These sites plan and present enriching and engaging programs to connect their communities with the information in the exhibitions and with the wide variety of publicly-available NLM resources. For example, what is your job? Where are you located? Who visits your library on a regular basis? Corinne Wilson: I joined the staff at Spokane County Library District SCLD eight years ago and for the last five years, my focus has been planning unique library programs that meet community needs.
SCLD is comprised of eleven locations that serve the rural and suburban areas outside of Spokane city limits and the interests of the community are unique in each. I was initially planning to house the exhibit at our North Spokane Library before closures due to the coronavirus pandemic , where many of our patrons are retired, young families, or college students from nearby universities. Please tell us about the new plans to present the exhibition.
CW: Plans for the exhibition had to dramatically change, first because we had to close our doors for the safety of the community, and that removed our first point of contact with our patrons.
We immediately compiled the resources we wanted the public to have to make informed decisions about their own health. Many people in the spring of were unable to reach a healthcare professional due to high demand and instead were searching the web for answers to simple, non-emergency health questions.
We released a blog post encouraging our community to have insurance information and medical contact information ready in the event they do become ill. We also encouraged patrons to take advantage of a few user-friendly sources from National Library of Medicine and other trusted sources.
