Editor's Note: Unbeknownst to many below the 48th parallel, Jim Henderson has been working towards improving access to medical information by building a support structure we take for granted. The U.S. Medical Libraries Assistance Act does not have a counterpart in Canada. Jim (and Joanne Marshall) are trying to build this national infrastructure. The following letters and reports concern this vital objective.
BRITISH COLUMBIA
submitted by Jim Henderson (originally posted in canmedlib Jan. 21)
Subject: Proposal for a National Network of Health Libraries
There has been some response to the proposal I sent on
Oct. 30 to the Honourable Allan Rock. I received a letter late last week
that was encouraging. Mr. Rock said "I agree with many of the points
you raised in your proposal". He suggested that I work through the
Advisory Committee on the Health Info-Structure, which I have been doing.
Monday's edition of the Vancouver Sun (p. B7, Health pages). has an article
on the College Library and the proposal by Rebecca Wigod. I found it encouraging,
first, that she thought the topic to be of general interest and, second,
that she was able to understand the proposal readily. The headline of the
story is "Strong library links can save costs, lives - B.C. librarian
makes compelling case for federal legislation to link all health libraries
in a national network".
We have had a number of calls as a result of the article
from doctors and the public, and, certainly, much support from BC colleagues.
I am willing to supply copies of Mr. Rock's response (2 pages) and of the
Sun article (1 page) via fax upon request. I have received written support
from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons and verbal support from
a number of quarters, including the Canadian Association of Research Libraries,
the Canadian Nurses Association, and various BC physicians.
I received a less encouraging letter from the BC Minister
of Health via a staff member, who felt the Canadian Institute for Health
Information could play a role perhaps as well as CISTI. Response from non-librarians
with whom I have discussed the proposal has been: "Why don't we have
a network like this already?"
For further information on the Advisory Committee, link
to the MLS web site at http://www.mls.cps.bc.ca.
In the first paragraph of the covering letter of the proposal is a link
to the press release on the Advisory Committee, although the site, including
the list of members, has not been updated since the establishment of the
Committee in August. Frank Winter, Director of Libraries, University of
Saskatchewan, is the library rep on the Committee. I have discovered, speaking
with Monique Charbonneau, President and CEO of CEFRIO (Centre francophone
de recherche en informatisation des organisations) in Quebec City, that
she is trained as a librarian and is knowledgeable on the issues.
I understand that Susan Murray, Joanne Marshall, and Lois
Wyndham (representing CHLA/ABSC) are attending the Feb.8-10 meeting of the
Committee in Edmonton. No one from CISTI, ACMC, ASTED or Health Canada libraries
has been invited, it would appear. I have contacted the Globe and Mail and
anticipate a call from the health policy reporter, Jane Coutts. She has
been attending the pharmacare conference in the past week. I spoke with
her last week and sent information in response to her interest. We clearly
have a good opportunity to move the cause of health libraries ahead.
Our case is stronger since the proposal was submitted,
with the publication of the NHS Guidance on Library Services in the UK and
the addition of consumer health journals to MEDLINE in the US. A good number
of you have written letters to Mr. Rock - thank you! I encourage each of
you who have not yet written to do so (Allan Rock's address is on the MLS
web site at http://www.mls.cps.bc.ca
at the beginning of the covering letter or available upon request). With
the Advisory Committee meeting in Edmonton in February 8-10, you should
write something as soon as possible. Even a very brief letter will make
a difference. If you can encourage users to write, so much the better. Critical
appraisals and alternative ideas are certainly welcome too.
The Co-Chairs of the Advisory Committee are Dr. Tom W. Noseworthy,
Professor and Chair of Public Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University
of Alberta, and Mr. Alan B. Nymark, Associate Deputy Minister, Health Canada,
should you wish send copies to the Committee. Bernard Dumouchel, CISTI/ICIST
Acting Director is writing a letter to Mr. Rock. The Canadian Association
of Research Libraries considered the proposal at its meeting over the past
weekend. ACMC, ASTED and CHLA/ABSC jointly have produced a 1-page vision
statement relating to concepts in the proposal. If you want a copy of the
proposal, it is posted on our web site (http://www.mls.cps.bc.ca)
with hypertext links to explanatory information. I can provide a 1 page
summary in point form, which is not yet posted on the web site, via fax
or e-mail. I can e-mail copies of the proposal as a Microsoft Word file
attachments, and can handle a limited number of requests for copies.
