Consumer health information services in the hospital setting

Before planning for provision of Consumer Health Information Services, the librarian and administration must anticipate the problems encountered in sharing funds, personnel, space, and materials with an existing medical or patient education library. Establishing new space within or outside the hospital, or participating in community projects which meet consumer health information needs, are important considerations for planners. This article sets forth the place of some CHI services in the hospital setting, and how they relate to other library services. Differences between hospital library support for Patient Education and for Consumer Health Information services are discussed.     

UnCover on the Web: search hints and applications in library environments

Among the huge maze of resources available on the Internet, UnCoverWeb stands out as a valuable tool for medical libraries. This up-to-date, free-access, multidisciplinary database of periodical references is searched through an easy-to-learn graphical user interface that is a welcome improvement over the telnet version. This article reviews the basic and advanced search techniques for UnCoverWeb, as well as providing information on the document delivery functions and table of contents alerting service called Reveal. UnCover's currency is evaluated and compared with other current awareness resources. System deficiencies are discussed, with the conclusion that although UnCoverWeb lacks the sophisticated features of many commercial database search services, it is nonetheless a useful addition to the repertoire of information sources available in a library.