Librarians without Borders Open Forum: Health Library Outreach to Africa

This year at MLA ’10, Librarians Without Borders is hosting an open forum focused on the role of health sciences libraries in global health information. The goal of the forum is for librarians that are interested in health science library outreach to Africa to come together and hear about various initiatives and approaches that are taking place, which will in turn generate discussion and new ideas about outreach that will continue beyond the forum and MLA. There will be short presentations on the E-Library Training Initiative Project (Hinari) and an update on the LWB grant. The bulk of the forum will be dedicated to a panel of speakers from a variety of institutions who are involved in outreach to Africa and will discuss their initiatives and experiences. Presenting on the panel will be:

Julia Royall, Chief of International Programs, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD

Anne Seymour, Associate Director, Biomedical Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Presenting along with Anne Seymour will be Dineo Ketshogileng, a librarian from the University of Botswana who is currently interning at the University Pennsylvania Libraries.

Mellanye Lackey, Global Health Information Officer, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.

After the panel there will be time for questions and discussion. This forum is intended to be more about interactive dialog and discussion than just presentations. We encourage your questions, ideas and participation!

The forum will take place on Sunday, May 23 from 1:30pm – 2:30pm in Lincoln West, Concourse Level.

Agenda Overview:
Brief presentations on LWB initiatives
-E-Library Training Initiative Project – HINARI (Lenny Rhine)
-LWB Grant update (Min-Lin Fang)
Panel presentations
Julia Royall – Chief of International Programs at the NLM
Anne Seymour – Upenn (NLM and Elsevier grant in Botswana)
- Dineo Ketshogileng, intern librarian from University of Botswana,
Melanye Lackey – UNC Chapel Hill (library global health information effort and vision)
Open time for questions and discussion