RE: Question for Sept. 20: Federal, state and local EPA workers, what are you doing to help librarians?

["Terry A. Greene" <tgreene@jsi.com>]

In my intro. I mentioned that our nonprofit worked with the EPA,
libraries and library associations to create community outreach
projects. In Massachusetts, these included hands-on trainings for
librarians in Internet & CD-Rom environmental resources (such as
the Toxic Release Inventory). We developed a statewide and national
directory of agencies, hotlines, advocacy groups, and other contacts
that has been useful.  Also we prepared a tutorial I've also
described in previous messages on gaining access to environment &
health information that has been widely distributed.

While stand-alone resources are helpful, opportunities to actually
connect with librarians and work together are the most valuable;
yet often costly to maintain (our project was a pilot effort of
limited duration). An example of less resource-intensive ways of
partnering with libraries was used to help the MA Toxic Use Reduction
Institute develop their web page.  We gathered a focus group of
area librarians to help.  It vastly improved the design, while
alerting librarians in the state that the resource existed.