The primary goal of the project is to improve the quality of life and health for Alaska’s citizens by providing information outreach services to the healthcare workforce and to public libraries, especially in rural areas, over a five-year period from May 2021 through April 2026.

Access to quality biomedical information will support health professionals in their care of patients. With outreach to healthcare facilities, the Alaska Medical Library (AML) fulfills one component of the Network of the National Library of Medicine’s (NNLM) mission to “provide all U.S. health professionals with equal access to biomedical information.” Additionally, disseminating free, trustworthy, culturally appropriate health information to public libraries contributes to NNLM’s mission “to improve the public’s access to information to enable them to make informed decisions about their health.”

With crucial support from NNLM, AML has been providing medical library outreach to Alaska’s remote communities since 2011, and we hope to continue this collaboration in order to serve Alaskans by providing vital health and medical information. While past outreach awards have emphasized travel, which is expensive due to the vast, roadless distances across Alaska, moving forward we hope to give equal emphasis to distance delivery methods, especially as broadband slowly improves in rural Alaska.

We plan to invite a new partner to our outreach efforts. WWAMI, a collaboration among universities in Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho, administered by University of Washington School of Medicine, selects 20 Alaskans per year who complete their medical education primarily in Alaska. Loan forgiveness incentivizes Alaska WWAMI participants to serve in rural Alaska. University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) is WWAMI’s local campus, and it makes sense for AML and WWAMI, both UAA entities, to share work towards their common goal, providing Alaska’s rural citizens with vital healthcare and with essential health information.