R4 Connections: SolarSPELL Health: Information Access for Healthcare Workers and Communities Around the World

Posted by liaison on December 17th, 2025 Posted in: Webinars and Courses

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Mark your calendars! We are excited to host our R4 Connections webinar next month with guest speakers Dr. Heather Ross and Dr. Laura Hosman from Arizona State University’s SolarSPELL. SolarSPELL (Solar Powered Educational Learning Library) is an innovative initiative dedicated to expanding access to high-quality information and building critical digital and information literacy skills in communities around the world that lack reliable internet and electricity serving more than 420,000 learners across 15 countries.

• Date and Time: Tuesday, January 20, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. MT
• Session Length: 60 minutes
• Guest Speakers: Dr. Laura Hosman and Dr. Heather Ross
• Description: The SolarSPELL digital library was designed to meet information needs and build information literacy skills in communities globally that may be considered “information deserts.” The Solar Powered Educational Learning Library (SolarSPELL) is an ultra-portable, rugged, open-access digital library that is localized with and for those who use it around the world. It emits an offline WiFi hotspot that any WiFi capable device can connect to, and freely surf the tens-of-thousands of resources, no internet, data, login, or subscription required. Alongside SolarSPELL’s education and agriculture collections, the SolarSPELL Health library resources are designed to build digital and information literacy using a project-based approach that includes train-the-trainer training and impact evaluation. Since a library is never finished, SolarSPELL is always working to update and improve the resources on all of its collections, including regular evaluation of every resource in the health library to ensure that content is up to date with the most recent and locally-relevant evidence for healthcare workers and communities.

Registration is required to attend. Please note: You must be a NNLM member to register (it’s free!). Can’t join us live? Register anyway to receive the recording after the event. If you are interested in watching recordings of previous R4 Connections, check out our YouTube playlist. Please reach out to us at region4@nnlm.gov with any questions you may have.