This Thursday, November 21st, is National Rural Health Day. In celebration, the Health Resources & Services Administration will offer an array of exciting and useful online events and the National Organization of State Office of Rural Health will offer a special online main event webinar featuring success stories and innovation strategies.
HSLIC strives to support rural communities year-round. Last fall, participants in the state’s Tribal Libraries Program spent a day receiving training at HSLIC. The Outreach and Community Engagement Librarian visits libraries in both Southern and Northern New Mexico to discuss health literacy. HSLIC has also received a Network of National Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) grant to improve underserved communities’ access to health information by working with rural libraries to broaden knowledge of NNLM resources. This fall, HSLIC has offered two webinars on telehealth and consumer health to tribal libraries staff and two more webinars for rural libraries staff are scheduled this December.
Starting in January, HSLIC will offer a different way of sharing its resources with communities, particularly those in rural areas, through a new partnership with the State Library’s Courier and Delivery Services, which serves over 120 public libraries. Libraries will be able to check out and have delivered directly HSLIC’s Reading is Health Book Club Kits, helping their populations easily access and learn about a wide variety of health topics. In the spring, this partnership will circulate and deliver HSLIC-created exhibits to libraries in communities throughout the state. These touring exhibitions will consist of full-size display panels and resources featuring HSLIC Special Collections and health literacy materials and will bring a little bit of the library to communities in all corners of all the state.
Like many things, National Rural Health Day is only one day a year, but we should strive to remember it all year.