I will supply further information as I am able. Thanks
to all who have sent along support and who have contributed ideas and comments
on drafts of the proposal! Seems we may be making progress. jh
Subject: Advisory Council on the Health Info-Structure
submitted by Jim Henderson (originally posted on canmedlib Feb. 4)
Joanne Marshall alerted me to a site which I think is quite new. It is Health Canada's Office of the Health on the Information Highway. In particular, detailed information on the advisory Council on the Health Info-Structure is available, including minutes of meetings and the programme of the Edmonton meeting next week. URL for the Advisory Council home page is: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ohih-bsi/achis_e.html
Interestingly, the original Aug. 97 press release is still posted, with a link to an out of date list of members . . .
submitted by Madelyn Hall
ALBERTA
submitted by Jim Henderson (originally posted in canmedlib Feb. 23)
Introduction:
Prior to the conference I benefited greatly by the teleconference on Feb. 5 initiated by the health library groups (Lois Wyndham, CHLA; George Beckett, ACMC; and Germaine Chouinard, ASTED-Section Sante), telephone conversations with Jim Henderson and by the opportunity to caucus with Joanne Marshall, Lois Wyndham and Susan Murray on Sunday afternoon before the meeting started.
I think that it is fair to say that the combined efforts of the four
librarians present at these meetings plus the briefs from Jim Henderson
and Joanne Marshall resulted in a very high awareness that the concerns
of health libraries had to be addressed. On the downside, despite prolonged
formal and informal lobbying by all four of us my assessment is that there
appears still be some reluctance to actually start a process (such as a
study) that would achieve anything concrete and positive.
Results of the National Conference:
Although it would be tedious to thoroughly describe the structure of the National Conference, it might be helpful to understand the manner in which things were arranged so that the strategy we adopted will make some sense. There were plenary, theme and working group sessions. Issues started at plenary were then referred to a theme group (such as the Stakeholder Issues group) and then to working groups within each theme (the Stakeholder Issues group had four working groups: priorities and needs of the public; priorities and needs of health service providers/researchers; priorities and needs of policy makers/administrators; and priorities and needs of Aboriginal peoples). From that point, the working groups presented recommendations to the theme groups and the theme groups reported back to the plenary session.
As a result of the teleconference on Feb. 8 and a caucus among the four of us before the National Conference, we knew that we had to get a recommendation out of a working group, through a theme group and before the plenary. We spread ourselves around appropriately and were successful at this stage. Susan apparently did a very effective job in the Priorities and Needs of the Public working group in starting and leading a debate on the various meanings of information and why "library" type information was important.
I do not have the actual wording of the recommendation that the Stakeholder Issues theme group presented to plenary but, in essence, it was that health libraries, clearing houses and information centres needed study and support.
So far, so good. The co-chair of the ACHI, Alan Nymark (ADM, Health Canada), was particularly pleased by the facts that the health librarians had had a teleconference and a caucus before the national conference. He was pleased to hear that the health library community was working to reconcile the various proposals that were coming forward. I assured him that the health library community did not see any inconsistencies among the Henderson, Marshall and shortly-to-be-produced CHLA/ACMA/ASTED-Section Sante proposals but that they did understand that the proposals had to be harmonized. He checked at the end of the national conference that "the librarians were satisfied." I assured him that we were pleased with the outcome of the meeting.
