Stand Up for Health: Health and Wellness Services for Your Community PLA Pre-Conference Workshop, Philadelphia, PA, March 20, 2018

Written for Midwest Matters by Sherri McConnell What happens when a roomful of librarians get together to talk, eat and breathe health and wellness for a day? You get enthusiastic conversation, lots of ideas and determination to create programming at their home libraries. On March 20 over 80 librarians from all over the country got together at a Public Library Association pre-conference workshop to learn about health information from knowledgeable NNLM staff and to learn from each other. Participating in the workshop and doing a little homework earned you the Consumer Health Information Specialist certification from the Medical Library Association. At my table sat librarians from Kansas, Vermont, and Pennsylvania (and I’m a Michigander), and all day long we shared our program successes and challenges. Librarians are fascinating people, and I heard from two of them during the introductions: a librarian preparing to ride her horse across Michigan and another who built a Hobbit-themed wine cellar in her basement with her sisters. In the next 7 hours we covered large topics like the definition of health literacy and challenges to library staff in providing health information in a public setting; finding and accessing sources of health information; creating programming and finding community partners; how to measure program efforts with PLA’s Project Outcome; and learning about NNLM’s funding opportunities for public libraries. The fun was in the details. Here are some gems:...
Source: The Cornflower - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Public Libraries libs4health PLA2018 public libraries and health stand up for health Success Stories Source Type: news