APLIC-INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATOR

Winter 1998, Issue #66

• President's Message

• APLIC Members (Complete listing)

• APLIC Member News
• SLA Social Sciences Division
• ReproLine
• National Center for Children in Poverty Library
• APLIC 1998 - 31st Annual Conference
  • Discover Chicago!
• John Snow International (JSI)
• WHO Resolution on Health Promotion
• 1998 Conference Schedule
• Federal Web Sites
• INTRAH List of Free Materials
• Revision of APLIC-I Bylaws
• New Internet Resources
• Subscribing to the APLIC Listserv 
• Subscribing to the APLIC DUPS Listserv

President's Message: Jean Sack

Climate change/reform seem to be themes in this past year's world news – el niño and national politics symbolize the continuous transition and upgrade that information professionals are required to make on the job. Climates in our agencies and our ability to transform our services directly affect us as professionals. Perhaps we are all sojourners in our organizations and need to be prepared to move on.

In speaking with several APLIC-I members who have recently lost or changed jobs, a continuing theme is how their colleagues gave them the boost and the job leads which resulted in a successful, professional resettlement. We are, ourselves, an evolving immigrant population in the new universe of knowledge management.

Our 31st Annual Conference in Chicago underscores this need to continue networking – the invited speakers will no doubt address the value of networking among other "immigrant populations" and we will hear about its benefit in roundtable presentations on Monday afternoon. The Chicago conference theme is: "The Promised Land: Views of an Evolving Immigrant Population".[http://lexis.pop.upenn.edu/library/APLIC98draft.htm]

In 1987, when Bill Barrows planned the 20th APLIC-I Conference in Chicago, the Census Bureau was just beginning to "consider the feasibility of putting data on CD-ROMS." Ten years later APLIC witnessed a demonstration of CenStats and web-based Census retrieval systems and NLM premiered its free web-based access to over 9 million citations in Medline, PubMed. In 1987 Ruth Sandor was admired for her self-taught agility in computing. 10 years later this newsletter became entirely electronic. Issue 64 contained over 55 pages of content and at least 100 websites as it serves as our 1997 conference proceedings.

We intend to cover the 1998 Conference in our next issue of The Communicator. Please consider being a recorder for one of the Chicago sessions and add your contribution to our cyber-publication before this decade of rapid transition is over. Contact our conference co-chairs, Lisa Newman or Anne Ilacqua.

An excellent example of networking occurred at the January 21-22 Second Internet Meeting sponsored by the USAID Population and Health Materials Working Group and held at Johns Hopkins University. A wealth of web presentations from international guests as well as experts from many population and public health agencies is outlined at the group's web site, http://ww2.med.jhu.edu/ccp/conf2.htm. Conference proceedings will be posted in about a month.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Malthus' treatise on Population. In 1798 he anonymously authored "An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society." Today the dialogue on population and natural resources continues, but much of it is electronic. See the recent debate between Ben Wattenberg and Kenneth Hill on Wattenberg's recent article in the New York Times Magazine, "The Population Explosion is Over."

This issue of The Communicator contains a wealth of information about various new websites, two information centers (John Snow and The National Center for Children in Poverty.) We hope you enjoy it.

Please register for the APLIC-I conference this month and reserve your hotel rooms as soon as possible. We will be doing some housekeeping on our Bylaws and will elect the new APLIC-I class of 2001. See you in Chicago!

Jean C. Sack, President, APLIC-I
jsack@jhsph.edu
Hopkins Population Center Collection
http://www.jhsph.edu/Resources/Libraries/Population

Meet the Special Libraries Association
By Nancy Minter, The Urban Institute Library

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) is the largest international association of information professionals, representing more than 14,000 members who are employed by corporations, private companies, government agencies, technical, academic and other research institutions, medical facilities, and information management consulting firms. SLA has 56 regional Chapters, spanning the globe; 28 Divisions representing subject interests or fields; and 10 caucuses, informal groups designed to promote the interaction of members who share a common interest. 

Social Sciences Division

Let us introduce one Division, whose subject concentration fits in quite well with the topics with which most of us APLIC members deal: the Social Science Division. This Division serves as a forum for the exchange of information and knowledge for special librarians having a social science subject interest. Founded in 1923 as the Civics Group, SSD is the second oldest division within SLA. The Division exists to enhance the skills of its members in collecting, organizing, disseminating, and retrieving social science information, encouraging research in the broad field of the social sciences, managing evolving technology, and adding value to information services and products. It currently has nearly 600 members representing a variety of subject interests.

