NOAH IS LAUNCHED!

by Larry McCue

CUNY's Office of Library Services helped launch The New York Online Access to Health system (NOAH) - a bilingual (English and Spanish) Internet gateway to consumer health information now running on the World Wide Web (WWW) - on July 11 at the New York Academy of Medicine. Approximately 125 people from various local and national organizations were on hand for the unveiling. Arthur Downing, Library Director of the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) welcomed the gathering. Rhonna Goodman, NYAM's Associate Librarian, discussed the need for consumer health programs and the role of librarians in managing health information on the Internet. Samuel Memberg, Corporate Information Systems Officer for the New York Public Library, spoke briefly on NYPL's vision of their future in information management. Marsha Ra, CUNY's Director of Library Services, touched on a variety of topics relating to NOAH, focusing on the importance of the bilingual aspect of NOAH and on the way the Content Committee is working to ensure quality control.

Kirsten Dehner, Creative Director for the NOAH project, held the spotlight for the bulk of the event, giving an impressive in-depth demonstration of NOAH to the crowd, many of whom were getting their first glimpse of the World Wide Web. Afterwards, Kirsten and Marsha fielded questions from the enthusiastic audience, allaying concerns (including some voiced by Chancellor Ann Reynolds about the dangers of linking to untrustworthy health information) and further illustrating the thoroughness of their concept. Special attention was also paid to Alex Leger, Jason Budrow, and Bob Morea, all of CUNY, for their vital contributions to NOAH.

A significant aspect of July's launch was that by bringing together representatives from CUNY, volunteer health agencies, the social service community, public and private libraries, and the world of technology, it demonstrated how these disparate services can work together to serve the people of New York. (The NOAH WWW address is: http://noah.cuny.edu/)

Up and Running

Since July's launch, NOAH has become firmly entrenched in the "web" of the WWW. Established health agencies such as the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Health and Human Services point to NOAH from their own Web sites. NOAH can be accessed by using Netscape's InfoSeek and is listed in Netscape's Galleria. Point Communication, a WWW company, has recently chosen NOAH for inclusion in their "Top 5% of All Internet Sites" survey, based on the quality of NOAH's content and presentation.

A typical day brings hundreds of "hits" to the NOAH site from people all over the world. Especially significant is the accessing of information that resides solely on CUNY's NOAH server, such as the popular March of Dimes information on pregnancy.

For more information on CUNY's involvement in the development of NOAH, see the Spring 1995 issue of FYeI.

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