ACHI and Health Libraries, Before and After the Conference:
Where matters began to get off track was during the work of the ACHI
after the conference. The ACHI met prior to the national conference and
immediately after it. The various ACHI working groups also met and the Working
Group on the Health Information Needs of the General Public took advantage
of that opportunity. One of the draft recommendations in our draft interim
report was, "Support the networking of all medical libraries in Canada
through funding and technical assistance." This was massaged one way
and another through the next few days and now reads, "Investigate the
feasibility of a national network of health information centres that support
the needs of the general public, administrators, policy makers and practitioners."
My aim in all of this was to obtain ACHI (*not* Health Canada) funding for
a study that would result in a proposal that had concrete deliverables.
I had hoped to get approval for this study at the final session of the ACHI meeting but it did not work out that way. Instead, I am to draft a response to the Henderson and Marshall proposals - which does not seem a particularly productive step but which is one that ACHI has adopted to deal with unsolicited proposals - and I will also continue to ask ACHI to fund a study.
So Now What?
Anyway, so what now? I will draft the responses and I will continue to
push for funding for a study. I hope that I will be able to report some
positive progress in this area in the near future. The next ACHI meeting
is in mid-May (although the Working Group could meet face to face or by
teleconference before then) and that is definitely too long to wait for
something to get started. ACHI would like to issue an interim report by
late summer, at the latest, in order to try to influence the February 1999
budget. The final report will try to contain some recommendations that might
also influence the February 2000 federal budget - in other words, two kicks
at the budget.
Conclusion:
This report has been fairly rushed, it was a busy meeting and I could very well have overlooked or omitted something relevant. I would invite Joanne, Lois or Susan to amend, add, correct or whatever anything above.
Frank Winter WINTER@sklib.usask.ca
Member, Advisory Council on Health Info-Structure
Director of Libraries, Library Administration,
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Comment on Frank Winter's report from Joanne Marshall
submitted by Nancy Ottman Press (originally posted in canmedlib Feb. 23)
First I would like to thank Frank for being such a "quick study" around health library issues in Canada and for being such an effective spokesperson on the Advisory Council. In one of the theme sessions that I attended, Frank was acknowledged as "Mr. Library" by the chair when he stood up to make a comment which says a lot about what he has been doing for us.
This was a very political conference and there were lots of contenders for the $50m that the government has made available for a "national health info system". I was reminded that health info means many things to many people and that library-based info is just one of the meanings.
The predominant interest at the conference from my observation was in the electronic patient record and telehealth -- two incredibly expensive forms of health info. The major issue at the beginning of the conference was seen as privacy of health info in these contexts.
At the very least, I think we were reasonably successful in broadening the definition of health information during the conference. We had something of an ally in Bryan Haynes who pointed out several times that there less expensive forms of health info available (like evidence-based info) and he seemed to get considerable support. You may have notice the big spread that Brian and Evidence Based Medicine got in Globe and Mail during the conference. I suggested to Bryan that his position had a lot to do with libraries where the evidence is located in the form of peer-reviewed literature and I gave him a copy of a two page handout supporting the idea of a National Network of Health Libraries that Jim Henderson had prepared. Susan, Lois and I gave out copies of this handout throughout the conference and spoke to as many people as possible.
On the Friday before the conference I received a faxed letter from Alan Nymark, ADM thanking me for the revised version of the concept paper for a National Health Library Network that I submitted on Dec 19/97. He stated that the paper would be referred to one of the Advisory Council committees for action and that it would be combined with other similar ideas from others (presumably Jim's, ACMC etc).
I had an opportunity to speak with Mr Nymark at the very end of the conference and I re-emphasized that the different initiatives that had arisen only showed that there were similar ideas coming from different parts of the country. He agreed that we were all at the same track. I also expressed a concern that traditional services like libraries were being taken for granted even though everyone supported them in principle. I definitely had the impression that he wanted some action to be taken on the idea of a national network.