The Division offers seven specialized roundtables, formed to meet the distinctive needs of information professionals and to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas. Each roundtable typically supports programs or workshops at the Annual Conference and contributes articles to the Division's triannual newsletter. These include:

Health and Human Services Roundtable

Originally begun in 1948 as the Social Welfare Section, this roundtable's members are comprised of those who are personally and professionally concerned with health practices and policy, human relations, social services, welfare, and welfare reform. APLIC member Maryann Belanger is the Coordinator of this Roundtable.

International Relations Roundtable

This roundtable provides an opportunity for members interested in international aspects of librarianship and information transfer to promote activities and develop programs that strengthen ties between librarians and information professionals worldwide. In addition, the IR roundtable helps to develop programs that increase the spread of information in developing countries.

Government and Public Policy Roundtable

This roundtable presents a forum for those interested in the issues of government, governmental process, and those policies and plans developed by governmental institutions directed toward social needs and public problems. Members serve various levels of government, law libraries, and other organizations concerned with the activities of governments. Roundtable activities are designed to aid members in improving services to their organizations and to increase personal expertise in relevant areas.

Librarians of the Independent Sector Roundtable

Members are information professionals from organizations and associations involved in the voluntary philanthropic sector. This roundtable provides an opportunity for networking and sharing among those who work with or have a personal interest in the operations of nonprofit organizations.

Municipal Reference Librarians Roundtable

Information professionals who serve local governments and other organizations concerned with information provided by, acquired for, or distributed via county, city, town, or other units of municipal government belong to this Roundtable. This roundtable was formed in 1986, meeting first at the SLA Conference in Boston.

Peace and International Conflict Management Roundtable

This roundtable was established in 1990 as a forum for interested members to network and exchange ideas and information about initiatives and resources relating to a broad range of subjects relevant to the field.

Urban Affairs, Architecture & Planning Roundtable

This roundtable is comprised of librarians in companies and organizations concerned with the physical, social and economic problems of urban areas; with the impact of urbanization; with the quality of life, the preservation of the environment, and with natural resources management, in cities as well as adjacent suburban and rural areas.

Celebration Coming

At the 1998 Annual Conference, to be held in Indianapolis, IN, the Social Science Division will be celebrating its 75th anniversary. We are bringing in a featured speaker: nationally-known, Pulitzer-winning biographer and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. She will address an association-wide audience on Tuesday morning, and be our special luncheon speaker that day. We are sponsoring numerous other workshops and discussion sessions, and while plans are not yet final, the topics being worked on include The Aging of the Population, Philanthropy on the Web, a Municipal/Local Government Information Swap Session that will focus on using the Internet to access all levels of government information, a walking tour of the revitalized downtown area, a discussion of the Euro, the coming common currency for Europe, a review of the Europa Website, plus some purely social times when you can meet with other information professionals who share your interests. Be sure to visit our Division Suite and attend our annual International Visitors Reception. Visit the hundreds of vendors showing new, updated products and offering promotional discounts for attendees. Mark your calendar for June 6-11 and come, help us celebrate!

Welcome

If you are not yet a member of the Special Libraries Association, join today. Information about membership and its benefits is available in English, French or Spanish on the SLA website:http://www.sla.org.

For more details, you may wish to contact Christine Kennedy, SLA's Director of Membership Development, at 202-234-4700, ext. 648 or reach her through e-mail at: christine@sla.org.

ReproLine
By Elizabeth Oliveras

Limited access to up-to-date information is a main factor preventing many countries from improving the quality of reproductive health services. The high cost of printed materials, especially when they must be shipped from afar, has contributed to this problem. In 1995, JHPIEGO Corporation began hosting ReproLine (http://www.reproline.jhu.edu) as a way to bridge the gap, providing an online source of reproductive health information produced by a number of organizations including USAID, CONRAD and the USAID Technical GuidanceWorking Group.

But the Internet does not always provide what users need, especially for those in developing countries. JHPIEGO found that even when their partners around the world were able to access the Internet and World Wide Web, they were unsure of which sites to visit and the cost of "surfing" was often prohibitive. Users do not just want links to other sites—they want information they can use. In ReproLine they can access information on new and existing contraceptive methods directly, and features such as full text documents and ready-to-use transparency sets add additional value.

