Cheryl Rowan | Movers & Shakers 2012 — Advocates

Health Assurance

Vitals

CURRENT POSITION
Public Health Coordinator
National Network of Libraries of Medicine South Central Region, Texas Medical Center Library, Houston

---

DEGREE
MSLS, University of North Texas, Denton, 2009

---

FOLLOW
@nnlmscr
Blog
Bringing Health Information to the Community Blog

---

Photo by Dana Rowan

---

Library professionals guide patrons to information; Cheryl Rowan does it every day. Only instead of helping a high school student gather material for a history report or assisting an unemployed adult in finding the best online job sites, Rowan’s clients are doctors, public health workers, or even other librarians spread across five states.

As public health coordinator for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM), South Central Region (SCR), Rowan’s trademark is teaching innovative outreach in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Rowan’s newest ongoing class is called “From Beyond Our Borders: Providing Health Information to Refugee Populations.” Two existing tutorials she designed, still popular and successful, are “Promoting Health Literacy Through Easy-To-Read Materials” and “Health Statistics on the Web: It’s as Easy as…1, 2, 3!”

Guiding public health workers to existing Internet options plays a key role in Rowan’s instruction. “My vision is to continue to inform the public health workforce about these wonderful resources and to empower them to feel they have these resources to offer their clients,” says Rowan, who works out of the Texas Medical Center Library in Houston. MedlinePlus (www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus) and the Refugee Health Information Network site (www.rhin.org) are only two examples of the free resources Rowan promotes in her classes and public forums.

She’s also coordinator of the NNLM SCR’s Health Disparities Task Force. “Instead of going into an underserved community and providing traditional training on health resources, she specifically asks the population she is working with what they need,” says her supervisor, Michelle Malizia. That’s very reassuring.

Lead the Change is a library leadership seminar that brings together library thought leaders to show participants how today's top libraries are leading change and transforming their communities. Attendees are lead through a series of exercises to help bridge key thoughts to individual leadership objectives to help them harness their ideas, their innovation and their ability to lead.