Books & Bytes, March 1992 Volume 4, Number 7

Volume 4, Number 7    March 1992

Books & Bytes is produced by the HSLIC Library Staff for Health Sciences Center personnel. Copyright University of Washington.

Table of Contents

"To Your Health": Posters Reflect Health Issues of the Day
HSLIC Welcomes Lisa Oberg
Basic Sciences Librarian Program Initiated
Navigating the Internet
The LEXIS/NEXIS Connection
Consumer Health Information Network Fair '92
National Health Interview Survey Data Available on CD-ROM
Recent Gifts and Contributions to the Collections

"To Your Health": Posters Reflect Health Issues of the Day

by Carolyn Weaver, Associate Director for Administration

"To Your Health: An Exhibition of Posters for Contemporary Public Health Issues" will be on display in the Health Sciences Library from April 6 through May 29, 1992. This unique display features 75 public health posters drawn from the extensive collection of the National Library of Medicine. The exhibit has been shown at only ten sites in the U.S. and Canada since 1990, with UW as the only West Coast location scheduled through 1992.

Posters have a brief life. Designed to attract attention and communicate a message rapidly, they may be torn down, destroyed by weather, and discarded when the next poster comes along. Yet many are worth keeping, either for their artistic quality or as evidence of changing social values. This exhibit offers an unusual view of changing concerns about public health issues in the US and 20 other countries.

"To Your Health" provides a broad overview of public health posters, ranging from those used during wartime to warn soldiers about venereal disease, to others concerned with contemporary issues, such as encouragement of breastfeeding in third world countries. Others show how agencies try to influence public attitudes using posters, such as the American Lung Association's use of a well-known face (Brooke Shields) to convince us that "Smoking Spoils your Looks."

Much of the exhibit is devoted to current posters campaigning for the awareness and prevention of AIDS and drug abuse. Explicit, often shocking graphics provide realistic views of disease and addiction. Other themes featured include immunization, biomedical research, dental hygiene, and nursing.

Whorton Lecture to Open Exhibit

Dr. James C. Whorton, Professor of Medical History and Ethics at UW, will provide an historical perspective for the exhibit on Monday, April 6, with a noon-hour lecture entitled "Of Plagues and Posters: The Origins of the Public's Health Education." Dr. Whorton will trace the major disease threats of the 19th century and show how the beginnings of public health activity in the mid-1800s were transformed by the germ theory. Posters from the early 20th century will be used to illustrate efforts to enlist the public in the battle against disease by educating laymen in epidemiology of diseases such as bubonic plague, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and venereal disease. The lecture, scheduled from noon to 1 p.m. in HSLIC Room T-340, is open to all UW faculty and staff. Space is limited, so come early.

For further information about either the exhibit or the lecture, call 543-3401 or send an email message to cweaver@u.washington.edu.

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HSLIC Welcomes Lisa Oberg

Lisa Oberg joined the Health Sciences Library's professional staff on February 24 as Information Services and Education Librarian. A recent graduate of the UW School of Library and Information Science with an undergraduate degree in microbiology, Lisa previously worked as a student reference assistant for HSLIC. She will serve as coordinator of the library's user education programs.

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Basic Sciences Librarian Program Initiated

by Terry Ann Jankowski, Information Services/Basic Sciences Librarian

Following the model created for the Health Sciences Library's Clinical Medical Librarian program, a similar program is being developed for the basic sciences. Terry Ann Jankowski, former Information Retrieval & Management Librarian, is responsible for managing this new program.

Terry will serve as a liaison between the Health Sciences Center basic sciences departments and HSLIC, assisting departments in accessing, organizing and evaluating information resources, both electronic and print. She is available to teach classes on information retrieval and management as well as to provide information about HSLIC's services, policies and collections. Input which she receives from the departments will be used to tailor HSLIC's collection and services to the needs of its clientele. One new service to be offered will be monthly literature updates using the recently acquired Biotechnology Citation Index on CD-ROM. We welcome your suggestions for other new services.

To anticipate the needs of the new Department of Molecular Biotechnology, HSLIC's first collection review (described by Lorraine Raymond in the December 1991 issue of Books & Bytes) focused on the needs of this department. Collection assessments for other departments will follow.

Faculty and staff of basic science departments in the Health Sciences Center are urged to contact Terry at 543-3397 or via email to terryj@u.washington.edu concerning their information needs.

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Navigating the Internet

by Philip Arny, Teaching Learning Center Coordinator

The Internet, a worldwide web of computer networks spanning dozens of countries and thousands of systems, is an increasingly important tool for research and communication. Members of the University of Washington community have ready access to the Internet through campus computers, but may be less than knowledgeable about all the resources which are available and how to use them. Among these resources are new journals available only in electronic form; electronic discussion groups in hundreds of subject areas; a wide variety of databases, directories, and library catalogs from many institutions; and new tools such as Campus Wide Information Services (CWIS) and Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) systems.

The Health Sciences Library is offering a new class on these information resources, with a special emphasis on resources relevant to the health sciences. (See Information Management Education schedule for details.) The class will include a mixture of lecture, discussion and hands-on experience. The April 9 class will focus primarily on using Macintosh computers to access the Internet, while the April 10 class will emphasize the use of DOS-based tools. Since Internet resources can be accessed from many different systems, including campus mainframes such as Milton or Max, the content of this course is also relevant to those who may not yet be users of personal computers.