It was generally difficult to get the word "library" specifically into the recommendations. I did manage to get it into the stakeholder's recommendations from the administrators and policy makers group chaired by Doreen Neville. The recommendation recognized the broad range of info required by admin and policy makers (from data to synthesized info in the form of health care literature found in libraries). I tried to emphasize that, in addition to meeting their own info needs, admin and policy makers were responsible for information services for all others in their institutions or areas of responsibility. At one point, Mary Ellen Jeans, one of the subcommittee chairs said that everyone agreed libraries should be supported but that they should not be a "focus". I tried again to point out that many hospital libraries were being closed or merged in response to restructuring and that by focusing only on data, that another extremely valuable info source (the library) could be lost, but it was not an easy sell.
I felt that there were two points that we tried to make most strongly as librarians attending the conference: 1. that the definition of health info had to go beyond data and the health record to include information in all formats for all groups. 2. that support for existing health info resources, including libraries, had to be part of a national health info system.
I was sorry to hear Frank's comments that all did not go so well after the conference. I spent quite a bit of time with the National Pop Health Clearinghouse group. They were working on their own action recommendations and I wrote the following recommendation which they incorporated:
4. Investments must be made strategically to build on existing systems, information and partnership networks.
-All new investments must leverage existing investments, knowledge and networks such as information services offered by consumer and self-help groups and health and public LIBRARIES (caps mine)
-Not all information is available electronically, nor will it be in the near future. In addition, most Canadians do not have access to hardware and software required to retrieve info electronically. The Canadian health info-structure must take this into acct and facilitate access in multiple formats.
I think this is the time to keep up the pressure if we want health libraries to play a major role in the national health info system in the future. I hope the CHLA/ABSC Board will be instrumental in doing this because they have the national mandate. We also need to get the word out about the core services that health sciences and consumer health libraries are taking in Canada. Unfortunately at the present time, I do not think we are seen as being on the leading edge either on the consumer health or health sciences library sides.
Sorry to go on so long about this, but I do think this conference was a key event for health libraries in Canada and that we need to share our experience and keep on working on these issues in the months ahead.
Joanne Marshall, Professor
Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto
Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3G6
(416)978-4664 Fax 971-1399 Internet: marshall@fis.utoronto.ca
http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/people/faculty/marshall/
WASHINGTON
submitted by Mike Scully
Swedish Medical Center is pleased to announce that Cheryl Goodwin has accepted the position of Manager, Swedish Medical Center Libraries at First Hill and Ballard. Cheryl joins Swedish after many years of service with other Washington libraries. She brings to Swedish the expertise gained from technology upgrades, varied medical library experience, and Internet know-how -- all crucial to the Swedish Libraries' continued progress.
We would also like to thank Bob Hollowell for serving as Acting Manager over the past year. Bob will continue as a full time Medical Librarian serving both campuses.
submitted by Eve Ruff
After seven years as director of the Arnold Library and Internet Services, I have resigned to pursue further education in the health sciences and physical fitness disciplines. My plan is to combine a degree from the University of Washington's Institute on Aging and certification from the American College of Sports Medicine as a physical fitness specialist. Eventually, I plan to combine these graduate studies with my expertise in and advocacy for women's health information and issues. I expect to merge research activities with hands-on experiences with women from mid-life through the later years.
It was not without mixed emotions that I made this decision. The experience at the Hutchinson Center has been magnificent. I am pleased to leave a very different library than what I encountered in l99l. Some of you may know that we have just recently moved into entirely expanded and refurbished quarters (in our same location) and that within weeks we will be closing the original Arnold Library on the First Hill site. But beyond the physical site, together with a most wonderful present and past staff, we have woven the library services into the very fabric of how science is done at the Center, raised faculty expectations of what a robust information service should provide, and built a resource and staff energized to supply that and more.
I ask you all to join me in congratulating Ann Marie Clark who has been promoted to director of the Arnold Library and Internet Services. She and I have worked together for five years, ever since she came to provide temporary reference coverage while I attended an MLA meeting in Chicago! Over this time, Ann Marie has held several positions in the library including Clinical Research Division reference librarian and, more recently, associate director of operations for all of the Center libraries. She has also been the primary architect of our new facility and is now serving on the Washington State Council for Libraries. Many of you know Ann Marie and I know that you all will extend to her every professional courtesy and support that you always have to me.
