About NOAH

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About NOAH
Updated: October 20, 2004

	Mission Statment NOAH provides access to high quality full-text consumer health information in English and Spanish that is accurate, timely, relevant and unbiased. (Revised 12/01)

	Choosing the Links: How NOAH Selects Material A Brief History... NOAH Contributing Editors NOAH's Partners Past and Present
	Choosing the Links: How NOAH (New York Online Access to Health) Selects Material NOAH provides access to high quality consumer health information in English and Spanish. The NOAH volunteer editors do not write this information. Instead, librarians and health professionals in New York and beyond find, select, and organize full-text consumer health information that is current, relevant, accurate and unbiased. The NOAH Content Committee is responsible for selecting and approving all new topics and links. Health Topics pages will reflect and respond to the needs and interests of the NOAH community. NOAH tries to provide information on all topics in both English and Spanish. NOAH links to full-text information from reputable and authoritative, Web-based resources. The criteria are: Author institutions and/or names are clearly displayed on the linked page. Links are selected to provide balanced and unbiased information on a topic. NOAH does not endorse or represent any commercial venture. Links that contain advertising are chosen solely for their informational content. Information on the linked pages is current. Every effort is made to select content that is clear and understandable. NOAH does not enter into reciprocal link agreements. It provides links to sites that are appropriate to its mission.
	A Brief History... In 1994, four New York City library organizations joined forces to establish a single website to provide end-users a place on the World Wide Web to reach reliable consumer health information. The organizations: The City University of New York Office of Library Services (CUNY); the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO); The New York Academy of Medicine Library (NYAM); and The New York Public Library (NYPL) - later joined by the Queens Borough Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library - had as a goal the development of a website which would provide health care information easily accessible and understandable to the layperson. The result was NOAH: New York Online Access to Health. NOAH began in October 1994 as a demonstration project partially funded by the U. S. Department of Commerce, Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP). The original partner library agencies sponsoring the Web site contributed funds and expertise. The united efforts combined the resources of various types of libraries with health agencies in an effort to offer health information at public-access computers in public locations. NOAH is directed by two groups composed of representatives from the partner organizations: the steering committee and the content committee. The steering committee decides on issues such as the budget, new sponsors, and funding sources. The content committee manages the scope of NOAH, suggests topics based on the needs of the patrons who use the partner libraries, and recruits other librarians to participate in NOAH as volunteer page editors. The site is currently managed by one part-time librarian and many volunteer page editors. The NOAH redesign was begun in May of 2003, utilizing the talents of many people.
	NOAH Volunteer Contributing Editors As part of NOAH's effort to provide you with an expanding selection of well-organized health information resources, we have invited qualified librarians and specialists in medical information to participate in NOAH's content development. Contributing Editors are each responsible for researching, organizing and maintaining a page on a specific topic, and their work is reviewed by NOAH's Content Committee. As each new contributor comes on board, he/she will be listed below in alphabetical order. NOAH welcomes its volunteer staff and hopes you will find their contributions useful.

	Kristine M. Alpi, MLS, AHIP	Marie Tomlinson Ascher, MLS
	Mike Baker, RN, BS, MA	Amy Seif Blaine, MSLS
	Erica Burnham, MLIS	Suzanne Crow, MA, MS
	Diana Delgado, MLS	Mary Doherty, MLS, MSN
	Garry J. Forger, MLS	Patricia E. Gallagher, MLS, AHIP
	Andrew Hamilton, MS, MLS	Gail Y. Hendler, MLS
	Sharon E. Hunt, MLS	Latrina Keith, MLS
	Laura Koepfler, MLS	Judy Ohles Kooistra, MLS
	Claudia Lascar, MLS	Cecilia Neri Linares, MS
	Susan Maltser	Pattie Mongelia, MLIS
	Lea Myohanen, MLSIS	Rita Neri, MLS
	Janet A. Ohles, MLS	Lauren Schwartz, MPH
	Elizabeth Taylor, MLIS	Kathryn Trotter, MLS, MS
	Susan Voge, MSLS, MBA	Elaine Wells, MA, MLS
	Yat Ping Wong, MLS	Fu Mei Yang, MLS

NOAH's Partners Past and Present

The Brooklyn Public Library The Brooklyn Public Library, the fifth largest library system in the country, serves 2.5 million residents through its 58 branches, Business Library, Central Library and a Kidsmobile. The Library plays an important role in the educational and civic life of Brooklyn. Its primary mission is to provide free access to information, in both traditional and emerging formats, for education, reference and recreation. BPL has built a sophisticated public access information technology system, which provides vital and necessary information services to all our branches.

Our Technology Resource Centers, located in 60 outlets, are used daily by thousands of people to access our "virtual library" including our website portal with access to our online catalog, e-book collection, electronic databases, electronic reference service, and the Internet. The public can also use our software applications to write resumes, reports, business plans and the like. We offer on-site information technology programs as well as online tutorials to guide the public in its use of electronic resources. This includes a self-guided web-based tutorial called "Get Connected to Health Information" with guidelines for evaluating consumer health information and links to health resources. Our collaboration with NOAH allows us to expand our virtual collection of quality health resources for our users.

