Information Access for Public Health Professionals in North Dakota

Transcription

1 Eighth Quarter Report April 2001 June 2001 Submitted August 24, 2001 Information Access for Public Health Professionals in North Dakota NATIONAL NETWORK OF LIBRARIES OF MEDICINE GREATER MIDWEST REGION OUTREACH SUBCONTRACT August 1, 1999 July 31, 2001 Funded by the National Library of Medicine under a contract (N01-LM ) with the University of Illinois at Chicago Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences University of North Dakota, School of Medicine and Health Sciences 501 N. Columbia Road P. O. Box 9002 Grand Forks, ND Project Manager: Lila Pedersen Project Coordinator: Barbara Knight lpederse@medicine.nodak.edu bknight@medicine.nodak.edu voice voice fax fax

2 Introduction The project ends July 31, so there is only one month remaining. All of the planned training sessions have been held, with a total of 129 people trained in 18 classes. I. Description of Progress Towards the Project s Major Objectives A. Administrative and Planning Activities Public Health Outreach Forum at NLM: Karen Anderson attended the Public Health Outreach Forum at the National Library of Medicine on April 5 th and 6 th. When she returned she provided suggestions that we are incorporating into the web site. Anderson shared her report with the rest of the librarians. She was particularly interested in Healthy People 2010: Managing Information to Help Achieve Our Nation s Health Objectives. She also enjoyed hearing about the projects in other areas of the country and the lessons and reflections associated with those projects. Her report is attached. Midwest Chapter of MLA: Knight has written two abstracts that have been submitted to the program committee of Midwest Chapter of MLA. One is for a poster related to the project and the other is for a paper. We were informed in July that the paper has been selected for presentation, but the poster has not. The abstracts are both attached. B. Publicity/Marketing Activities Web site: Several of the suggestions brought back from the Public Health Outreach Forum by Anderson are being incorporated into the web site. We are finding that the North Dakota specific information is a popular section of the site. Articles: Anderson wrote an article for The Good Stuff (newsletter of the North Dakota Library Association) My Trip to the National Library of Medicine, which focuses on the physical facility of the NLM and the Lister Hill Center. Contacts: We are continuing to work through the administrators and nursing directors at the public health offices throughout the state. The North Dakota Department of Health updates the contact information for each of the public health units on a regular basis at their web site at Reference desk The reference desk address generates some activity. We are finding that most of the reference questions come to us via telephone calls. C. Training / Demonstration Sessions April 18, 2001, Grand Forks, UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences, computer classroom, 1:00 5:00 p.m. Instructor: Barb Knight Participants: 15 All of the participants were involved with the WIC (Women, Infants, & Children) division of public health. Because of their special interest in nutrition and dietetics, a special handout was developed on nutrition sites on the Internet. All of the participants were from the Bismarck area and attended this class prior to a Public Health meeting they were attending in Grand Forks on April 19. 1

