WebJunction

Helping library patrons find answers to legal and medical questions can pose challenges beyond just finding answers. Library staff have to balance helping patrons with being careful not to give legal or medical advice. This makes it especially important to be prepared for these types of questions and to provide both staff and patrons with training and tools to help them find, evaluate, and use legal and medical information.

These types of questions also highlight the need to go beyond just providing library patrons with access to information. To effectively help patrons make sound decisions we may need to help them further develop their own ability to find and evaluate information.

Tackling Health Questions
To get started take a look at our guide to Tackling Patrons' Medical Questions. In it we have collected links to some of the best resources from the experts at the National Network of Libraries of Medicine and the Medical Library Association.

The Health Sciences Library of Minnesota, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, recently developed a full-day workshop for librarians on online health information resources. You can download the presentation here.

Do you have questions, ideas, resources, or tips to share? Join the conversation in WebJunction's Health Information Services forum.

Tackling Legal Questions
Our guide to Tackling Patrons' Legal Questions has tips and links to resources that will help you get up to speed on handling legal questions and building your library's resources.

The Minnesota Association of Law Libraries has developed this guide to Locating Legal Information on the Web as part of the curriculum for a workshop developed for librarians with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

For a personal perspective, former academic and public librarian Alice Robledo, now of the New Mexico Supreme Court Law Library, describes her experience and favorite online legal resources.

If you have your own stories to share or questions for the WebJunction community, join the discussion in our Legal Information Services forum.

Building Your (and Your Patrons') Skills
We can all stand to improve our own searching skills, and one of the best ways to prepare to help your patrons is to boost your own search techniques.

Information Today, Inc. publishes a wide range of journals and books devoted to search and online resources. These excerpts are available on WebJunction:

• "Basics for the Serious Searcher" from The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook by Randolph Hock is a basic introduction to Internet searching, covering search tools, directories, strategies, assessing content, the invisible Web, copyright, and tips for keeping up-to-date.
• "Tips for Teaching the Internet" from Irene McDermott's The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide provides practical tips and resources for teaching patrons how to make effective use of the Internet, both in training classes and in "on the fly, one-on-one" situations.

In the WebJunction Learning Center, we've got online courses that you can use to brush up your skills and get ideas for tips to share with your patrons:

• WebJunction's Searching the Web
• WebJunction's Evaluating Web Sites

Both of these courses are available at no fee to all WebJunction members. They are in the WebJunction Online Courses Catalog under "Using the Internet."

What's Information Literacy Got to Do with It?
In "Information Literacy and Public Libraries" Michele Leininger of the State Library of Iowa explains just what information literacy is and makes the case for the public library's essential role in helping people develop their ability to find and use information.

For a great example of how one small public library developed a program to teach library patrons, check out this story by Enid Costley of the Hibbing (MN) Public Library.

If you are looking for the latest on sharing resources for information literacy instruction, get involved in our Information Literacy Resources discussion, moderated by Sarah Graham, Rowan Brownlee, and Michael Arndell of the University of Sydney Library in Australia.