CHILD HEALTH LIBRARY GU Child Health Library Receives $1.65 illion Grant for Three Years By Kristen Wayne Hoya Staff Writer

Georgetown’s National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health has been given a three-year grant of $1.65 million by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration in order to strengthen its maternal and child health library services. The money was awarded through the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

The MCH library at NCEMCH provides both traditional and current information technology tools for reference and research. The money awarded will enable the library to improve access for people with disabilities and will help to expand its electronic library services.

The MCH Library presently offers a wide spectrum of resources. It houses nearly 30,000 hard copies of various works and offers several electronic resources, including Web-based databases, knowledge paths on various issues, direct links to related MCH Web sites and a weekly electronic newsletter entitled MCH Alert.

Established in 1982, the library has grown under Rochelle Mayer, the current director of NCEMCH. In 1990, Mayer was awarded the Health Resources and Service Administrator’s Special Citation for creating an exceptional information resource system intended to improve nationwide knowledge within the MCH community.

For the last 12 years the director of the MCH Library, Olivia Pickett, has overseen the library’s transition from a hard copy system to an electronic and Web-based resource system.

In relation to this transformation, Pickett said in a press release, “Our skilled professionals select health information from among the vast and scattered resources on the Web and in print and create new products that make accessing this information easier for health professionals and the public.”

As a part of Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute, the MCH Library’s goal is “to provide broader access to 21st century advances in the science and practice of maternal and child health.”

The electronic resources offered by the library can be found at www.ncemch.org.