NNLM Discovery Podcast: Visiting the Public Health Museum

Posted by Sarah Levin-Lederer on January 31st, 2024 Posted in: Funded Project
Tags: Funded Projects, Member Spotlight, podcast, Public Health

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Did you know that NNLM has a podcast?

The NNLM Discovery Podcast explores how the NNLM – part of the National Library of Medicine – is engaging with communities to provide access to trusted information for the purpose of improving the public’s health.

Each episode highlights a story from one of the seven NNLM regions. In the first season, R7 highlighted the work of Medical Librarians.

And this year, R7 is excited to share the work of the Public Health Museum in Tewksbury, MA and their summer program for high school students, Outbreak!

Check out the podcast here (or wherever you get your podcasts) and video.

The video is also available with audio description.

Visiting The Public Health Museum

In December, Jessica Kilham, NNLM R7 Associate Director, and I got to visit the Public Health Museum to participate in filming the video and some audio for the podcast.

Al DeMaria, museum president, gave us a tour and we got to watch Al and Teri Clover, former Outbreak! participant, talk about the museum, the program, and the relationship with NLM and NNLM R7.

Teri originally talked to R7 about Outbreak! and how it influenced her carrier path when she did a member spotlight in 2021.

We also got to have our big movie moment talking about the relationship from NNLM R7’s side and how proud we are to be able to support this program.

R7 and The Public Health Museum’s Partnership

We’re proud of the different ways we work with the public health museum.

In the podcast, we talk about how the Public Health Museum received funding from NNLM R7 when we were still NER. That funding helped to keep the program free by providing transportation for students to the program and for transportation for fieldtrips to places like the Massachusetts’ State Public Health Laboratory.

Funding helped Outbreak! go virtual during the pandemic by paying for Zoom licenses and other technology.

During the funded years and after, R7 supports the Public Health Museum with MedlinePlus and PubMed trainings for Outbreak! students and peer mentors.

And because of the established relationship between R7 and the Public Health Museum, the Lamar Soutter Library at UMass Chan Medical School was able to borrow from the museum’s collection  to support the Pictures in Nursing Traveling Exhibition.