Marketing Idea: Swine Flu Flashback
Submitted by dcornwall on Tue, 2009-04-28 12:35.
One of the things I think documents librarians can do to market their resources is to try and match current events to their collections.
A case in point is the current outbreak of swine influenza. Did you know that there was an outbreak in the 1970s that threatened to explode into a pandemic? Emergency supplementals were made and vaccines were rushed out into the field -- possibly too early, according to some reports.
Using a combination of WorldCat and the Catalog of Government Publications, I came up with this list of publications:
United States. (1976). Emergency supplemental appropriation bill, 1976: Hearing before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session ... swine influenza immunization program. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). Emergency supplemental appropriation bill, 1976 Swine influenza immunization program : hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session, Subcommittee on the Departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). National swine flu immunization program of 1976: Report to accompany S. 3735. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1984). Patty Jean Tipton and her husband, Ronald Tipton: Report (to accompany S. 1488). Washington, D.C.?: U.S. G.P.O.
United States. (1976). Preventive health services and employment programs emergency supplemental appropriations Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Swine Influenza Immunization Program, Department of Labor, Community Services Administration, Public Employment and Summer Youth Programs : hearing before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session, on H.J. Res. 890. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). Proposed national swine flu vaccination program: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session ... March 31, 1976. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). Public Law 94-380: 94th Congress, S. 3735, August 12, 1976 : an act to amend the Public Health Service act to authorize the establishment and implementation of an emergency national swine flu immunization program and to provide an exclusive remedy for personal injury or death arising out of the manufacture, distribution, or administration of the swine flu vaccine under such program. Washington: For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1977). Review and evaluation of the swine flu immunization program Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, Ninety-fifth Congress, first session ... September 16, 1977. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1978). Review and evaluation of the swine flu immunization program: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, Ninety-fifth Congress, first session ... September 16, 1977. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). Supplemental appropriation for production of swine influenza vaccine: Communication from the President of the United States ... March 29, 1976. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). Supplemental appropriation for production of swine influenza vaccine: Message from the President of the United States ... March 29, 1976. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1977). Suspension of the swine flu immunization program, 1976: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Labor and Public Health Welfare, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session ... December 17, 1976. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1977). Suspension of the swine flu immunization program, 1976: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session ... December 17, 1976. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). Swine flu immunization program, 1976 Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session ... April 1 and August 5, 1976. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). Swine flu immunization program: Supplemental hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment...Ninety-fourth Congress, second session...June 28, July 20, 23, and September 13, 1976. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1976). Swine flu immunization program: Supplemental hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session. Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
United States. (1977). The swine flu program: An unprecedented venture in preventive medicine, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare : report to the Congress. Washington: U.S. General Accounting Office].
United States. (1976). Swine flu vaccine. FDA consumer memo. Rockville, Md: U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
For a hyperlinked version of this list, please see http://www.worldcat.org/profiles/dcornwall/lists/697063/.
As far as I could tell, none of these items are currently available on the internet. So now we've not only highlighted stuff in depositories by creating and posting this list, we've made some basic metadata accessible to the web for researchers who may never visit a catalog or worldcat.org.
Finally, I'd like to point out that this list was easily compiled because we have structured databases with controlled vocabulary and the ability to easily limit by date. Try searching "swine flu 1970s hearings" on Google and see if you get authoritative results. Cataloging matters!
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Swine Flu! Swine Flu!
That's so interesting! Daniel, thanks so much for doing this. I had no idea this all happened just a few years before I was born. But someone did send me this old PSA video today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_qJ2tOY7ss
Vntage swine flu PSAs
Hi Daniel. This is a really good list and a great idea to highlight collections based on current events. With blogs and search engines, those collection highlights quickly get a foothold on the general public through their browsing/information hunting strategies.
I'd like to point out that besides the rich collections of govt documents in depository libraries around the country, there are other govt information resources that aren't in library collections but are of interest as well. For example, over on BoingBoing there was a post today linking to vintage 1976 Public Service Announcements (PSAs) about swine flu from the National Archives.
And yet more on Swine Flu
Thanks for pointing out the PSAs. I'd noticed the boing-boing post.
It's also worthwhile that according to worldcat.org, there were hundreds of published books, videos and more relating to the swine flu produced by non-federal organizations. You can see a "saved search" of what I did at http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=swine%20influenza&fq=yr:1970..1980%20%3E.
I think one of the lessons we should emphasize in presenting these historic materials is "Relax! Take a deep breath! We're not doomed to a pandemic! Wait and see what happens!" Just like you, Rebecca and others have been saying on Twitter and other places.
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And besides all that, what we need is a decentralized, distributed system of depositing electronic files to local libraries willing to host them." -- Daniel Cornwall, tipping his hat to Cato the Elder for the original quote.
Clarification about excellent docs blogs
Based on at least one e-mail I've gotten, I feel like I should post a clarification.
There are many documents librarians with blogs who are doing a great job connecting their audiences with government information. Most of the time they are pointing to web resources and this is a GOOD THING that needs to be continued.
The point of the "Swine Flu Flashback" is that in addition to being masters of current government information, we can provide a service by highlighting items from our tangible collections. It's my hope and expectations that people's sense of the value of "those books and microfiche" will rise as we can make them relevant to what is going in their lives today.
Connecting people with relevant government web resources builds the value of librarians. Connecting people with relevant historical government publications, statistics, hearings, etc, builds the value of our collections. They work together and by highlighting one, I didn't mean to suggest the other wasn't being done or not worth doing.
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"And besides all that, what we need is a decentralized, distributed system of depositing electronic files to local libraries willing to host them." -- Daniel Cornwall, tipping his hat to Cato the Elder for the original quote.
Marketing Idea: Brilliant!
Brilliant, Daniel. I remember the seventies. Good to remind everyone else that the public records are not yet available on the free web, but they *are* accessible thanks to the FDLP.
Another Swine Flu Doc
Found this gem in our collection:
The swine flu affair : decision-making on a slippery disease, 1978. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare. 189 pgs.
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