Go Local Nebraska

Go Local Nebraska
Originally uploaded by Bibliotek.

Please let us know if you need any Go Local Nebraska baseball cards to promote the service to your audience. You can email your request to askus@unmc.edu .

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The site feed url for the Go Local Nebraska blog is http://golocalne.blogspot.com/atom.xml . The Site Feed url is also posted at the bottom of this blog.

The benefit of using an RSS reader is to manage many blogs through one location. A good example of what an RSS reader can do to help you manage your connection to information is Google News - a news blog aggregator that collects many sources of information on one site: http://news.google.com.

Some free readers/aggregators that may serve your needs:
Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/. Quote from the Bloglines site: "Create a personal Bloglines page loaded with the freshest news about the things you love."
Google Reader http://www.google.com/help/reader/tour.html. Quote from the tour site: "Google Reader shows you all your favorite sites in one convenient place. It's like your inbox, for the web."

Reaching Out To Patients

The Go Local Nebraska team has applied for funding with The Nebraska Medical Center University Hospital Auxiliary. If approved, this would fund a new effort called Reaching Out To Patients, and enable purchase of promotional display holders, brochures, and other materials aimed at reaching patients and their family members at their time of information need. All of the promotional materials would be hand-delivered to patient waiting areas around The Nebraska Medical Center clinics, aiding patients and their family members seeking quality and reliable consumer health information.

Upcoming Education Events for Go Local

Roxanne Cox and Teri Hartman will be taking the message of Go Local Nebraska and traveling around the state to teach and demonstrate this new service at the Nebraska Library Association's Spring Meetings. The schedule is:

May 7th - Alliance
May 9th - Kearney
May 10th - Norfolk
May 11th - Lincoln

The Go Local committee at the McGoogan Library of Medicine, led by Marie Reidelbach, is also looking at scheduling travel and education sessions throughout the summer. If you know of a group that would benefit from a Go Local Nebraska presentation, please tell us so we can get them on the schedule.

February 6th Education Event a Success in Norfolk

Roxanne Cox and Teri Hartman traveled to Norfolk, NE on February 6th to teach two sessions on Go Local Nebraska for the Northeast Library System Workshop. The morning session students included 16 library staff and 1 library trustee; the afternoon session students included 18 library staff and 2 library trustees. The CHIRS program and the Go Local Nebraska project were covered in each hour-long class, with live demonstrations of Go Local Nebraska resulting in enthusiastic praise from the students. "This information is worth the cost of the workshop.", and "This made the entire day worthwhile." were two of the student comments overheard by the instructors. Evaluations gathered from the students included the following comments: "Small libraries cannot keep up w/current medical issues and this is one area where I know they are given correct info." "A great reference for ANYONE! Thanks." "WOW. I didn’t know any of this was available. I’m much better able to help our patrons w/medical questions."

Go Local Displays are traveling the state

The Go Local Nebraska project used some of the NN/LM grant monies last spring to purchase two mail-able displays for libraries to use when promoting Go Local and access to consumer health information in their communities. Using the Display Order form on this site: http://app1.unmc.edu/forms/library/displayform.cfm, libraries, hospitals, and colleges in Nebraska can request the display for a specific event, or just to add to their current promotional activities within their organization. There are no fees involved - the display is mailed out with return postage included. The following organizations have used the display since June 2006, and reservations for 2007 are still being received:

Alliance Public Library
Chase County Community Hospital
Fairbury Public Library
Goodall City Library
Grand Island Public Library
Hamilton College
La Vista Public Library
Norfolk Public Library

Database has Doubled in Size

Go Local Nebraska started with roughly 2700 records in October, 2006. As of March 2007 the number of records has nearly doubled with over 4600 records approved. 1200 records are in process which includes clinics across the state. It is estimated all of these records will be completed by June bringing the number of records in the database to almost 6000 entries.

Style Manual of Terms

As the Go Local team indexes records it is critically important to maintain consistency. A manual of all the service terms along with descriptions (provided by the North Carolina Go Local project) and topics is being developed. Currently the manul covers over 150 pages. The manual will eventually be posted on the Go Local website for all selectors and reviewers of the Go Local Nebraska project.

