A Special Sister Library Program Crosses the Ocean (US and Latvia) by by Velta Poznaka Donna Flake Library DirectorLibrary Director Medical ResearchCoastal AHEC Library of LatviaWilmington, NC, USA Riga, Latvia

Sister Library Partnership of the International Section of MLA AND The Medical Research Library of Latvia

Dr. Joseph Daugman

Vicki Croft

Medical Research Library of Latvia

Holberton Hospital Medical Library Antigua, Caribbean Library DirectorThe Library

Our Sister Library Initiative

Nordic Association

Latvians in the United States  Latvian Welfare Associations  The American Latvian Association  The Latvian Association of Physicians and Dentists

My Library – Coastal AHEC

Lessons We Learned 1.Dedication of all people involved 2.Administrator who oversees library needs to be supportive 3.Only select one Sister Library at a time 4.Get support of a group that has a vested interest in the country, or geographic area of the Sister Library.

Lessons We Learned (Cont.) 5.Thank the library vendors who supported the project many times in many ways 6.I was personally enriched by this program 7.Making lifelong friendships

The Greatest Deal project idea was not just forgotten and left on paper, but is being implemented with great enthusiasm

1999 the number of electronic books – 0 data bases – Medline on CD some journals on CD the average time to obtain a journal article from another library through interlibrary loan days place for reading room 32m2

Free Electronic Document Delivery medical libraries in the US and Canada in 2 – 4 days

ILL - I am pleased 46 medical libraries in the US and Canada in 2 – 4 days

ILL Difficulties Technical problems Checking time

Databases for our Library: MDConsult Stat!Ref UpToDate

DB and Users Branches without Internet are not taught information literacy less fluent in English

DB and librarians Having these databases makes our librarians study more, to learn how and what we can get from each database so we can teach our users to use them. We are finding ways to break our doctors’ wall of indifference, and to become interested in electronic sources of information. We tell them about the enormous possibilities they now have, but we are mindful not to show that sometimes we know more than the doctors know.

Shipment of Medical Books and Periodicals 170 boxes of books and periodicals books and 5800 periodicals 2001 Science Citation Index Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. All was paid by Latvians in the USA. (Milwaukee and Cleveland )

New shipment

Shipment of Medical Books and Periodicals duplicate copies

changes

Measuring Can we measure the friendship by the amount of money donated, or the number of books or databases? Each time when we take a look at the books, journals or we tell about databases, we with thankfulness and fondness are thinking about people, who have worked so hard and so unselfishly to help our library

We are thankful for the tremendous and incredible job the MLA Sister Library Initiative has done, and for spreading goodwill and for sharing knowledge