|
Resource Center Expands the Use of Technology to Provide Information
The Health Promotion Resource Center, established in 1998, enhanced its use of technology in 2001 to access and deliver health information to the community and professional staff. Four examples include an improved Web page that offers direct access to local health information, a larger number of resident requests fulfilled through e-mail, a new on-line publication database, and an increased number of on-line publication subscriptions.
|
| Cooperation between the center and the Planning Office yielded an improved Web site that offers health department news and literature for printing. E-mail provided an increasingly popular electronic avenue for residents to request health information. Also, through membership in a library cooperative, the Resource Center gained access to an on-line database that includes professional journals and allows information to be provided at a moment’s notice. Finally, the center increased access to on-line health publications available through registration.
Teachers, youth group leaders, program chairs of community groups, and other residents of contracting towns interested in providing updated and accurate health information to their groups are invited to use the center. In 2001, the center expanded operations through 46 information requests from the public filled. In addition, video loans numbered 49, with an audience of 1,633.
Besides videos, the center offers materials such as lesson plans and educational handouts on a wide range of health issues, as well as books and periodicals. The totals are reflected at the beginning of this section. To promote health education resources available for borrowing, six issues of the center’s bi-monthly newsletter were developed and distributed to schools, libraries and local health departments.
In addition to serving contracting towns, the center serves staff’s research needs as well as those of the Partnership for Community Health. A total of 135 requests for information from health department staff were fulfilled. An additional 91 requests involved interlibrary loans of books and journal articles.
To better fulfill research requests, the center continued its participation in two library cooperatives, which offers access to interlibrary loans from facilities throughout the United States. The cooperatives are the Health Sciences Library of New Jersey and the Highlands Regional Library Cooperative, a part of the New Jersey Library Network.
|
