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Are You an Outreach Advocate?

A hospital-based library outreach program delivers service beyond the institution to hospitals and other health care organizations in rural or underserved communities not large enough to support a full-time medical librarian. Outreach professionals are expected to be more cognizant of socioeconomic events that affect the communities they serve and to serve rural clients with a higher level of passion. The outreach professional, with an active interest in the client, takes outreach to a higher level of meaning when advocacy is an integral part of the outreach program. After describing key twentieth-century federal legislation that affected rural policy as we know it today, this column focuses on the socioeconomic factors in present-day rural health policy that have influenced the Allina Library Outreach Program in Minnesota. The Appendix includes an annotated list of rural health Web sites.