Because of the severe financial hardships associated with the transition to a market economy in the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union, the Internet has become a major link to health care resources for many health care workers. In 1992, the University of Illinois at Chicago Library of the Health Sciences (UIC LHS) initiated a special support project with goals of enhancing access to international biomedical information and facilitating international professional networking for interested NIS organizations and individuals. Project objectives included an information needs assessment, development of culturally sensitive Internet training applications, information and referral services, and follow-up e-mail consultations for NIS participants. This paper reviews the historical context of the health care partnerships between the United States and the NIS, and of the UIC LHS International Health Information Networking Project. In the context of UIC, international networking cross-cultural observations, teaching techniques, a Russian training experience, and the development of a Web-based course are reported.

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The decision was made in Britain three centuries ago that an educated populace was best able to deal with a public health crisis of staggering proportions--outbreaks of bubonic and pneumonic plague. As early as 1603, the printing press was enlisted to educate the public about urgent health issues. This education took several forms. The City of London, with the tacit permission of the Crown, printed bills of mortality that reported who was dying of what in London, detailed by parish, for the years in the seventeenth century when plague deaths were reported. New books about plague prevention and cures were published; older works were reprinted. The resulting wealth of data gave impetus to the evolution of the new field of epidemiological demographics, founded by John Graunt and Sir William Petty. Publishing in the plague years also established a model for informing the general populace that is not without parallel in today's "information society."

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The focus group technique is one example of a qualitative research methodology used to explore the opinions, knowledge, perceptions, and concerns of individuals in regard to a particular topic. The focus group typically involves six to ten individuals who have some knowledge of or experience with the topic. The group discussion is led by a moderator who guides participants through a series of open-ended questions. The information gathered can provide important clues to human attitudes and values as they relate to the topic. Such information can be extremely useful to libraries that are trying to gain a better understanding of their patrons' needs and thus make better management decisions to help satisfy those needs. The technique can also be used successfully in conjunction with other research tools, such as surveys, either to help develop a questionnaire or to explain specific survey results. This paper introduces the use of focus groups in library research, the skills needed to conduct groups, and their strengths and weaknesses. Examples of the use of focus groups in health sciences libraries are presented, including the results of a survey from these libraries.

No core list of periodicals exists for speech pathology and audiology. Faced with the prospect of having to cancer periodicals for all subjects, the science librarians at Illinois State University decided to determine which science periodicals were used most heavily. A one-year study of science periodical reshelving and interlibrary loan requests yielded ranked lists of periodicals important to speech pathology and audiology faculty and students at Illinois State University. The three most heavily used journals were the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, ASHA, and Topics in Language Disorders. Most of the periodicals on the lists were indexed by either MEDLINE or UnCover, or by both. While the lists of journals developed in the study are not sufficient to serve as true core lists, they should be useful to libraries supporting comparable programs in speech pathology and audiology.

The Medical Library Association (MLA) has provided its members with a credentialing program since 1949. This article reports on a five-year review of the current program, the Academy of Health Information Professionals. The review included an analysis of the financial basis of the academy and the use of three different survey instruments designed to gather input from MLA members and other opinion leaders. A final report to the MLA Board of Directors set forth eight recommendations based on questions and concerns identified during the review process.

The medical specialist emerged as a critical gatekeeper in a study of information sources used by family practitioners in New Zealand. Thirty-four practitioners in the Wellington region were interviewed and their responses examined to ascertain the extent to which five criteria influenced their choice of information sources for clinical decision-making. The criteria were availability, searchability, understandability, credibility, and applicability. Of three major information sources investigated (textbooks, colleagues, and medical specialists), textbooks were consulted most frequently but were rated less valuable than colleagues and specialists as a source of information. The medical specialist was identified as the information source that best meets the five criteria. Thus, specialists play an important role in disseminating information to family practitioners. However, female practitioners included in the study were less likely to approach specialists than were their male counterparts. Physicians made little use of medical libraries to support clinical decision-making. The apparent disadvantage of female practitioners in accessing specialists needs to be addressed by professional associations. Medical librarians seeking to improve the access of family practitioners to recent literature should consider the heavy use made of specialists as a source of information.

