Getting involved in international development activities: UK initiatives and hidden benefits.

Jackie Cheeseborough and Shane Godbolt describe the role that UK health information professionals have in global health and in supporting colleagues from developing countries to continue to develop as a provision. They give an overview of a range of organisations working to improve access to health information in developing countries and in particular Sub-Saharan Africa including Book Aid International, HIFA, INASP, ITOCA, Phi, TALC, THET and Research4Life. Even in a recession, many UK health librarians are choosing to get involved in international development activities in low-resource countries by volunteering, and discovering hidden benefits for their own organisations, and their own continuing professional development.

In excellent e-health.

THE WHITE paper for NHS England, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, states that patients should have more information and data on all aspects of health care to enable them to share in care decisions.

The Royal College of Nursing's information needs survey of nurses and health professionals.

Aims: To find out about the nursing community's needs in the following areas: information or knowledge to improve practice in the clinical area; information to support lifelong learning and formal study.

Methods: A questionnaire was circulated in summer 2004 containing questions on types of information source used for particular types of problem or question; specific sources used; ease of access to various information sources including computers and the Internet, and local health library; and workplace culture and environment.

Results: A total of 1715 usable questionnaires were completed and returned.