Building Bridges with Libraries Serving Native and Rural Communities in Montana

Montana communities, particularly Native and rural communities, face severe health disparitiesthat affect health equity and quality of life among its citizens. The Building BridgesAmbassadors and Consulting Librarians team will work to achieve threeprimary goals during the project period. Goal One: The team will attend NNLM Region 4 meetings andwill contribute to reports, blogs, and other outputs (e.g., health infographics) as discussed at these meetings. They will work to advise and share with the Region 4 Team about ways to engage with Native and rural communities in Montana and beyond.Thisapproachwill include development of training resources for Region 4 staff addressing community-engagement best practices. Goal 2: To increase trust and engagement with rural and tribal librariansand other relevant partners, Library Consultants and Ambassadors will connect with the librarians and health boards/wellness staff serving Native and rural communities as a community engagement conduit to help understand healthinformation needs. In addition, the teamwill provide small $1,000 grants to up to 10 librarians and wellness staff to support tangible health information activities in rural and/or Native communities using NLM resources. Goal3: Plan a health information workshop to conveneNNLM staffandpartners identified through Goal 2 to discuss health information needs of communities and strategies NLM could implement to address these needs. These goals will enable the Region 4 team to gain a better understanding of engagement with rural and tribal communities, to directly obtain health information needs from these communities, and to plan for a future workshop to collectively developnext steps.