Library and LBVA Healthcare System Partner to Deliver Library Resources to Hospitalized Vets

Campus Community Update #247

September 29, 2009
 

Library and LBVA Healthcare System Partner to Deliver Library Resources to Hospitalized Vets

CSULB Library has partnered with the Medical Library at its next door neighbor, the Long Beach Veterans’ Administration Healthcare System, to share its collections with hospital patients. The pilot program will serve veterans whose conditions require relatively long treatment, focusing first upon the Spinal Cord Injury unit. Later the library hopes to expand its service to include the Blind Center (now under construction) and possibly the Community Care facility.

VA Healthcare patients may request books, CD’s, DVD’s, and audiobooks from the University Library; requests are filled and delivered each month, and a “browsing” selection of additional titles also is included. The library’s new Playaway™ audiobooks, which include a full book pre-loaded on a super-small MP3 player, have proven to be especially popular. The University Library also has supplied personal portable, rechargeable DVD players to the hospital so that patients can conveniently enjoy all the media that the library is delivering.

“We knew that the LB Healthcare System is serving many more patients in the wake of the recent wars, and we wanted to do what we could to help these veterans during their treatment and recovery,” said Roman Kochan, Dean and Director of Library Services at CSULB. “The hospital is a close neighbor, and we hope that some of today’s patients may choose to come to CSULB as students when their tour of duty has ended.”