A Small Library with a Big Impact: How Two Medical Librarians Serve the Great State of Alaska

Posted by Carolyn Martin on October 16th, 2024 Posted in: Guest Post, News from Network Members
Tags: librarian roles, medical librarian, Medical Librarians Month

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October is National Medical Librarians Month. Region 5 is celebrating by highlighting some of the wonderful medical librarians in our region. This guest post is from our colleagues in Alaska.

Hello from the last frontier!

We are Anna and Jennifer, the two sole medical librarians who work at the Alaska Medical Library in Anchorage, Alaska. The Alaska Medical Library is located on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus, the largest publicly funded institution in the State, within the UAA/APU Consortium Library.

Our mission is to help the academic community and the healthcare workforce of Alaska navigate and identify the best health information to support student, patient and clinician success.

So, how do we reach people in a State where 80% of its communities are inaccessible by road?

Here are a few of our projects that attempt to improve access to health information across the State:

Like many other states, Alaska struggles with health misinformation. A University of Alaska Anchorage Community Outreach Grant provided Anna with the opportunity to acquire and share available resources dedicated to health misinformation. It also led to presentations at the Alaska Library Association Annual Conference as well as for the Network of the National Library of Medicine. This effort to spread health misinformation awareness will continue with a sabbatical project. The aim of this project is to create a plan and provide the university and the public a place to turn for a comprehensive collection of resources combating health misinformation and disinformation.

In an effort to aid in the promotion of the Alaska Medical Library (AML) to Alaska’s healthcare workforce, Jennifer partnered with UAA’s Area Health Education Center (AHEC), a national network of centers that supports access to healthcare careers and services, especially in rural underserved areas. Reaching out to AHEC made sense, especially since the goal of AML’s grant, supported by NNLM’s Region 5, is to get health information to Alaska’s healthcare workforce through outreach. Typically, this outreach has meant traveling to rural clinics and hospitals and public health centers across the State and demonstrating resources available to clinicians and public health nurses. Last year, the AK Medical Library shared an exhibitor table with AHEC at professional health association conferences held in Anchorage. Partnering with AHEC allowed the AK Medical Library to meet with providers in-person in a relaxed atmosphere away from the busy clinic setting. Clinicians fly from all over Alaska to Anchorage to attend these annual professional conferences and earn CME’s. Being present at local health professionals’ conferences allowed the AK Medical Library to make connections with providers and tell them more about the valuable services AML provides.

The AK Medical Library also partners with AHEC to advertises our services within UAA’s Clearinghouse of Alaska’s Continuing Health Education (CACHE) which is an online catalog of professional development trainings and services for Alaska’s healthcare workforce. The AK Medical Library has been approved by the State of Alaska to create a course that healthcare providers can take to earn CME’s. We are grateful to AHEC for this partnership!

Our work at the Alaska Medical Library is varied and keeps us on our toes. We both feel fortunate for the support we receive from the NNLM Region 5 and its positive effect on the people of Alaska.