Northern Alberta Health Libraries Association
TRENDS Mini-Conference

"Teaching, Research, Education, 'Nowledge, Direction, Strength"

NAHLA is delighted to announce its fourth TRENDS Mini-Conference! Below you will find details for the conference and registration procedures. We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

TRENDS Sessions:

Locating Aboriginal Health Information on the Internet (to support the information needs of everyone from patients to researchers) (1-2 p.m.)

There are many excellent resources available on the Internet to support health research, health promotion, and patient care for Native peoples. Learn where the best free resources are and how to use them effectively. This session will help you to effectively locate references to research articles on Aboriginal health information in PubMed/MEDLINE and will introduce you to some undiscovered full-text gems. You will learn about some of the unique challenges of locating relevant references about Aboriginal peoples’ health when using PubMed. Learn how to find quality information for your personal health, to help students, and to provide comprehensive bibliographies for community-based research. You will be able to provide the best, the newest, and the most accurate information on all aspects of the health of Aboriginal peoples. Whether or not you have ready access to a large medical library, you will feel more confident in handling reference questions, requests for statistics and literature searches. There is more out there than you think!

Janice Linton is the Aboriginal Health Librarian for the University of Manitoba. She has developed a comprehensive collection of books and videos on the health of Metis, First Nations and Inuit peoples of Canada. The Aboriginal Health Collection is a special collection within an academic health sciences library and features materials for patients, researchers and clinicians. Janice teaches many workshops on locating Aboriginal health information on the Internet, resources for Inuit health research, and using the Internet to support primary care for northern nurses and staff working in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. Her publications include Traditional Medicine and Concepts of Wellness on the Web: Native Peoples of North American, by Sharon A. Gray and Janice S. Linton, Health Care on the Internet, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2001): 71-81 and acting as a co-editor with Jim Bruce on the special theme issue, Information Resources for Aboriginal Peoples, for the Canadian Library Association’s Feliciter, Vol. 49, No. 5.

Be Seen; Be Heard (2-3 p.m.)

Health libraries are generally situated within larger institutions. How can health librarians help administrators in these institutions understand why a thriving health library supports their agenda so that they support it? Learn how to purposefully build a relationship with decision-makers and those who influence them. Hear a manager’s perspective on how specialized services like health libraries look from where they work.

Margaret Law is Associate Director of Libraries (Science, Technology and Health Sciences) and a PhD student in the Faculty of Business at the University of Alberta. Her current research interests include the behaviour of managers in the workplace, and the wearing of suits by female managers. She received her MLS from the University of British Columbia and her MBA from Athabasca University.

The Contribution of Qualitative Research Research to Health Care: What, Why and How… (3- 4 p.m.)

Over the last 15 years, qualitative research methods have emerged as an accepted and increasingly mainstream (though often misunderstood) set of tools to develop knowledge and inform policy decisions in health care. During this presentation, the range and scope of these methods will be discussed and their influence on knowledge development and decision-making outlined in relation to contemporary health care challenges

Dr. Alex Clark is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Nursing (University of Alberta) and Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Population Health Investigator. He works in the area of coronary heart disease, focusing in particular on psychosocial, behavioural and organizational dimensions of this disease and has undertaken many workshops of the nature and critical appraisal of qualitative studies. His work has informed national policy making in the United Kingdom and the United States.

For more information about the NAHLA TRENDS Mini-Conference, please contact any of our executive.

Last Update: March 17, 2006
©2004 NAHLA