The establishment of the HealthWeb project by twelve health sciences libraries provides a collaborative means of organizing and enhancing access to Internet resources for the international health sciences community. The project is based on the idea that the Internet is common ground for all libraries and that through collaboration a more comprehensive, robust, and long-lasting information product can be maintained. The participants include more than seventy librarians from the health sciences libraries of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), an academic consortium of twelve major research universities. The Greater Midwest Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine serves as a cosponsor. HealthWeb is an information resource that provides access to evaluated, annotated Internet resources via the World Wide Web. The project vision as well as the progress reported on its implementation may serve as a model for other collaborative Internet projects.

BACKGROUND: Two directories that contain information about serials also offer lists of thousands of journals identified as peer-reviewed. Librarians generally regard these lists as authoritative. OBJECTIVE: To identify clinical medicine journals on both peer-reviewed lists, measure the extent of discrepancies between these two lists, and determine the cause for these discrepancies. DESIGN: Comparison study. MEASUREMENTS: The extent of the discrepancies were tallied once the author had attempted to control for all extraneous variables. Interviews with the editorial staffs of each directory in regard to procedures for compiling the directories did not produce an explanation for these discrepancies. RESULTS: Nearly half (46%) of the 784 clinical medicine journals were unique to either one directory's list of peer-reviewed journals or the other's, indicating significant discrepancies between the two directories. Specifically, The Serials Directory listed 211 (27%) unique titles and Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory listed 150 (19%) unique titles (total unique titles = 46%). Both directories listed 423 of the same titles (54%). CONCLUSION: Widespread confusion about the actual identities of peer reviewed clinical medicine journals appears to explain the discrepancies between lists in these two periodical directories.

This paper reports on an ongoing investigation into health sciences faculty's information-seeking behavior, including their use of new information technologies. A survey was administered to all faculty in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It was similar to one administered to the same population in 1991. The survey asked about faculty's use of electronic resources, documented any shift from the use of print to electronic formats, and measured the utilization of library training. The response rate was 48.5% for medicine faculty, 45.0% for nursing, and 62.5% for pharmacy. The study found that use of the print Index Medicus among faculty was in transition: While 30.5% continued to use the print resources, 68.0% of faculty accessed MEDLINE through electronic means. Faculty preferred accessing electronic databases from their offices to doing so from the library. Health sciences faculty used a wide variety of databases, in addition to MEDLINE, to fill their information needs. Most faculty did not take advantage of either in-house or electronic training sessions offered by librarians. The study concluded that the training preferences of faculty need to be further explored.

In late 1995, several months prior to the introduction of Internet Grateful Med, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) conducted a customer survey as part of its efforts to make a transition from Grateful Med to new forms of electronic information access and retrieval. A questionnaire survey was mailed to a sample of 2,500 online users randomly selected from domestic users (excluding fixed-fee users) who searched NLM databases during the second quarter of 1995. The final response rate was nearly 83% of eligible respondents. About 70% of NLM customers responding already had access to the Internet, and of those, more than 90% had access to the World Wide Web. However, only 26% of customers with Internet access were using the Internet to access NLM databases. Health care providers account for about 46% of NLM customers but, as a group, search NLM databases relatively infrequently even though they have higher-end equipment. Librarians and information professionals represent about one-fifth of NLM customers and are by far the most intensive users, but tend to have lower-end equipment. Overall, the survey results provide a strong basis for the transition to Internet-based delivery of NLM online database services, including Internet Grateful Med and the NLM family of World Wide Web sites. However, Internet access is uneven, especially in rural areas and at hospitals. This reinforces the need for continuing special outreach efforts directed at improving access for rural and hospital-based users and rural libraries, upgrading computer equipment for medical librarians, and training health care providers in more effective use of Internet-based biomedical information resources.