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| Fall 2001 Issue |
Health Sciences Goes Online to Serve PatronsInternet chat rooms have fast become a meeting ground for people with similar interests to share ideas and develop new friendships. The West Virginia University Health Sciences Library sees the technology as an ideal prescription for connecting with people seeking medical-related information. "You can email the reference desk, can call on the phone or can drop in personally," said Terrance Burton, director of the Health Sciences Library. "We'd like to be able to provide another option." The Health Sciences Library plans to add to its website a link to a chat room to improve the line of communication between itself and the public. Currently, a variety of people from students and faculty members to doctors and others in the general public pose questions to librarians at the Health Sciences Library. The query could be from a woman in Logan who just received a diagnosis from her physician and wants to learn more about her ailment or a doctor in Elkins who recently heard about an article revealing a new treatment. As the National Network of Libraries of Medicine resource library for West Virginia, the Health Sciences Library is responsible of all health care professionals who are not linked to a hospital or one of the state's academic medical centers, in addition to its responsibility for WVU and WVUH patrons. "A doctor is Summersville is our problem, as is a dentist in Beckley, a nurse in Wheeling, a pharmacist in Keyser, or a physical therapist in Kingwoood." Burton said. "On occasion, there's going to be a situation where they will be unable to find a particular piece of information. We've got a larger range of resources available to us." Interest in such a service is also high among public librarians who daily receive questions from patrons about health care. The chat room would enable a librarian or anyone with an Internet connection to pose the question to someone with access to the needed materials. Burton considers the chat room superior to the phone and email because it doesn't require a long-distance call but provides the same immediacy of communication. And email may require additional exchanges to identify the actual question. "The classic is the patron who comes in and asks where books on France are located. The real question is, 'I want to know where Napoleon died.' The question coming in may not be the question being asked," Burton said. A chat room provides immediate and direct communication between both parties. Burton expects the chat room open for business by the end of 2001. It will operate 9 a.m.-9 p.m. daily, the regular hours for Health Science Libraries reference desk. "As more people are getting on the Internet, more people are making connections with each other that way," Burton said. "More people are seeking health information that way and they need to be able to use that to get to good information." WVU Health Sciences Library website: http://www.hsc.wvu.edu/library |
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Ex Libris is published quarterly by the WVU Libraries |
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