The site is designed for use by a variety of healthcare professionals. Ready-to-use graphics can be printed to transparencies and used for training or for updating the knowledge of healthcare providers. Policymakers can download samples of service delivery guidelines as a model for developing their own national guidelines. In addition, they can access reference documents that provide the latest information on contraception so that their decisions reflect best-practice. And other healthcare professionals and students can find up-to-date information on a variety of reproductive health topics to improve their own knowledge.

Recently, JHPIEGO has taken another look at the services that ReproLine can provide. With faster modems available and better Internet-based software for communication (e.g., chat rooms), virtual communities can be brought together to share knowledge and experience. In 1998, ReproLine will be expanded to include interactive discussions and listserves as well as additional tools for trainers. ReproLine will take advantage of the Internet capabilities to help trainers to share ideas and to connect with experts in the field. In addition, because of the success of the ready-to-use materials currently available, ReproLine will soon provide more field-tested training tools such as model course schedules, case studies and role plays.

Finally, another hurdle limiting the use of ReproLine has been that the site is mainly in English. In 1998, JHPIEGO will begin to offer French and Spanish versions of ReproLine. While these sites will not have all of the features of the English ReproLine, they will expand access to users around the world.

The Library of the National Center for Children in Poverty
By Carole Oshinsky, M.L.S., Manager for Publications and Information Resources at NCCP

This article describes the work of the library/information center of the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), located in the School of Public Health at Columbia University. The primary goals of NCCP are to identify and promote strategies to reduce the young child poverty rate, and to improve the life chances of young children living in poverty, and to reduce the young child poverty rate. The library/information program helps achieve the Center's mission in three ways:

• It offers key audiences outside the Center information about children in poverty.
• It provides research assistance for the project-specific and cross-cutting work of the Center's program staff.
• It links the needs and thinking of the Center's priority audiences to the research and policy work of the Center.

To support these objectives, the library has built a foundation of printed, electronic, and collegial resources since its founding in 1987. It has amassed a collection of over 10,000 books, reports, unpublished documents, journal articles, and audiovisual materials. Files are retained on over 900 programs and over 500 organizations concerned about poor children and their families. Computer databases are used to categorize and retrieve all materials and information files in the library.

In addition, the library is a member of appropriate electronic bulletin boards, e.g. Handsnet, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Listserv (APPAM-L), and it is connected through Columbia University to the Internet and the World Wide Web.

The library also participates in several professional organizations to promote information interchange, among them: Social Policy Librarians Caucus (a regional group), Special Libraries Association, and Association for Population/Family Planning Libraries and Information Centers-International. For three years, we also served as the Clearinghouse for the National Center for Services Integration, which is no longer operating. The present staff includes one full-time librarian in training, and three part-time graduate students supervised by the manager for information resources. The librarian and manager prepare reference lists for publications, verify citations, do literature searches on in-house and national databases, and proofread manuscripts. The librarian also helps develop center mailing lists and helps copy edit and proofread center publications.

Library staff serve as a major conduit of library-based information about poor children and their families to individual national, state, and local policymakers, program planners and directors, academic researchers, students, nonprofit agency staff, advocacy organizations, the media (newspapers, magazines, documentary producers, television programs--both national and local), and the general public. Over the last two years we have provided information and services (interlibrary loan, photocopying, literature searches), to approximately 1,000 callers from these key audiences. Information provided routinely includes statistics related to poor young children and their families in poverty; information about welfare recipients, Medicaid and health insurance, single parenthood, and other broad areas; as well as information about programs and organizations concerned with poor young children and their families--evaluations, descriptions, tables, referrals--especially in the areas of early childhood care and education, child health and prenatal care, family support and parenting, and comprehensive services. The library staff responds to inquires from media outlets, government agencies, foundations, and advocacy organizations. University researchers and direct service providers also benefit from Center library information about government funding streams and innovative program strategies.

The library is part of the Violence Prevention Work group, a consortium of over twenty U.S. national and state organizations that worked together to create a violence prevention bulletin board on the internet, including databases of documents, programs, and resource organizations. The library contributes abstracts of documents from its published and unpublished bibliographies, and provides literature searches and information about other organizations to this project. Consortium members include the National Governors' Association, Zero to Three, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the American Medical Association.

