[Web4lib] [Fwd: referral from Karen Muller at ALA]

[Thomas Dowling]

Forwarded on behalf of Karen Muller, <earlybird at san.rr.com>. Please 
respond to her, not to me.

Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu

-------- Original Message --------

I have been following the situation of avian influenza in Asia and its
potential to develop into a pandemic. There is a great new collaborative
website called www.FluWikie.com. They permit anyone to contribute
information on flu prevention, pandemic preparedness, and scientific
research. I am looking for volunteers to contribute time to help decide
on a better site map and improve its contents. I thought the site could
benefit from the help of librarians, project managers, and webmasters.

This site may help link information from different governments and studies
into one great resource.

Here is a quote from the main page...
"The purpose of the Flu Wiki is to help local communities prepare for and
perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a task previously
ceded to local, state and national governmental public health agencies. Our
goal is to be:

    * a reliable source of information, as neutral as possible, about
important facts useful for a public health approach to pandemic influenza
    * a venue for anticipating the vast range of problems that may arise if
a pandemic does occur
    * a venue for thinking about implementable solutions to foreseeable
problems

No one, in any health department or government agency, knows all the things
needed to cope with an influenza pandemic. But it is likely someone knows
something about some aspect of each of them and if we can pool and share our
knowledge we can advance preparation for and the ability to cope with
events. This is not meant to be a substitute for planning, preparation and
implementation by civil authorities, but a parallel effort that complements,
supports and extends those efforts.

While we will continue to administer and maintain the Wiki, we are turning
the wheel over to the community, to take it where the road leads us. There
is a bit of a learning curve to driving this rig. We hope you will find the
instructions sufficient to get started. You’ll soon be learning on your
own."

See the discussion about site organization here...
http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Forum.OrganizationOfTheFluWikie

There has been a great start on pandemic preparedness issues...
http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.Consequences

Do you know of anyone who might be able and willing to participate?

Thanks for you time,
Fred