HLABC is an organization dedicated to supporting health libraries, their staff, and anyone interested in the search and discovery of health information. For more information, please click here.
International Women's Day is coming up this month on March 8th. In recognition of International Women's Day I would like to consider the state of health information for women in our libraries. Recently in the Fraser Health Authority, Women's Health has become its own program closely aligned with Maternal and child health. I had an opportunity to join a teleconference last January on the Women's Health program to touch base with the movers and shakers in women's health in Fraser Health. At the time, the team was considering its strategic strategy with other program areas, since women's health is all encompassing and broad based. The strategy proposed was to advocate for women's health in several of the other program areas.
How can librarians and technicians play a role in women's health? I think we can focus on identifying, collecting and disseminating the best evidence on women's health. One of my favourite sites is called Women's Health Matters at www.womenshealthmatters.ca. It is a very useful site for bringing together trusted information on all aspects of women's health through its health centres, discussion forums, news feeds and personal stories. It is hosted by the Women's College Hospital in Toronto. It also features links to the Women's College Research Institute that supports and produces research studies on women's health issues.
What are some of your favourite women's health sites and sources? Let me know.
Linda Howard, President, HLABC
We began looking at a Health Literacy plan for Surrey Libraries in the winter of 2009, after reviewing the work done by Richmond Public Library and Vancouver Coastal Health. To date, our health literacy plan has mostly involved building relationships with healthcare professionals, and expanding our collections in the area of Consumer Health, particularly at the new City Centre Library. Regarding the latter, we invested over $5000 in building on the existing health resources that transferred from the Whalley Library. This new Consumer Health collection focuses primarily on resources in the areas of mental wellness, addictions, and chronic conditions (diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, cancer, respiratory diseases, etc.).
While we continue to strengthen our Consumer Health resources, where we would like to improve is in the area of marketing these materials to the public and improving the health literacy of Surrey residents. “Searching for Health Information Online” classes have not been well attended in the past, so we are looking at new ways that we can educate our patrons about the materials, services and programs that we offer.
One of our goals is to develop stronger relationships with Fraserhealth and other health care agencies so that we can grow our opportunities for partnership in the area of health literacy. We currently partner with them to offer Babytimes at the Guildford Library which are hosted by a public health nurse. We also continue to host workshops with S.U.C.C.E.S.S. on a variety of health topics, and these sessions are well attended.
Through the BC Health Literacy and Public Libraries Network, we have developed contacts with various health professionals and literacy practitioners. One key relationship that grew out of the network was our partnership with Douglas College’s Nursing Program in January 2011. Surrey Libraries hosted 2 nursing students for their community based practicum from January to April 2011, and we hope to partner with them again in future.
Another area that we are working on is organizing and centralizing the different events going on at the library and in the broader community, so that our patrons can more easily find out about health related events of interest to them. Similarly, we are redesigning the Health & Wellness section of our website to make it more relevant and not just a long list of links.
Asian Publications (Surrey) for all S. Asian languages
Tsai Fong Books (Texas) for Japanese, Vietnamese
Today’s Books (Burnaby) and Panmun (Korea) for Korean
Urdu Bazar (Surrey) for Urdu
Continental books (Colorado) for Spanish
Goethe Books (Toronto) for German
Tania Tong orders Chinese and I always forget the suppliers, so check with her as Chinese is our largest collection
MiddleEast Bookstore (Montreal) for Arabic
Thiessen, Tanya [TDThiessen@surrey.ca]
Its Valentine's Day! This seems like a perfect opportunity to talk about how we might go about romancing our library users. How do you go about charming your library users to visit your library and feel welcome coming back? I like to first and foremost have a welcoming presence in my library with plants, blankets, and good signage. I check to make sure the library has pens, scrap paper, and that the photocopier and printer are filled with paper. I also like to provide a warm and friendly welcome to any new library users to encourage them to return. When I teach library workshops, I usually come armed with pamphlets about library resources to hand out after the teaching session. Sometimes I follow up via email with the class attendees thanking them for attending. I also like to get out of the library to remind the staff and physicians at my hospital that I am alive and well and willing to take literature search requests in the hall or cafeteria. If I have a chance, I deliver some articles directly to users, especially those staff who cannot easily get out of their units. The other day I offered to deliver articles to a nurse in emergency. In the process of doing this, I had an opportunity to meet some other doctors and nurses I serve and ask them about life in the ER. They started telling me about research projects they are exploring. Hum, there must be an article for that!
How do you romance your library users? Email me at Linda.Howard@fraserhealth.ca
Linda Howard, President, HLABC
Do you make New Year's Resolutions for yourself at this time of the year? Do you ever make them for your library service? I resolve to start treating my library users not only with evidence based information, but kindness. I resolve to walk a minute in my users footsteps. My library users are often busy nurses juggling work, parenting and coursework. If I walk a minute in their shoes, would I provide not only some great articles, but perhaps a more caring attitude? Can I make a difference in some small way to my busy users? Medical students are another busy group of library users who juggle school, hospital rounds and probably alot of commuting. I bet they could use an article or two served up with a side of kindness and genuine interest. What about our busy physicians who are out and about in our hospitals? They often see me in the hallway and suddenly think of a literature search they have been meaning to ask me for. I resolve to write their request down on my hand or in my napkin for further action. How about our staff who are struggling to apply for a job online? Will I give them a hand? Yes, I plan to.
In fact I resolve to get out of my office and the library a little more this year. Why wait for our users to come to us? I resolve to create a little more visibility by getting myself into the hospital hallways and cafeteria.
What are your New Year's Resolutions for your library this year? Let us know. And let us know what you would like your HLABC executive to serve you up this year. Chocolate, anyone?
Linda Howard, President, linda.howard@fraserhealth.ca
Happy Holidays from your HLABC Executive!
We would like to take this opportunity to wish all HLABC members a very merry holiday season. We hope you all have a chance to get together with family and friends, slow down, read for fun, eat special food and enjoy some time off.
We have some exciting events planned for you in the New Year. The unconference in February has already been announced, but also the membership will meet at Shaughnessy Restaurant in Van Dusen Gardens for a winter brunch meeting on January 28th.
Our special guest speaker is Vancouver author and physician, Dr. Daniel Kalla, MD. At the brunch, he will read from his latest historical novel "The Far Side of the Sky".
Again, enjoy your holiday season, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year!
Linda Howard
President
linda.howard@fraserhealth.ca
Subscribe!