The library proactively packages information for key outside audiences and relays research findings to the public. Strategies include abstracting 5-10 significant documents for the NCCP's free triennial newsletter "Publications of Note" column and publishing general and topical annotated bibliographies that complement specific projects of NCCP. The NCCP publication: Young children in poverty: An annotated bibliography, published in 1990, has been an important tool for helping the Center's outside audience think about the broad picture of children in poverty. A new edition of this popular report: Young children in poverty: An annotated bibliography of books and reports, 1995 edition was issued in December, 1995 and covered 187 documents published from 1990-1995. Based on the NCCP newsletter columns, the new bibliography covers all the domains of the center's work and provides an introduction and overview of the field, including a detailed subject index. The bibliography was marketed to a variety of audiences including policy analysts; schools of public policy and public health; journalism schools and fellows of the Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families; social sciences libraries and research institutes; and users of Handsnet and other appropriate electronic bulletin boards on the Internet. Direct mail was also sent to selected categories of the NCCP mailing list.

In August, 1996 NCCP and Free To Grow: Head Start Partnerships To Promote Substance-Free Communities jointly published Building bright futures: An annotated bibliography on substance abuse prevention for families with young children . It describes 91 current books, reports, articles, and films relevant to the prevention of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use in young children and their families, with a focus on community-wide strategies. It was developed especially for Head Start and other early childhood educational programs, and will also be useful to community groups, service providers, parents, and other caregivers. In conjunction with NCCP project work on welfare reform, the library also contributed to the publication in fall 1996 of Children and welfare reform: Highlights from recent research.

Future bibliographies will cover current social problems and contribute to NCCP's project work.

1. A bibliography on mental health issues in young children and violence prevention will complement NCCP's evaluation of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program, the Center's work on young children and families under stress which includes an enlarged research agenda in community and family violence, and the work on mental health services in Head Start.
2. An informal care bibliography will enhance the work on family day care and planned studies of informal child care.

The library works with program staff to develop fact sheets on the key issues that affect young children ages 0-6, based on our awareness of what information is critical for our audiences to have and on what requests we most frequently receive. Current topics include early childhood poverty, poverty and brain development in early childhood, and young children in poverty statistics. The fact sheets help correct public misinformation.

Library staff will continue to expand the usage of electronic bulletin boards for obtaining and disseminating information. Training sessions for staff are held periodically on Handsnet, which has many topical sections relevant to the Center's work: Comprehensive Strategies; Welfare Reform; Children Youth, and Families; and the new early childhood education forum. NCCP uses Handsnet to disseminate information about our publications and research, provide abstracts of documents from other organizations, answer personal requests for information, and to track changes in government policy. Similar forums on the Internet and World Wide Web are used to gather and disseminate information and materials, and the library is a member of relevant list serves (electronic mailing lists).

Library staff also contribute expertise and planning documents to help other nonprofit organizations establish libraries, including the Library Thesaurus, Vertical Files List, Subject Headings List, and Serials List. The library uses several methodologies to facilitate the substantive work of the center (serving as a research assistant on the program team): preparing briefing reports on specific issues, gathering factual information from public and private sources, identifying programs, designing custom databases of programs, organizations, and documents; and facilitating contacts with key people in collaborative organizations. Other strategies include abstracting key file documents, compiling annotated bibliographies for publishing; and assembling information for dissemination through Handsnet and the Internet.

The library also supports program work by keeping abreast of current literature; preparing literature searches on in-house and national bibliographic databases; and checking reference lists for NCCP-published documents. For programs in all the Center's major areas of activities, library staff develop methodologies to better identify local collaborators of large foundation-sponsored initiatives, as well as improving information gathering about national, and state initiatives and local programs. The programs identified would be included in library databases. Working with expert staff, clear criteria for including programs have been developed. This will enrich the Center's research and policy analysis work--developing a "universe" for study over the next few years.

As part of the Communications Unit, the library staff assist in gathering information for Center publications, and check Center publications for factual accuracy and style before printing, in addition to creating and verifying reference lists and footnotes. The library serves as a fulcrum in gathering information on ideas, trends, needs, and resources to shape the Center's research and policy work, as well as in communicating the Center's work on a customized basis to individual callers. Through conversations with government officials, service providers, academics, legislative aides, program planners, agency directors, and child advocates, the library staff has generated new partnerships for the Center's work, and new project ideas. Callers seeking information will continue to guide the Center in what information to gather and why and how we should examine it. They will also contribute to making the Center proactive in what information to distribute and in what format.

