Insider's Tour of the Library of the Commonwealth

Wow.  Here's a great opportunity to go behind the scenes at the Boston Public Library.  The Massachusetts Library System arranges Insiders Tours for librarians and library staff.  I attended the July 18th event.  First up: Social Sciences.  This department manages family/local history, law, grant resources and government documents.  Next: the Leventhal Map Center.  The current exhibit is America Votes: Mapping the Political Landscape.  Third stop: Rare Books & Special Collections.  In Boston vernacular, wicked awesome.  The library of John Adams and other treasures.  An hour break for lunch.  Many of us took advantage of the on-site cafe and the gorgeous courtyard. 

After lunch, a tour of Microtext and Newspapers (tip--friend them on Facebook, you will not be disappointed!!!), Reference & Readers Advisory and the Interlibrary Loan.  Yes, this is a librarian tour.  Lots of librarian-speak.  We finished with the digitization lab of Digital Commonwealth.  Learn how your library can participate in this exciting project.

The best part of the Insider's Tour is that our tour guides are so enthusiastic about their work.  Want to get pumped up about being a librarian?  Keep an eye out for the next opportunity on the MLS Calendar of Events.

National Library of Medicine (NLM) Drug Information Portal, mobile version!

Do you already use the NLM Drug Information Portal in your work? Now there's a mobile version. The mobile version, at http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov/m.drugportal/ , was released on June 21, 2012. Popular mobile devices will be referred to the mobile site automatically when they access the main Drug Information Portal site, according to the press release.

Read the entire NLM Technical Bulletin (posted June 25, 2012) about this new mobile site.

Disaster Health Information Outreach and Collaboration Project 2012

The National Library of Medicine is again soliciting grant proposals "to design and conduct projects that will improve disaster medicine and public health information access for health professionals, first responders, and others (paid or volunteer) that play a role in health-related disaster preparedness, response, and recovery." 

Need some inspiration?  See the Disaster Health Information Outreach and Collaboration Projects awarded in 2011. Previous recipients include county health departments, university medical centers, health systems, and professional organizations. What will you come up with? 

Grants awarded are for a minimum of $15k up to a max of $30k, for a one-year project. Proposals are due to NLM on August 8, 2012, by 2 PM ET.

(RFP No. NIHLM2012411 and NIHLM2012412)