Finally, to Ann Marie, Susan Way, Cynthia Stevens, Seungja Song, Nancy Crase, Beth Levine, Shauen Trump, Jennifer Behrends, Christy Cronn, Pia Fish, Heidi Heilemann, Joan Wilson, Ellen Pioro, Magdaline Quinlan, Katy Gunville, Lisa Sebastian, Amy Postel, Dawn Hathaway, Betsy Levine, Linda Whitford, and any others who I am sure to have left out: thank you for tenure with me and for committing yourselves to the work of the Center and the libraries. Thank you also for affording me the opportunity to learn something from each of you and to offer you what I could. I am indeed a better person for knowing each of you.
And to the many of you who will read this, thank you for enabling me to be part of one of the most creative, intelligent, hard working and rewarding communities.
Sincerely, Eve Ruff
(My email address "eruff@fhcrc.org" will remain the same--the Hutch won't let me really leave!)
Hello Everyone!
I am the new librarian at the Planetree Health Library at Highline Community Hospital. I am working full time here replacing Valerie Lawrence who moved down to Portland. I have been working in the medical library at Virginia Mason Medical Center for the last four years and now have my own library. :)
I am excited and will do my best to respond to requests for consumer health information that is unique to this collection. Please feel free to call, fax or email me. My docline should be turned on sometime this week so you can start sending me interlibrary loans as soon as it is up and running.
I am not new to the Seattle area but am new to this hospital and I am looking forward to working with all of you in this new capacity.
Ingrid Maksirisombat, MLS <hchnet@halcyon.com>
Planetree Health Library
Highline Community Hospital Health Care Network
16251 Sylvester Road SW, Burien, WA 98166-3052 USA
Voice 206/244-4052; Fax 206/244-4674
Library URL: http://www.halcyon.com/hchnet/library.htm
MONTANA
Dear NorthWesters' - an update for those of you who are interested:
from by Suzy Holt
There's Good news and Bad news -
The Bad News :-(
What appeared to be the culminating position for my particular career, so eagerly and proudly announced at PNC last year, soon went awry. "The devil is in the details" they say, and after two months on the job, it became apparent that what seemed to be the perfect match wasn't going to work as a match at all. After an excruciating re-examination, I resigned.
Luckily we had not yet rented out or sold our home in Helena. The Shodair position was still open and my boss asked me if I wanted to come back. "Not really" I replied. But I do go in once a week to keep up with the lit searches they don't manage themselves with PubMed.
They've been reviewing the salary schedule and will re-advertise the position soon I think. It's still a good position for someone that's new to it. Keep in mind that there is only a half-time LTA there right now, with only a month's training, so have patience! She's really very good. Her name is Donna Stone.
The Good News: :-)
After working steadily for 25 years, I'm giving myself a sabbatical! I'm updating and expanding the genetics literacy course, creating a syllabus and working on the Genomics symposium for Philadelphia. Hope some of you plan to attend! (My course is offered the previous day - sign up for that too!)
I'm spending a *lot* more time supporting my husband and son in what *they* are doing -- which is going great. Spending a *lot* more time with friends ... with books ... with art and creative pursuits. :-) :-) :-) :-)
Biggest regret - not having that opportunity to work more closely with all the Seattle folk!!
Biggest pleasure - being able to RELAX!
What's next? I'm never at a loss for ideas, but I'll figure that out after being a bit longer in this sabbatical mode. It feels really really good.
Warm regards to all - I'll stay tuned to HLIB-NW and hope to be in touch.
Suzy
sholt01@sprynet.com
576 Third Street
Helena, MT 59601
406-442-6331
OREGON
Dear Northwest colleagues,
I just wanted to update you all on my new contact information. I can now be reached at Western States Chiropractic College in Portland, and my phone number is (503)251-5756. This email address will still work, but I'll also be getting an account through OHSU to use for work purposes. I'll let you know what that address is when I know it.
Valerie Lawrence <lawrencv@ohsu.edu >