Creating a state‐wide virtual health library: the Michigan experience

Abstract

Initiative (AMECHII) is a response to a recommendation of the Michigan Information Technology Commission Report recommending improved access to high-quality health care information for all Michigan stakeholders. This project is multi-type, including public, general academic, academic health science, hospital, and special libraries. Objectives include extending the current network infrastructure to serve all libraries and to negotiate statewide licenses for core and extended electronic collections, including reference materials and serials, recognizing the economic realities in American hospitals and libraries and the need for economic viability of publishers. This pilot project, if successful, will be used as a model for other statewide information projects. The planning process, which will begin with a comprehensive needs assessment, gap analysis, and economic model, will result in the design of a statewide health information architecture/system design and will include economic sustainability and new paradigms for library collaboration and federation in the acquisition and distribution of electronic resources over a wide area. AMECHII will also seek international partnerships with developing countries to cooperatively develop an electronic health information infrastructure in those nations and to seek external funding to do so. (Author/MES) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

Community and virtual community

“…Henry (1997) has looked at electronic support and self‐help groups, comparing them to face‐to‐face groups in terms of twenty‐four‐hour availability, anonymity, access to worldwide resources, capacity for delayed or immediate responses, and permanent recording of prior discussion. Other examples include a prototype of an Internet‐based healthcare virtual community system, the Northern New York Health Information System (NNYHIS) (Massey, 1994), and the Access Michigan Electronic Community Information Initiative (AMECHI), which will link up with developing countries to provide them with an electronic health infrastructure (Brenneise, 2001; Brenneise & Marks, 2001).…”

Multiperspective digital libraries: The implications of constructionism for the development of digital libraries

“…For example, many digital library initiatives rely on the collaboration between libraries and scientific experts. In such systems, the authoritative voice of the scientific expert is easily combined with a view of users as “laypersons” in need of “reliable, scientifically sound and unbiased information” (Brenneise & Marks, 2001, p. 116). The information transmission view implicitly contains an assumption that users simply need access to high‐quality, timely, reliable, and valid information.…”

Healthcare personnel's use of e-information sources in Riyadh governmental hospitals

“…The first exploratory stage in the Michigan Virtual Health Library identified the necessity of accessing electronic resources that provide fast, affordable, high quality, simple and reliable information (Brenneise and Marks, 2001). The modern library is more likely to act as an access interface to the global wealth of information (Brophy, 2000; Rehman and Ramzy, 2004).…”

“…Bryson (1997), Fecko (1997 and Watts and Ibegbulam (2006) highlight the importance of enabling users to gain access to and use the specific information that they need. The emphasis is very much on access to specialised information rather than to archives or holdings (Reid and Foster, 2000).The first exploratory stage in the Michigan Virtual Health Library identified the necessity of accessing electronic resources that provide fast, affordable, high quality, simple and reliable information (Brenneise and Marks, 2001). The modern library is more likely to act as an access interface to the global wealth of information (Brophy, 2000; Rehman and Ramzy, 2004).…”