The Boston AIDS Information Outreach Project is a collaborative project of the Boston University Medical Center Alumni Medical Library in collaboration with the Boston Public Health Commission AIDS Program (BPHC AIDS). The Project is funded by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) through the New England Regional Medical Library, and runs from October 2001 - March 2003.

The Alumni Medical Library serves the faculty, staff and students of the Boston University Medical Center, including the School of Medicine, the School of Public Health, the School of Graduate Dentistry, and the hospitals of the Boston Medical Center. The AIDS Program of the Boston Public Health Commission provides funding and monitoring of AIDS Service Organizations/Community Based Organizations (ASO/CBOs) programs in Eastern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire.

The Boston AIDS Information Outreach Project seeks to improve consumers' access to biomedical information on HIV and AIDS by providing:

• Training sessions to help consumers effectively find, evaluate, and use Web-based information from a variety of sources including the Project Web site, and from the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINEplus consumer health Web site and PubMed biomedical journal literature Web site.

• Web-based learning tutorial: Finding HIV/AIDS Information on the Web
  This interactive, Web-based tutorial teaches users to find HIV/AIDS information more easily and quickly. The tutorial is divided into four sections that can be used in order or independently. Section 1. Introduction to the Web gives background and history of the Internet and Web, defines key Internet terminology, and provides a basic tour of the Netscape and Internet Explorer Web browsers. Section 2. Strategies for Locating Reliable HIV/AIDS Information discusses alternatives to using search engines, introducing users to several high quality HIV/AIDS Web sites such as MedlinePlus, HIV InSite, AEGIS, and others. Section 3. Using Search Engines Effectively goes over the basic functions and features of search engines, and provides tips and hints for using them more effectively. Section 4. Evaluating Web Sites introduces users to a series of standard criteria or measures for evaluating Web sites, teaching them to determine whether Web sites and resources are valid and accurate, timely, or reliable.

• A Project HIV/AIDS consumer Web site that contains links to quality sites and resources to facilitate faster, more effective HIV/AIDS information access.

• Document delivery service via the Loansome Doc and Alumni Medical Library Interlibrary Loan services, facilitating subsidized document delivery during the period of the project.

All HIV/AIDS consumers who are served by the City of Boston or Title I AIDS funded agencies or programs in Massachusetts or Southern New Hampshire, or those HIV/AIDS consumers who live in New England are invited to participate in the project.

For details about the Boston AIDS Information Outreach Project, contact Joe Harzbecker at the Boston University Medical Center Alumni Medical Library: 617-638-4205 or harzbeck@bu.edu.