Registration for this course is limited to UW affiliates; the $5.00 registration fee covers the cost of handouts. To register, call 543- 3394 or send an email message to rmaberry@u.washington.edu. You will receive a registration confirmation by mail.

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The LEXIS/NEXIS Connection

by Terry Ann Jankowski, Information Services/Basic Sciences Librarian

Are you tracking national legislation relating to health care or higher education? Need to know how biotechnology issues are being covered by the news media? These questions and more can be answered using the library's Lexis/Nexis connection.

Lexis and Nexis are full-text, online information and retrieval systems produced by Mead Data Central, Inc. Lexis covers primarily federal and international legal resources but also includes court decisions and legislative issues at the state level. Nexis covers foreign and domestic news, with emphasis on financial, political and business issues. The individual "files" in these databases include major newspapers, business and technical newsletters, wire services, Congressional committee reports, state and federal case law and court decisions, US and state codes and the Federal Register. The complete list of files is over 18 pages long, with new files added each week.

As part of the campus-wide Lexis/Nexis access program, HSLIC provides access at no charge for University of Washington students, staff and faculty. Quick fact checking or information gathering searches may be obtained as a free ready reference service by completing the standard HSLIC Computerized Literature Search Request Form. Search results will be ready within one working day. UW faculty, staff, or students conducting ongoing research or following trends may choose to make an appointment with a search analyst for a one hour free consultation during which training will be provided for "do-it-yourself" searching. For more information or to request a search, call the HSLIC Reference Desk (543-3394) or K. K. Sherwood Library (223-3360).

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Consumer Health Information Network Fair '92

The Consumer Health Information Network (CHIN) Fair '92 offers to Washington area libraries the opportunity to obtain up-to-date information on consumer health information resources and services. Scheduled on April 23, 1992, from 10 am to 4 pm in the Seattle Public Library Auditorium, CHIN Fair '92 includes presentations which will focus on successful models for providing health information to the public. The exhibits present a unique opportunity to try out new hardware and software and to become familiar with a growing number of consumer health information resources, both print and nonprint. Displays of pamphlets from associations will also be available.

Attendance is free and open to all persons interested in consumer health information resources and services. The fair is cosponsored by the UW Health Sciences Library, Seattle Public Library, King County Library System, and the Seattle Area Hospital Library Consortium, with partial funding by a grant from the Washington State Library.

CHIN FAIR '92 Schedule of Events
Seattle Public Library Auditorium, 1000 Fourth Ave.

Exhibits and Pamphlet Displays:
10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Exhibitors include Micromedex, Login, Silver Platter, King County Public Library, Information Access Company, CMC Research. Participating associations include Cancer Information Service, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, March of Dimes, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, Arthritis Foundation and Children's Hospital Children's Resource Center.

Speakers and Presentations:
10:30 a.m. - noon; repeated 1:30 - 3 p.m.

Welcome: Liz Stroup, Director, Seattle Public Library.

"The King County Public Library Perspective"
Maureen Carleton, Medical Reference Specialist, King County Library System.

"The Seattle Public Library Perspective"
Barbara Mitchell, Public Service Librarian, Seattle Public Library.

"The Seattle Area Health Sciences Libraries Perspective"
Kathy Murray, Director, Library Services, Horton Health Sciences Library, Providence Medical Center, Seattle.

"An Alternative Model for Providing Consumer Health Information"
Sylvia MacWilliams, Director, Library Services, Southwest Washington Hospital, Vancouver, Wa.

Half-hour tours, Seattle Public Library: 10 a.m., noon, 12:30 p.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.

For more information about CHIN Fair '92, contact Elaine Martin at (206) 543-3408 or mickey@u.washington.edu.

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National Health Interview Survey Data Available on CD-ROM

by Leilani St. Anna

Data from the 1987 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is now available on CD-ROM. NHIS is a continuing nationwide survey that collects data by means of personal household interviews. The data on CD-ROM supplements the information available in Series 10 of Vital and Health Statistics (familiarly known as the Rainbow Series), which is available in the Reference Serials Stacks.

The compact disc file, developed by the National Center for Health Statistics, contains over 300,000 records from five NHIS core files on household, person, condition, doctor visit, and hospital data, plus data from four supplemental files on adoption, cancer control, cancer epidemiology, and polio. Using the access software that comes with the CD, you can create your own tables using the health interview survey data.

The NHIS CD-ROM is available for checkout at the TLC/Reserve desk. You can make arrangements with Reference to use a library CD-ROM workstation; or you can access the CD on your own equipment if you have a DOS-compatible machine equipped with a CD-ROM drive. For more information, contact Leilani St. Anna at 543-7492 or lstanna@u.washington.edu.

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Recent Gifts

Acknowledgment and appreciation is extended to the following individuals and departments who have recently donated materials to the Library:

Dr. Paul Bornstein; Dr. and Mrs. Herbert K. Kashiwa; Dr. John Kobayashi; Ms. Laura Larsson; Dr. John N. Lavallee; Dr. Stephen I. Marglin; Dr. Michael Richardson; Dr. Virginia Richmond; Dr. Noel S. Weiss; Dr. Loren C. Winterscheid; Department of Ophthalmology; School of Public Health and Community Medicine.

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