From information jungle trails to superhighways for health caregivers in the Pacific

Micronesia has very sparse local library services but this is improving. For those libraries with any health science collection, only paper indexes might be available which provide limited search capabilities. Some now provide regional access to knowledge-based information in the health sciences literature with the Guam Medical Library (NHGU Library) staffed by a certified medical librarian. Over the past two decades, the authors, librarians at the NHGU Library and the RFK Library, initiated expanded and timely access to biomedical information for health professionals throughout the Pacific region. Now, health caregivers in the Pacific may affilliate for Loansome Doc service by simply contacting the NHGU Library. In 1996, with the support of the University of Guam, the RFK Library became an NLM resource library and actively began working with the Pacific Southwest Regional Medical Library Service (PSRMLS) of the NLM to provide expanded service to isolated health caregivers in Micronesia. Moreover, NHGU Library belongs to a loose network of (US) federal and Department of Defense libraries that share information and copies of articles among themselves for no cost. In this way medical services can now readily access a wider network of health information.