Health Information Literacy

Health is one of the most indispensable necessities for the excellence in the quality of life. Health information can play a vital role for building healthy nation of a country. Based upon the concept East West University Library has organized a 3rd phase of workshop on “Health Information Literacy (IWHIL) 2011” on 20 July, 2012 at the East West University, A/2 Aftabnagar, Dhaka-1212,

The Inauguration ceremony of the workshop has held at the Library of East West University. Professor Ahmed Shafee, Vice Chancellor, East West University, was present in the inaugural session as chief guest. Dr. Kazi Ali Reza, Officer In Charge, United Nations Information Center, Dhaka as Special Guest  was present. Dr. Jagtar Singh, Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, Punjabi University, Patiala ,India, has delivered lecture through skype to the participants. Welcome speech addressed by Librarian, Ms. Dilara Begum, Head of Library, East West University. and Country Coordinator, Digital Library Network in South Asia (DlNet SA).

In this era of information, libraries are regarded as access centres of all kinds of human knowledge. A number of publications on health and health related subjects have been published within seconds throughout the world. For this reason, it is quiet hard for information professionals, researchers, health workers, and students to find, evaluate and make effective use of the needed information. To cope up with this situation, libraries are evolving of information literacy programs for their patrons and health information literacy can play a pivotal role to empower communities and nations in meeting their regular health information needs. In this age of information and communication technology, Health Information Literacy (HIL) program becomes a multifaceted task which is frequently varying due to the technological innovation. Librarians need to be more competent to teach its patrons on health information literacy skills and to empower them as lifelong learners and critical thinkers. Number of Resource persons delivered their lecture on this program. This workshop mainly focuses on Impact of Health information literacy, Health information systems in Bangladesh, Public access to Health literacy, mobilizing health information literacy, why it is important, sources on health information literacy, sources of online resources, role of the libraries or librarians in case of promoting health information literacy and so on.

This workshop has played a very significant role to launch this emerging and vital tool in regional libraries or health institutions to enable the librarians, researchers, health workers, students to play more effective role to ensure the best utilization of information resources to fulfill their health information needs.