Are you following a current topic in the news to prepare for your next presentation? Would it help you serve your patrons better if you had current links to news that interest them? Try the Google News Alert service (still in beta version) [ http://www.google.com/newsalerts ]
You can specify alerts to be sent once a day or when the news happens.

Teaching new and experienced users about the Internet and the WWW usually at some time involves a discussion about privacy. In case you need an example of a site that has changed its privacy policy recently, here is a story about Disney [ http://news.com.com/2100-1038-5133045.html ] The site will now allow sharing of user information with third parties as the default setting.

Knowing how or if your users are accessing the Internet could make a huge difference to your program. The Pew Internet & American Life posts Internet Project Reports based on their research. The latest one, posted Dec. 22, 2003, is "America's Online Pursuits: The changing picture of who's online and what they do" [ http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=106 ]

If you are looking for up-to-date resources to add current interest to your training sessions, don't forget to check the MEDLINEplus.gov site. An example is the health topic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which is the human version of Mad Cow Disease (a topic in today's news): [ http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/creutzfeldtjakobdisease.html ]

If your patrons use EndNote, there is a new filter for PubMed located at [ http://www.endnote.com/support/enfilters.asp ]

One of the free web services that I find useful is iHealthbeat [ http://www.ihealthbeat.org ]. This site has an alert service covering the 'Internet's Impact on Health Care'. An example of the alerts that come to my email is today's message: two HHS reports highlighting disparities and improvements in US healthcare have been posted to the web [ http://www.qualitytools.ahrq.gov/ ]

When someone starts talking about 'ubiquitous computing', I want libraries to be involved . Here is an article in the January 2004 issue of Scientific American: RFID - A key to automating everything http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000454F9-7136-1FCF-B13683414B7F0000&ref=sciam&chanID=sa006 [ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ]
Already common in security systems and tollbooths, radio-frequency identification tags and readers stand poised to take over many processes now accomplished by human toil

Article on consumer search and appraisal skills:

How do consumers search for and appraise information on medicines on the internet? A qualitative study using focus groups. [http://www.jmir.org/2003/4/e33/index.htm ]

"Healthweb: Linking you to the best in health information", is also a great site for clear and concise user guides. The guides cover MEDLINE access, Evaluating Health Information Sources, Searching the Internet, Document Delivery, and Bibliographic Software. This is a great resource that has been in existence since 1994, thanks to the NN/LM-GMR members' hard work. [ http://healthweb.org/ ]

I just received this url from my Associate Director - 50+ Ways to Reach Your Faculty, a poster presented by Terri L. Holtze at the ACRL Conference in Denver, CO, March 2001. [ http://www.louisville.edu/~tlholt02/present/acrl2001.htm ]

Curb Cut Learning: Accessibility, Universal Design, and Distance Education is a new blog that you may wish to check out. [ http://www.communityinclusion.org/curbcut/ ]

As librarians, we need to let others know why they should use professionals to aid in their management and searching of information resources. The Medical Library Association and the Special Libraries Association have posted statements on their respective web sites that may help you in marketing your service to new or existing audiences.

MLA Role of Expert Searching in Health Sciences Libraries
[ http://mlanet.org/resources/expert_search/policy_expert_search.html ]

SLA Why You Should Employ an Information Professional
[ http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/professional/valueporp.cfm ]

One source for PowerPoint templates is Website Estates [ http://www.websiteestates.com/ppoint.html ]

National Library of Medicine and NICHSR has announced a new online course - Health Economics Information Resources: A Self-Study Course.
[ http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/edu/healthecon/ ]

Presentations from the June 2003 program "Crossing our own borders: partnering with faculty and instructional designers in the online environment" are now posted on the Distance Learning Section of the ACRL/ALA's web site.
[ http://caspian.switchinc.org/~distlearn/ ]

I saw this news item referenced on today's Slashdot, where the poster said "Significant achievements in this area could revolutionize the information searching field." Software paraphrases sentences TRN 120303 . Website is: [ http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2003/120303/Software_paraphrases_sentences_120303.html ]

The National Library of Medicine has updated its Extramural Programs page. Take a look and consider applying for one of their training and library support grants. [ http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ep/ ] Next deadline - Feb 1, 2004.

An excellent example of lifelong learning encouragement for health professionals:
Keeping Current for OTs & the OT as Researcher: EBM, Life-Long Learning, & Continuing Education . Website is: [ http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/EBMandCE.html ]

Biosis has a free service called the Biology Browser: Free information from a trusted source [http://biologybrowser.org/ ]. Users can browse by Organisms, Subject, or Geography. There are also links to Biology News and conferences.

If you want to read about our profession, check out: Musings, Meanderings, and Monsters, Too: Essays on Academic Librarianship, by Martin H. Raish, Scarecrow Press.
[ http://tinyurl.com/xedr ]

If you are looking for more information on HR 3261 Database and Collections of Information Misappropriations Act, the American Library Association has it linked under Issues & Advocacy [http://capwiz.com/ala/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=3895511 ] .