevention yielded 399 full-text items and prostate cancer 1,356 full-text items. Judging from the results and the journals included in the database, Health Source Plus will become a strong competitor with the well-known Health Reference Center’s InfoTrac database.

For more information on Health Source Plus, check out the EBSCO Publishing Web page at www.epnet.com.

Helpful Websites for Interlibrary Loan

Edited by Melissa L. Just

Submitted by A. Marissa Smith, AHIP, Del E. Webb Memorial Library, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA

Where can I find a journal’s full title? Does that library use Ariel? What’s that DOCLINE command again? These questions are all familiar to anyone working with interlibrary loan. The free Websites featured here will help answer these and other common interlibrary loan questions.