Outreach to health professionals in a rural area

An outreach project which juxtaposed technology (Grateful Med) and a human intermediary (a circuit librarian) to serve health professionals in a rural area of Illinois is described. The five goals of the project were: promote Grateful Med as a clinical tool; introduce circuit librarianship to Illinois; heighten the awareness of health professionals to the value of timely information services; increase the visibility of the resource library; and evaluate the impact of the two components, Grateful Med and circuit librarianship. While the project was well-received and enjoyed short-term success, sustaining the same level of information activity post-project has not been achieved. Insuring utilization of health information by remote health professionals may be characterized as a Sisyphean task.     

Benchmarking in health care: using the Internet to identify resources

Benchmarking is a quality improvement tool that is increasingly being applied to the health care field and to the libraries within that field. Using mostly resources assessible at no charge through the Internet, a collection of information was compiled on benchmarking and its applications. Sources could be identified in several formats including books, journals and articles, multi-media materials, and organizations.     

Journal searching in non-MEDLINE resources on Internet Web sites

Internet access to the medical journal literature is absorbing the attention of all relevant parties, i.e., publishers, journal vendors, librarians, commercial providers, government agencies, and end users. Journal content on the Web sites spans the range from advertising and ordering information for the print version, to table of contents and abstracts, to downloadable full text and graphics of articles. The searching parameters for systems other than MEDLINE also differ extensively with a wide variety of features and resulting retrieval. This discussion reviews a selection of providers of medical information (particularly the journal literature) on the Internet, making a comparison of what is available on Web sites and how it can be searched.     

MEDLINE training within the library school curriculum: quality control and future trends.

In order to assess the current status of MEDLINE training provided by schools of library science, a survey was conducted of those schools having an educational identification code issued by the National Library of Medicine. Information was gathered on such variables as the instructors' background and preparation, the course objectives and content, and the amount of on-line experience provided to students in each of eleven programs. An evaluation of these measures indicates that more opportunities to gain experience in using MEDLINE should be initiated by library schools and that current efforts should be continued and expanded. Specific recommendations for accomplishing these goals are outlined; they are addressed to health sciences librarians, library school educators, the Medical Library Association, and the National Library of Medicine.     

The literary works of Sir William Osler

A paper read at the first regular meeting of the Osler Society of McGill University, October 19, 1921.