Health Program in the Library of Alexandria

SAMIR, Suzanne (2015) Health Program in the Library of Alexandria. Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2015 - Cape Town, South Africa in Session 189 - School Libraries with Health and Biosciences.

Bookmark or cite this item: https://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1122
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Language: English (Original)
Available under licence Creative Commons Attribution.

Abstract

Health Program in the Library of Alexandria

The presence of health programs in libraries is important to all, from the youngest to the oldest. School libraries should offer this kind of program because. children and youth are the good seeds of any society, and so investing in this age is very important and will have major advantage in the future of any country. Elder people also need guidance in this subject. Health is the key of happiness for everyone, so health programs must be offered to them through many channels. One of the most common and effective channels is the library’s instructional services. This is the case of the Library of Alexandria. Since the inauguration of the Educational Services Section in 2002, the librarians began to receive many demands related to health care. The information specialists did great work by offering needed information through the printed or electronic information resources available in the library. But, this was a one to one service: this means that all the efforst of the information specialist served only one user, the one who asked the question(s). Therefore, it was clear for the instructional services team that efficient steps had to be taken in this regard. Information specialists with pharmaceutical and scientific backgrounds formed a team in order to prepare a comprehensive health program covering the main topics in question in the Egyptian society, such as diabetes, hypertension, nutrition, and cardiology. This program was offered for the first time in 2007, and had excellent echoes and lasts for many years after. The success of this program continues to put a very high load on the information specialists team responsible of delivering this program. We received many requests with new topics to be treated in the program, which require deep researches to be able to answer all related questions. This situation pushed the team to think about updating the program by introducing health organizations to contribute in this program. We had many contributions from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Alexandria, many doctors in several specialties delivered lectures in the program covering new topics. Also, we have contacts now with the High Institution for Health affiliated to the University of Alexandria, and the Alexandria Regional Centre For Women's Health and Development affiliated to the Ministry of Health. The health program in our library is responding now easily to our public demands, and covers our community needs. Several updates are in process.

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