“Tulane University Librarians Help Provide Critical Information to WHO Teams”

From Tulane University:

Tulane University faculty member Dr. Lina Moses, a seasoned epidemiologist and disease ecologist in the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, was deployed to Geneva where she worked on the COVID-19 response over the past two months. Receiving daily publication reports, Moses is charged with rapidly distributing the most impactful scientific information to the World Health Organization (WHO) operational response teams. This involves the daily appraisal of a vast amount of critical literature on all aspects of the novel virus relevant to the prevention of infection and the treatment of those infected.

Working with WHO librarians and grad students, Moses is continually finding new information regarding COVID-19. “One of the many elements that are unprecedented about this outbreak is the huge volume of publications coming out,” she noted. “Right now, it is about getting the right information to the right teams as quickly as possible.”

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With so much information to digest and curate, Moses reached out for support from Elaine Hicks, her liaison from the Rudolph Matas Library of the Health Sciences at Tulane. Hicks, who holds a Master’s in Public Health from Tulane in addition to her degree in Library and Information Science, created the Librarian Reserve Corps (LRS), a health science librarian version of the Medical Reserve Corps (MRS). The MRS is a national network of volunteers organized locally to improve the health and safety of their communities. 

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“Librarians are in a unique position to use our knowledge and skills to participate in a response role.” Hicks said. “The Library Research Corps is a global librarian crowdsourcing approach to an immediate information need.”  

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