Medical Library receives national health information award for North Dakota The Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences has received the 2006 National Health Information Award for North Dakota. This is the first time a library in North Dakota has received the award. The award recognizes the medical library’s program, “Linking Native Americans to Health Information,” under the leadership of Judy Rieke, assistant director of the library. The program is designed to improve health information literacy among the Native American communities in the state through collaboration with five tribal college libraries. “This program is an extension of UND’s mission of outreach,” Rieke said. “The tribal college library serves as the public library on the reservation and is the natural point of entry to reach the Native American people and build their awareness of the free health information resources available through the National Library of Medicine.” The National Health Information Award for Libraries is given annually by the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, an independent agency of the federal government that advises the President and Congress on national and international library and information policies. The agency also appraises and assesses the adequacies and deficiencies of library and information resources and services, and develops overall plans for meeting national library and information needs. The award is presented to a library in each state that encourages lifestyle improvement for a targeted population, Rieke said. “In our case, we were assisting Native Americans to learn about health problems and treatments by raising their health information literacy skills.” In addition to working with tribal college librarians, Rieke has used other approaches to reach out to the Native American community, including exhibiting at powwows, providing training sessions to health providers and community health representatives on the reservations, and demonstrating health information resources at various conferences. She also is working with several North Dakota Native Americans who serve as a user group for the National Library of Medicine’s American Indian Health web site, which may be viewed at http://americanindianhealth.nim.nih.gov/ . All of the projects are funded by the National Library of Medicine, which developed and maintains the MedlinePlus web site at http://medlineplus.gov, specifically designed for consumers.