3 April 30, 2001, Dickinson, Consolidated Telephone of Dickinson, computer training lab, 9:00 a.m. 12:30 p.m. Instructor: Leeila Bina Participants: 12 Twelve public health professionals from the Southwest District Health Unit in Dickinson attended this class. The participants represented program coordinators of specific programs such as Tobacco Free, Women's Way, WIC, and district nurses. The Southwest Public Health Office based in Dickinson paid to make this computer lab available for the class, which was held in the computer training laboratory at Consolidated Telephone of Dickinson. Arrangements were made by Carlotta Ehlis, Executive Director of SW District Health Unit. The training area had twelve computers plus an instructor's terminal and projection unit. The computer department was very helpful in logging in all the computers and being available for any problems. This was helpful because there were network problems during the class. This impacted several of the "student" computers, as well as the instructor's computer which slowed down and locked up twice. During the last hour of the class it appeared that most problems occurred when everyone in the class hit the same Internet site. The class participants were very understanding and patient. They stated that the computers they work with in their offices are much slower than the ones used for this class. The pre and post workshop surveys were distributed before and after the class. Several of the participants found it confusing to indicate their "first choice library" on the survey. A suggestion for future use might be to provide an explanation of this phrase. Overall the class was well received, as shown by the evaluations. The group felt the handouts would be very useful when they would be accessing health care resources on their own. April 30, 2001, Dickinson, Consolidated Telephone of Dickinson computer training lab, 1:30 5:00 p.m. Instructor: Leeila Bina Participants: 9 Nine public health professionals from the Southwest District Health Unit in Dickinson attended this class. The participants represented program coordinators for specific programs such as Tobacco Free, Women's Way, WIC, and district nurses. The Southwest Public Health Office based in Dickinson paid to make this computer lab available for the class. Arrangements were made by Carlotta Ehlis, Executive Director of SW District Health Unit. The training area has 12 computers and an instructor s terminal with projection unit. The computer department was very helpful and made themselves readily available to address any network problems. The response time in this afternoon session was quick and there were no network failures. The group was able to experiment with several sites and databases. The pre and post workshop surveys were distributed before and after the class. Overall the workshop was well received, as shown by the evaluations. The group felt the handouts would be very useful to them. May 7, 2001, Williston, Workforce Training Center, 9:00 am noon Instructor: Karen Anderson Participants: 10 Participants included two clerks, a secretary, an accountant, a health inspector, six nurses and a WIC nutritionist. Anderson was concerned that the health inspector might not be interested in the examples she was demonstrating; however he seemed very satisfied with the information presented. She focused some time on the Healthy People 2010 indicators, along with MEDLINEplus and the CDC web sites. Most of the class was familiar with the CDC site in general; however, they had not used a lot of links that are made available. Everyone in the class seemed to be excited about learning the information, and remarks of how they could utilize the sites in the future were common throughout the session. There was one person who had not used the Internet before. Anderson had someone sitting next to the inexperienced person until a computer failure placed her away from buddy assistant. There were computer problems that Anderson resolved by having people move to an open computer. Anderson felt the class went well. She received feedback from the administrator at the Health District Unit that praised the class. Anderson had invited the administrator to give her a list of information she would particularly like to have her staff find on the Internet. Her main suggestion was the Healthy People 2010 indicators. 2

4 May 7, 2001, Williston, Workforce Training Center, 1:00 pm 3:00 pm Instructor: Karen Anderson Participants: 8 Participants included five nurses, a clerk, an administrative assistant, and a dental consultant. It ran pretty much the same as the morning class. People got excited about certain areas where they could get information that they could use. This group as a whole was particularly excited about the Interactive Health Tutorials. There were lots of problems with the computers. By the end of the session the participants needed to double up on the computers. Summary of Classes - 8th Quarter Date Length Quadrant / City Participants CNEs Instructor April 18 4 hrs NE Grand Forks 15 Knight April hrs SW Dickinson 12 Bina April hrs SW Dickinson 9 Bina May 7 3 hrs NW Williston 10 Anderson May 7 2 hrs NW - Williston 8 Anderson 5 Classes 54 0 To date 23 classes have been held, and 153 people have been trained. The outreach reporting form for each session is in the appendix. II. Loansome Doc / Document Delivery Activities None III. Evaluation Activities The Information Search Process forms were distributed before and after each of the training sessions this quarter. The evaluations collected following each class session again had positive comments. IV. Problems / Corrective Actions Connectivity is always an unknown. Anderson had some problems with connections in Williston and Bina had a few problems in Dickinson. Knight was fortunate this quarter and did not experience any connectivity problems during her training sessions. V. Lessons Learned / Significant Feedback Nothing to report. VI. Projected Activities for Next Quarter Continued work on website - The project librarians continue to develop the website. During the ninth and final quarter we will be adding mostly sites suggested by Anderson as a result of her attendance at the Public Health Forum. Appendix Abstract for Paper Presentation at Midwest Chapter of Medical Library Association Abstract for Poster Presentation at Midwest Chapter of Medical Library Association Outreach Reporting Forms - 5 classes Report on the Outreach Forum from Karen Anderson 3

