NNLM All of Us CEN Newsletter - April 2021

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April 2021

Engaging Diversity in Clinical Care
April 14, 7:00pm 

You are invited to Engaging Diversity in Clinical Care! Don't miss an incredible panel from experienced health professionals who will discuss their experiences working with diverse patient populations. Our accomplished panel will be sharing stories of their experiences while also providing helpful advice for those who will work in healthcare. We will be addressing topics of providing care to patients from diverse backgrounds, how systemic issues lead to increased health problems for under-resourced patients, and ways we can collaborate across fields to provide care to patients and communities. You can register here!

Engaging Diversity in Clinical Care

Gaming For Science

Gaming 4 Science Day -
April 16, 2021

Join us from wherever you are around the world for a day of Gaming 4 Science, as part of Citizen Science Month! Featuring Stall Catchers, Eterna and Neureka, participate in game play to advance scientific research. Learn more about the event here!


Program: Tips and Tools for Closing the Digital Health Divide

In yet another addition to our exciting Virtual Health Programming lineup, please join us for this upcoming four series event: “Tips and Tools for Closing the Digital Health Divide.”

Now, more than ever, the ability to navigate online resources is crucial. As people rely on technology for health information, and healthcare systems shift to telehealth, it's important that everyone has the ability to access, understand, and use these resources. The NNLM partnered with Wisconsin Health Literacy to create these training webinars for anyone who works with community members, patients or library patrons. Supported by the NNLM and the All of Us Research Program, Wisconsin Health Literacy will lead the discussions. The initial event addresses Digital Literacy, Health Literacy, and Tools Developed for Program Implementation (April 19th), while subsequent events will feature expert panelists providing insight and strategies for effectively reaching these diverse populations: African American and Latinx Communities (April 20th); Refugees and Immigrants, and LGBTQ+ communities (April 21st); Older Adults and Persons with Disabilities (April 22nd).

For more information and to register: https://nnlm.gov/DHL

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April NNLM Reading Club Selections: End of Life

It’s difficult to talk about, even scary. Important things usually are.

And deciding what to do about that transition between life and death – how to make it more comfortable, what to do afterwards – is so very important, to our loved ones and ourselves. It involves issues not only of health, but of spirituality, compassion and trust.

Whether your focus of concern is on a family member or yourself, NNLM Reading Club suggests three books that may help with your understanding of end-of-life matters and those conversations you probably have been putting off.

In The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death and Everything That Comes After, the late Julie Yip-Williams leaves behind a chronicle of a life filled with improbable outcomes since her childhood as a blind Vietnamese refugee who regained her sight at the hands of an American doctor. She faces her own terminal illness at age 37 with honesty.

New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast brings her idiosyncratic humor to her experience as caretaker of aging, declining parents in the graphic memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Finally, Zen Hospice Project co-founder Frank Ostaseski relates the lessons he has learned as a Buddhist teacher who has worked with more than a thousand dying patients in The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living.

We encourage you to take a deep breath, read one of these books, and discuss it with people whose opinions you respect, especially those in your own family. It just might make you feel a whole lot better about the inevitable. Visit the NNLM Reading. Club: End of Life health topic to get started.

April Reading Club Titles

CHIS Spotlight: Cedate Shultz 

Cedate Shultz

Position: Interlibrary Loan/Public Services Librarian

Institution: La Vista Public Library

Please share a few sentences about your position and what you do.    
I serve our community in many ways including supervision of the evening and weekend staff, creation and execution of programming for adults (both passive and in person), processing of interlibrary loans, and working at the reference desk. Some of this programming is conducted in partnership with local business including senior living communities. I also work on some committees for the City. Before the COVID related closures hit, our newly formed Event Guide Committee had just created and released our first City Event Guide that included programming schedules for the Library and Community Center.

Why did you want to receive Consumer Health Information Specialization (CHIS)?    
With the abundance of information now freely available at our fingertips, it is more important than ever to be able to guide patrons toward credible and trustworthy sources. While I have always had a basic working knowledge of many of the fantastic sources available, I wanted to expand that base to include more in-depth understanding of their functionality and content. I am excited and proud to be able to serve as a Consumer Health Information resource for my community.

How have you used what you learned in NNLM CHIS courses in your work?    
COVID has definitely changed our working environment. Everything from how patrons access physical materials to the presentation of programming looks very different than it did 10 months ago. As such, I am still seeking ways to best use the information I learned in a programming context. I have, however, been able to assist our patrons in sifting through news articles, locate information on appropriate pandemic safety measures, and direct our patrons from sensationalized popular media sources like Fox News and CNN to more reliable ones provided by the National Library of Medicine, Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, and the like.

Why do you feel providing health information is important to your work/community?    
I can not think of any period in my lifetime when the ability to locate, access, assess, and assimilate health information has been more important. The current COVID-19 pandemic has us all in a state of great uncertainty and absolute information overload. Conspiracy theories are abundant and it seems that everyone thinks that they have the answers to what ails us. It is a privilege to be able to help the residents of our community sift through the current onslaught of information while also helping them gain necessary and lifelong information literacy skills.

Any tips or advice you have for someone interested in taking classes to achieve CHIS?    
Have fun with it! For me, one of my favorite parts of librarianship is that I am constantly learning and exploring new things. Often, this happens when I am helping a patron with their information needs. These courses are packed full of incredible, useful information presented by knowledgeable instructors. You also have the opportunity to learn along side fellow curators of information from organizations all over the country whose experience and worldviews invite new perspectives and ideas. ENJOY IT and NEVER STOP LEARNING!