Web Statistics Reveal Go Local Usage

Since Go Local Nebraska was launched on October 21, 2006, the National Library of Medicine has maintained a monthly report of usage. The following provides an overview of web statistics through February, 2007.

October 2006
No. of Visitors - 578
Visited Once - 510
Visited More than Once - 68
Visits per day - 790
Avg. visits per day - 25
Avg. hits per day - 215
November 2006
No. of Visitors - 585
Visited Once - 504
Visited More than Once - 81
Visits per day - 939
Avg. visits per day - 31
Avg. hits per day - 355
December 2006
No. of Visitors - 363
Visited Once - 298
Visited More than Once - 65
Visits per day - 534
Avg. visits per day - 17
Avg. hits per day - 88
January 2007
No. of Visitors - 538
Visited Once - 457
Visited More than Once - 81
Visits per day - 744
Avg. visits per day - 24
Avg. hits per day - 114
February 2007
No. of Visitors - 574
Visited Once - 489
Visited More than Once - 85
Visits per day - 770
Avg. visits per day - 27
Avg. hits per day - 409

Go Local Reaches Across the State (GRAS)

The Go Local Nebraska project has received funding to further promote the initiative and train selectors across the state. The $11,000 is provided by the Nebraska Library Commission in support of a Nebraska Health Information Partnership grant proposal.

Project Description:

Providing quality, up-to-date information in GoLocal Nebraska is a continuing need. Limited staffing is available from the McGoogan Library of Medicine to research all health related resources within each community. Therefore, it is important to partner with people who are knowledgeable about the health resources in their communities. Public librarians are aware of the resources in their cities and often times have the most contacts to support this project.

The purpose of this project is to expand the content of GoLocal Nebraska and ensure important information about services and health care providers is not omitted. To achieve this goal, public librarians will be trained as GoLocal Nebraska selectors across the state. They will identify missing information as well as ensure the information listed is up-to-date. In addition, health related services including hospitals and clinics will be actively targeted to receive promotional materials about the Go Local Nebraska project.

Grant funds will be used to create the necessary promotional and training materials as well as to cover travel expenses. The Eastern Library System will be the initial system to identify a selector who is willing to partner on this project. That selector will play a major role in testing the training materials and refining methods for launching this type of partnership to the other systems. To successfully gather and train selectors across the state, funding will be spread across a 24 month period. Primary objectives include:

1. To improve access to quality health information and services for Nebraska residents using the World Wide Web.
2. To improve access to state, local, and community resources.
3. To aggregate dispersed health services information in a single source and make it readily available.

Project Implementation:

• Select a Public Librarian to become a Go Local selector from each library system.
• Provide the needed training for each selector.
• Travel to Public Libraries promoting MEDLINEPlus and Go Local Nebraska.
• Provide training to consumers about quality consumer health information on the web by attending Health Fairs across the state.
• Write up a job description for the selectors including what they would be expected to do and what they can anticipate receiving for their efforts.
• Selectors will receive training materials in print or on a CD, toll free number to call if they have problems or questions, and a framed certificate that they have partnered with the McGoogan Library. CE for attending the training sessions will be investigated as a possible reward as well.
• Promotional materials will be developed and distributed to health care providers, clinics, and hospitals.

Project Communication Plan
Provide a newsletter, up to date website, create training CD’s and be a part of the Nebraska Library Commission’s “Database Roadshow”.

Press releases and contact each system administrator to identify public librarians who might be interested in becoming a selector.

Project Budget
The requested dollars will be used for travel expenses and the development of training and promotional materials. The project will be completed in 24 months. A progress report will be written at the end of the first 12 months with a final report submitted to the Nebraska Library Commission at the conclusion of the project.

Welcome to the Go Local Nebraska Project blog

Thanks to the hard work of many people, the Go Local Nebraska Project is live at http://medlineplus.gov/nebraska . Work continues on data acquisition and entry, indexing, and promotion of this new health information resource.