5 To: Karen Hanus at (414) From: Barbara Knight, MA, MLS Reference and User Education Librarian Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences University of North Box 9002, Grand Forks, ND Date: April 16, RE: Paper Abstract "Octoberfest in Milwaukee: Simply Wunderbar" Midwest Chapter/MLA and Wisconsin Health Science Library Association B. Partnerships and collaborations with other libraries and agencies Information Access for Public Health Professionals in North Dakota By Barbara Knight, MA, MLS, Reference and User Education Librarian; Lila Pedersen, MALS, AHIP, Director; Leeila Bina, MSLS, AHIP, Clinical Campus Librarian; Karen Anderson, MLS, Clinical Campus Librarian. Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences This paper outlines the processes we have utilized to provide public health professionals at the 24 public health offices in the state of North Dakota with timely, convenient access to health care information resources. We discuss the processes used to develop an increased level of information access between health care professionals in North Dakota and the health care information services provided by the Harley E. French Library and its clinical campus libraries, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine-Greater Midwest Region, and the National Library of Medicine. We outline the successes of the project: the web site we developed, the instructional sessions that have been conducted, and the exhibits we have staffed. We also discuss the parts of the project that have not been as successful: the real time reference option we planned to have available through the Internet, and offering CE for the instructional sessions. We will also discuss the surprises of the project. We will discuss planning a single instructional session and how our planned instruction has worked for four different instructors in a variety of locations. We will also discuss how we have adapted the instructional objectives over a 24-month time span, the methods we used to schedule computer labs, and how we have worked with a variety of people to schedule instructional sessions. Finally we will discuss our plans to continually provide avenues of information access for the public health offices in North Dakota. The presentation is a part of the Information Access for Public Health Professionals in North Dakota project funded by the National Library of Medicine under a contract (N01-LM ) with the University of Illinois at Chicago. 4

6 To: Dick Carr at Fax: (414) From: Barbara Knight, MA, MLS Reference and User Education Librarian Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences University of North Box 9002, Grand Forks, ND Date: April 16, RE: Poster Abstract "Octoberfest in Milwaukee: Simply Wunderbar" Midwest Chapter/MLA and Wisconsin Health Science Library Association Information Access for Public Health Professionals in North Dakota By Barbara Knight, MA, MLS, Reference and User Education Librarian; Lila Pedersen, MALS, AHIP, Director; Leeila Bina, MSLS, AHIP, Clinical Campus Librarian; Karen Anderson, MLS, Clinical Campus Librarian. Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences This poster provides an overview of our investigation of the information seeking process in relation to the information seeking skills of public health professionals in North Dakota. The study investigates Carol Kuhlthau s (1.) information search process in relation to the role of formal mediators (librarians) and informal mediators (e.g., peers) in a public health environment. The study we conducted is based on the model of the Information Search Process (ISP) developed by Kuhlthau. Our project sought to gain a better understanding of the variety of tasks involving health care professionals as a specified group of information seekers, how they use information to accomplish their daily work objectives and the role health science librarians play in their process of information seeking. Kuhlthau has noted that when system designers, database searchers, teachers and librarians are aware of the stages in the search process, they may be able to offer intervention that matches the user s actual level of information needs. We will share the instrument we used to survey the information seeking skills of public health professionals in North Dakota prior to a half-day hands-on class on access to health care information and following the same class. We will also share how we plan to utilize the information learned in our continuing partnership with the public health professionals in North Dakota. The study is a part of the Information Access for Public Health Professionals in North Dakota project funded by the National Library of Medicine under a contract (N01-LM ) with the University of Illinois at Chicago. Reference: (1) Kuhlthau, CC. (1993) Seeking meaning: A process approach to library and information services. Ablex Publishing Corp. 5