On January 26th, Penn Nursing’s Center for Global Women’s Health (CGWH) held its first annual West Philly Women’s Health Day at West Philadelphia High School. The day featured a variety of presentations and informational sessions on cervical cancer screening and HPV vaccination, nutrition and exercise, and other topics.

While the conference was student-led in planning and organization, the Biomedical Library was happy to have the opportunity to contribute to the success of the day, to increase its partnership with students and faculty, and to have a forum for offering consumer health information to the local community.

Aman Kaur, the Engineering and Community Health Librarian, and Richard James, Liaison Librarian to the School of Nursing, had been invited to the initial planning meeting for the event and worked with the CGWH and student nurses on finding a location for the conference, connecting with community groups to promote the event, and in managing the exhibitor space on the day.

During the conference, Richard coordinated the exhibitor space (located, naturally enough, in the High School’s library!) and displayed consumer health information resources on health screening, early responder training, and substance use, using pamphlets and leaflets from the National Institute of Health, the National Library of Medicine, and a number of other organizations.

Over the past several years, the Biomedical Library has been extending our community health outreach and awareness with community-facing groups at the University, such as the Netter Center, and creating new relationships and enriching existing ones through participation in events like the University’s “First Thursday” meetings, our ongoing partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia’s West Philadelphia cluster, and by engaging with a variety of groups in the community working on health issues.

Creating connections is one of the core strengths of libraries, since we are the natural meeting and convergence point for different disciplines, departments, and initiatives at Penn, and the sharing and expansion of knowledge and information is our core mission.

We are looking forward to helping with the 2nd annual Women’s Health Day and with many more to come. Our thanks to Penn Nursing for inviting us to participate and for being a wonderful partner to Penn Libraries.