UAMS Library Receives NLM Grant

The UAMS Library has been awarded a $40,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NLM) to help develop the Arkansas Consumer Health Information Network (ARCHIN). The goals of the ARCHIN project are as follows:

• Build partnerships of consumer health information (CHI) providers to facilitate access to information
• Develop and maintain an Internet web site with links to up-to-date CHI resources
• Assist in the development of web sites containing information about state and local services/resources
• Provide training about CHI resources for Arkansas librarians, health professionals and others

The NLM grant funds will be used to purchase a server for the ARCHIN web site, to pay for logo and web site design work done by UAMS Campus Media Services, and for the creation and printing of a brochure and other publicity materials.

A separate $3,000 award, from the Friends of the National Library of Medicine and Merck & Company, will fund a meeting for consumer health information providers from throughout Arkansas. The meeting will be held March 22 at the Central Arkansas Library System's main library in downtown Little Rock. The meeting will include reports from the ARCHIN steering committee and task forces (funding, web site, publicity, training and resources), and demonstrations of the ARCHIN web site and several other sources of consumer health information, including the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINEplus web site and the PubMed search interface for MEDLINE and other NLM databases. Anyone wanting to attend the meeting should contact Susan Steelman at 686-6734 to register. <SteelmanSusanC@exchange.uams.edu>