The library is staffed by a Publications and Information Associate and three graduate public health students. It is supervised the Manager for Publications and Information Resources. For further information please contact NCCP at (212) 304-7100 or e-mail: nccp@columbia.edu.

APLIC News

• Abbie Hourwich, formerly of IPPF/WHR, has been working in temporary positions in New York City and has fielded some interviews for new positions. She can be reached at markdonn@interport.net

 

• Edith Erickson is now living in Milwaukee (and in between Internet providers) so snail mail will reach her at 5040 N. 58th Street, Milwaukee, WI 53218. She is currently developing a free lance indexing business. She is happy to be living closer to her mother (5 hours away in Eastern Iowa) and her son Paul who continues to work as a computer analyst and developer for a printing company in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

 

• Mike Zimmerman and his wife are the proud parents of a son, Ian Andrew Reame-Zimmerman. Born on December 19, 1997, he is fine and healthy. Congratulations Mike! 

 

• Erin Clougherty has left Macro/DHS and is employed as an Information Specialist in Bethesda at the Treasury Management Association (a professional association of treasurers working for USA businesses). Erin will remain active in the Special Libraries Association where she met several APLIC-I members at the winter meetings in D.C. She can be reached at eclougherty@tma-net.org.

John Snow Incorporated (JSI)
By Gretl Cox (Librarian, JSI/Arlington) and Teresa Frydryk (Librarian, JSI/Boston)

John Snow Incorporated (JSI) and its non-profit affiliate, the JSI Research and Training Institute, are Boston-based consulting firms dedicated to providing quality technical and managerial assistance to public health, family planning and environmental health programs throughout the world. Since its establishment in 1978, JSI has become a recognized leader in the implementation of innovative improvements in public health, environmental health and sanitation, health financing, health policy development, family planning, and organizational development. In addition to the offices in Boston, Arlington VA, and Denver CO, JSI maintains over 70 offices abroad to support field offices for their projects.

John Snow Inc. is named after the English physician, Dr. John Snow, the "father of modern epidemiology." During the London cholera epidemic of 1854, Dr. Snow successfully traced the source of the city's infection to the Broad Street water pump. Further research identified the water as the main source of the disease.

JSI maintains research libraries in both its Boston and Arlington offices staffed with information specialists. The JSI Boston Library houses approximately 9,000 monographic titles, over 150 current periodical titles, and 50 vertical file drawers containing technical, and organizational files. The JSI Arlington Library consists of nearly 5,800 titles: books, vertical file material and video tapes on relevant subjects: maternal health care, family planning, DHS surveys, AIDS and nutrition. The projects in the Arlington office are part of the International Division and the library reflects that aspect. The file material is divided by countries and ranges from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. There is also a periodical and newsletter collection of 160 titles. The focus of the collections complements JSI's organizational strengths: social science research methodologies, women's health, maternal and child health services, health planning, organizational development, community-based development, illiteracy and literacy, evaluation research and application, family planning administration and training, health care financing, management information systems, health care reform, environmental health.The collection is catalogued in Procite with LC call numbers and a customized subject list composed of terms from LC Subject Headings, the AID thesaurus, the POPLINE thesaurus, MeSH terms, and ERIC terms. JSI subscribes to MEDLARS, TOXNET, and DIALOG online services and POPLINE on CD-ROM, as well as USAID regulations (DRCD) and USAID's Development Information System (CDDIS). The library staff navigates and evaluates Internet reference and research sources. In addition, the staff maintains professional networking relations with the information community through active participation in library and information services associations such as the Association of Population/Family Planning Libraries and Information Centers, the Medical Library Association, the Development Information Workshops, and the Special Libraries Association.

Our principal clients are staff. Both libraries are open to the public by appointment only during working hours (Monday - Friday, 8:30 -- 5:30). Materials circulate to staff only.

The Boston office operates the Massachusetts Tobacco Education Clearinghouse on behalf of the State Department of Public Health. The Clearinghouse produces new educational materials and distributes evaluated health education materials as a part of the state's tobacco control initiative. The Clearinghouse also operates a video lending library to assist local training efforts.

The JSI Denver office also maintains a video lending library for federally-funded family planning programs in Region VIII.