The City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY, with its large network of 19 campuses, has an interest in consumer health for many reasons, not the least of which are the needs of its more than 200,000 students, the majority of whom come from lower income families and a significant percentage of whom speak Spanish. CUNY also offers programs in urban medicine, nursing and allied health fields.

Of equal importance to the NOAH project is CUNY's long experience with computing and telecommunications. Its 19 campus libraries are fully networked and connect via ATM to a T3 connection to the Internet. CUNY is also a charter member of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), and has a representative on the Board of Trustees of NYSNERNet which serves as New York's mid-level communication's network linking the State to the National Science Foundation (NSF) backbone.

The Metropolitan New York Library Council

METRO has served as regional hub to a multi-type library cooperative. Its Hospital Library Services Program was created to develop, enhance and improve access to health care information for health care professionals in the region's 94 hospitals licensed by the State Department of Health. Over the past ten years METRO has established a long-term relationship with these libraries which provide back-up reference service to other, non-medical libraries.

The following 3 hospital libraries have been designated as NOAH sites: Brooklyn Hospital Center, Brooklyn; NY Hospital/Cornell Medical Center, Westchester; Queens Hospital Center, Jamaica.

The New York Academy of Medicine The New York Academy of Medicine maintains one of the largest medical research libraries in the United States, and is the only one of its kind in New York City which is open to the public. Founded to promote the health of all, it serves as the City's primary reference library and as one of the eight regional research libraries in the National Library of Medicine's national network. The public libraries, hospitals and academic institutions of New York refer 20,000 people annually to NYAM. It has a long-standing history of cooperation with volunteer health organizations in New York and around the nation.

The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is comprised of 85 libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island: four world-acclaimed research centers, a large network of neighborhood branch libraries, four central libraries with in-depth subject collections, and a library for the blind and physically handicapped. Through CHOICES (Community Health Onsite Information Centers), The New York Public Library provides open access to a broad range of information on health and medical topics. Library staff members are trained to provide information and public programs that are current, relevant and appropriate to the needs of users.

Children, teenagers, students, teachers, adult learners, job-seekers, entrepreneurs, and business people are among the great multitude of people from all walks of life who use The Branch Libraries� collections every year. Each Branch Library seeks to meet the needs of the local communities by providing educational, cultural, and recreational programs. The Branch Libraries sponsor more than 27,000 programs a year in such areas as family and adult literacy, career counseling, storytelling for children, and technology and computer training programs. In 2001, The Branch Libraries answered 6.3 million reference questions and circulated more than 13 million items.

The Queens Borough Public Library

The Queens Borough Public Library serves a population of two million in the most ethnically diverse county in the United States. With 17.5 million items circulated in Fiscal Year 1999, Queens Library has the highest circulation of any library system in the country. Queens Library serves the public from 63 library locations plus six Adult Learning Centers. They include the Central Library; the flagship Flushing Library (76,000 square feet of state-of-the-art library space, the International Resource Center and an Adult Learning Center), and the new Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center, featuring the Black Heritage Reference Collection of Queens County. It conducts more than 25,000 free literary, cultural and educational programs annually.

Queens Library has had extensive experience in community outreach, and in the use of technology as a means of expanding the Library "beyond its walls," both of which are valuable to NOAH. Its Directory of Immigrant-Serving Agencies and the Community Services Database are the only comprehensive compilations of health and human services in Queens.They are accessible in both print and web-based formats. The New Americans Program introduces library services to Queens' large immigrant population by inviting them to cultural arts programs from their native cultures, and to coping skills programs given in common immigrant languages. Coping skills programs give practical information on the rudiments of American life (getting a mortgage, immigration law, financing a college education). WorldLinQ(tm) is a multi-lingual Internet interface that was developed at Queens Library through partial funding from AT&T. It permits library customers who read languages other than English, particularly those in non-Roman characters such as Chinese, Korean and Russian, to access the best of the Web in those languages and to have a fully interactive experience, including entering searches in the vernacular.

Please contact Queens Borough Public Library at (718)990-8677 or email talford@queenslibrary.org if you have any questions.

The New York State Library

NOAH is supported, in part, by Federal Library Services and Technology Act funds granted by The New York State Library.

United States Department of Commerce (NTIA) An NTIA TIIAP grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce was awarded to NOAH in late 1994 which helped provide the foundation for NOAH's launch in June 1995.


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	DISCLAIMER: NOAH is an information guide only and cannot answer personal health-related or research questions. NOAH's information has been selected from a variey of consumer health resources; it is offered to you with the understanding that it not be interpreted as medical or professional advice. All medical information needs to be carefully reviewed with your health care provider.