Media Contact: Pat JaCoby (858) 534-7404, pjacoby@ucsd.edu

PREUSS SCHOOL, UCSD MEDICAL CENTER LIBRARY RECEIVE ELECTRONIC HEALTH INFORMATION GRANT

The Preuss School at the University of California, San Diego and the UCSD Medical Center Library have been awarded a National Library of Medicine (NLM) Outreach Grant to provide access to electronic health information for middle school students at the Preuss School.

The $40,000 grant also will provide training and support to the faculty of the Preuss School to assist them with integration of electronic health information into the curriculum.

Marsha Korobkin, Preuss School media librarian, and Craig Haynes, UCSD Medical Center librarian, will design the training and curriculum for both faculty and students.

The grant to the Preuss School/UCSD Medical Center Library is one of 49 electronic health information projects in 34 states, affecting rural, inner-city and suburban areas, to receive funding from the NLM. The Preuss School grant runs through July 31, 2001.

The Preuss School is a model school for a current select group of 150 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students from low income and educationally underserved families. The student body is scheduled to expand to 400 next fall, with a steady state enrollment of 700 sixth through 12th graders projected for the year 2003. The school's mission is to prepare the students for admission and graduation from a university.

Doris Alvarez, Preuss School principal, noted that the objective of the grant was to promote awareness of accurate, relevant health information resources appropriate for middle school students. Brian Schottlaender, University Librarian, added that the Web site created in the project would teach health information-seeking skills, along with critical evaluation techniques, to the Preuss School students.

The NLM, a division of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., is the world's largest medical library with holdings of more than 5 million books, journals and other materials.