JSI, through a partnership relationship, has access to the World Education Training Curricula Collection, a collection that covers a broad range of training topics relative to the needs of developing communities and the SABES Collection, a collection of training materials for adult basic education instructors working in the United States.

Visit our website at http://www.jsi.com.
For information about OMNI, MotherCare, and Initiatives, Arlington based USAID funded projects, see http://www.jsi.com/intl

Internet Resources

• Alta Vista Translations: http://altavista.digital.com
  Albeit these are machine translations, Systran Translation Software has begun a partnership with Digital Equipment Corporation to provide a simple word translation of individual web sites, words or phrases. The translation tab appears just above the standard search window.

 

• Census Products -- Mailing Lists: http://www.census.gov/mp/www/subscribe.html
  Stay informed about the latest data releases from the Census Bureau by subscribing to one of its mailing lists. Go to the webpage to subscribe. They will deliver the following publications to your electronic mailbox:
  Monthly Product Announcement and Daily List
  The Census I-Net Bulletin
  Census and You
  Press Releases

 

• Evaluating Internet Research Sources: http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/evalu8it.htm
  This is a good article designed to help students come to grips with the wide range of quality of information on the Internet. A companion piece, Internet Search Tips and Strategies, http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/howlook.htm, offers some practical advice on how to find information. Our favorite is "Guess a URL", which has saved me much time laboring over search engines. (From NetInLib-Announce, a listserv for resources relevant to using the Internet in libraries).

 

• Health Transition Review: http://www-nceph.anu.edu.au/htc/htr.htm
  Indexed in POPLINE, now provides FTP links to RTF files of past editions, beginning with volume 1, number 1 1991. The links are to Rich Text Format (RTF) files in NCEPH's File Tranfer Protocol (FTP) archive. RTF files can be opened by most word processing software. Word works the best! If you would like regular notice of when new issues have been loaded, you can subscribe to the Health Transition Review Mailing list. In addition to announcements of new issues, the list is used to solicit book reviews and forum contributions. To do so, send the following email message (with no "Subject"):
  (To:) listproc@anugpo.anu.edu.au
  (Message:) subscribe htr Your Name

 

• Population Projects Database: http://www.jsi.com/intl/ppd/home.htm
  The Population Projects Database is a computer-based information system maintained for USAID by JSI. Since 1983 it has provided the USAID Office of Population with project expenditure data. A variety of reports and forms are available on this site.

 

• Public Health Software and Websites: http://www.jhsph.edu/do/software
  Most of the programs (such as EPI-Info and EPI-map) were developed by public funds, are in the public domain and downloadable from the World Wide Web. Hence they may be copied for without charge. Also includes extensive links, grouped by type of organization or resource.

 

• The Scout Report for Social Sciences: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/socsci/metapage/index.html
  If your information needs include sociology, anthropology, human geography, and behavior sciences, you may want to register for the Scout Report for Social Sciences Current Awareness service from Wisconsin. In addition to an e-mailed alert, APLIC-I members may also use the Scout Report web site. The site continues to win awards from Argus Clearinghouse, Magellan, etc.
  To subscribe to the Social Sciences Report, send email to: scoutlst@cs.wisc.edu . In the body of the message type: subscribe SRSOCSCI . For subscription options, in the body of the message type: query SRSOCSCI .
  During the week of January 26th, this Current Awareness Meta page was updated with twenty new resources for full text articles, government and think tank papers, data, and conference announcements. Several of our member organizations were cited, including some of the following:
  

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Demography and Ecology Working Papers
    http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/workpap.htm
    

  • Urban Institute - Hot Topics
    http://www.urban.org/hotopics.htm
    

  • RAND Electronic Publications
    http://www.rand.org/publications/electronic/
    

  • Population Council Publications
    http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/default.html

Health Promotion and WHO

Because this resolution is likely to have a major impact (think about Health for All, for instance) if it is adopted by the World Health Assembly and due to the context of a parallel resolution of the WHO executive board for a new Director General (Gro Harlem Bruntland, from Norway), who is likely to be a very strong ally for health promotion, it seems appropriate to circulate the resolution below.

RESOLUTION OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE WHO

A resolution on Health Promotion based on the Jakarta Declaration has been adopted by WHOs Executive Board in its meeting in the 28th of January 1998 (101st session). It will be forwarded to this years World Health Assembly in May. It is the first ever such resolution on health promotion.

From the 101st Session EB101.R8, Agenda item 9, 24 January 1998, Health Promotion , The Executive Board, Having considered the report of the Director-General on health promotion, RECOMMENDS to the Fifty-first World Health Assembly the adoption of the following Resolution:

The Fifty-first World Health Assembly, Recalling Resolution WHA42.44 on health promotion, public information and education for health and the outcome of the four international conferences on health promotion (Ottawa,1986; Adelaide, 1988; Sundsvall, Sweden 1991; Jakarta 1997); Recognizing that the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion has been a worldwide source of guidance and inspiration for health promotion development through its five essential strategies to build healthy public policy, create supportive environments, strengthen community action, develop personal skills, and reorient health services;

Mindful that there is now clear evidence that:

(1) comprehensive approaches that use combinations of the five strategies are the most effective;

(2) certain settings offer practical opportunities for the implementation of comprehensive strategies, such as cities, islands, local communities, markets, schools, workplaces, and health facilities;

(3) people have to be at the centre of health promotion action and decision-making processes if they are to be effective;

(4) access to education and information is essential in achieving effective participation and the "empowerment" of people and communities;

(5) health promotion is a "key investment" and an essential element of health development;

Mindful of the new challenges and determinants of health and that new forms of action are needed to free the potential for health promotion in many sectors of society, among local communities, and within families, using an approach based on sound evidence where feasible; Appreciating that there is a clear need to break through traditional boundaries within government sectors, between governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and between the public and private sectors; Confirming the priorities set out in the Jakarta Declaration for Health Promotion in the Twenty-first Century,

1. URGES all Member States: (a) to promote social responsibility for health; (b) to increase investments for health development; (c) to consolidate and expand "partnerships for health"; (d) to increase community capacity and "empower" the individual in matters of health; (e) to secure an infrastructure for health promotion;

2. CALLS ON organizations of the United Nations system, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations and foundations, donors and the international community as a whole: (a) to mobilize Member States and assist them to implement these strategies; (b) to form global health promotion networks;

3. CALLS ON the Director-General: (a) to enhance the Organization´s capacity with that of the Member States to foster the development of health promoting cities, islands, local communities, markets, schools, workplaces, and health facilities; (b) to implement strategies for health promotion throughout the life span with particular attention to the vulnerable groups;

4. REQUESTS the Director-General: (a) to take the lead in establishing an alliance for global health promotion and in enabling Member States to implement the Jakarta Declaration; (b) to support the development of health promotion within the Organization.

INTRAH List of Free Materials
By Julia Cleaver, INTRAH

INTRAH is in the process of preparing the 8th edition of The List of Free Materials in Reproductive Health. This annotated bibliography is compiled and issued by INTRAH to inform reproductive health professionals, part of the larger number and variety of materials available free of charge from organizations around the world. The materials are organized into ten categories:

• overview of reproductive health

• family planning

• maternal and newborn health

• reproduction and sexuality

• STDs/RTIs/HIV/AIDS

• family and community health

• population and the environment

• gender

• economic and community development

• catalogs and references

The database of over 1200 entries in the List of Free Materials is searchable online at: http://intrah.med.unc.edu/interact/lofm_search.html.

If your organization has materials that you would like to make available through the list, please contact Julia cleaver cleaver@intrahus.med.unc.edu. We will also be listing web-sites if they contain the full-text of relevant publications.

Julia Cleaver
INTRAH Resource Collection
208 N. Columbia Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

http://www.med.unc.edu/intrah/

Revision of APLIC-I Bylaws
By Audun Gythfeldt

In every good house there is a need for house cleaning from time to time and so is also the case with APLIC, which means the time has come for changes in the bylaws. The changes can all be said to be house cleaning based on the reality of developments.

For example, we will now officially say Chair of the Board rather than Chairman of the Board. The use of telegrams seems to be a thing of the past so we therefore suggest to discontinue the possibility to notify board members of meetings by using telegrams. We further suggest to change the fiscal year to coincide with that of the institution of our current treasurer, and we also suggest that the treasurer rather than the secretary be the keeper of the seal, which effectively she has been for the last several years anyway.

There are several other changes suggested which will bring the bylaws in line with the real situation. To view the proposed revisions, click here: http://www.pop.upenn.edu/library/aplicbl.html. All new text is in italics, and all text that should be removed is between triple x's -- xxxwordxxx.

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Last updated 04/29/01