Neuro-Ophthalmology Virtual Education Library (NOVEL: http://NOVEL.utah.edu/)

Figure: Caption Not available.The Neuro-Ophthalmology Virtual Education Library (NOVEL) is an open-access, discipline-specific repository of multimedia (images, videos, lectures, and other digital content) to provide resources to neuro-ophthalmologists and other medical professionals in support of their clinical, research, and educational missions. Another NOVEL goal is to provide reliable and timely information to patients with neuro-ophthalmic illnesses. This collaboration between the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society (NANOS) and the Eccles Health Sciences Library of the University of Utah creates a unique model for digital collection development. NANOS members have committed a great deal of time and energy in providing content, metadata, and peer review. Collections in NOVEL. NOVEL has expanded to consist of 15 collections of educational resources, all downloadable via a common search engine, and in process of being linked to a master neuro-ophthalmology curriculum. These collections include video clips of patients and examinations, full PowerPoint lectures, scholarly articles in PDF format, and selected animations. Shirley H. Wray, MD, PhD, has added her remarkable collection of instructional videos of 161 patients demonstrating neurovisual disorders this year. Each of her cases includes a patient history and video clip. Many have supplementary PowerPoint and provide additional information such as neuroimaging and pathology slides. The video clips have been converted to formats compatible with Flash and iPod/iPhone viewing. Soon, all video collections in NOVEL will offer these newer formats, making viewing the materials even more accessible for the practitioner needing easy access to this information. Three important additions have been made to NOVEL this year. Robert B. Daroff, MD, has contributed his classic 1,991 teaching series of 56 videos, which present a variety of eye movement disorders. Helmut Wilhelm, MD, from Universitäts-Augenklinik, Tubingen, Germany, is the first international contributor. His set of 39 videos also covers common eye movement and pupillary disorders. David E. Newman-Toker, MD, PhD, has provided a series of clips describing various neuro-ophthalmic techniques, a lecture on skew deviation, and 2 clips on acute vestibular syndrome. Soon he will add a detailed animation of skew deviation. Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology Archives. The Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology (JNO) archive collection is integrated into NOVEL searches, providing direct access to the literature when seeking educational materials. The library contains the JNO archives from 1994 to the present, with a 1-year embargo for current publications. NOVEL has obtained permission to add to its collection the Journal of Clinical Neuro-Ophthalmology, the predecessor to JNO. The articles are being harvested now and will be added to NOVEL to complete the literature archive (http://NOVEL.utah.edu/jno). NANOS Annual Meeting Syllabi. To make the materials presented at the annual meeting more accessible, the syllabi are being added as a collection. The prototype, covering the 2009 meeting, is now available online. The NOVEL staff will work toward including every annual meeting syllabus since the inception of the society in 1975. All materials will be indexed and searchable through the NOVEL search function (http://NOVEL.utah.edu/nam). Patient Portal. The NOVEL Patient Portal is growing. Patient brochures created by a NANOS committee (with peer review) and the translations of those brochures into several languages (French, German, Hebrew, and Spanish) are now available. In addition, links to literature, authoritative consumer health information, relevant societies, and support groups are included when available (http://NOVEL.utah.edu/portal/). Rare Disease Registry. The Rare Disease Registry has 2 diseases posted with standardized data collection tools. The registry allows NANOS members and other interested physicians to contribute both past and current cases in standard format to the appropriate data steward who will analyze the data. The goal is to allow NOVEL to be a vehicle facilitating group definition of the natural history and best therapies of disorders too rare for any single institution to define (http://NOVEL.utah.edu/rare/). Illustrated Curriculum. Based on the neuro-ophthalmology curriculum outline prepared by the NANOS Curriculum Committee, an illustrated curriculum outline is starting to take shape. Links to NOVEL materials have been added as a prototype to the section covering Disorders of the Afferent and Efferent Visual Pathways. Demonstrations of a variety of examinations are also linked in the Ocular and Neurologic Evaluation section. The goal is to provide links from all sections, as the NOVEL grows to provide examples of all teaching areas of the curriculum (http://NOVEL.utah.edu/curriclum). NOVEL Usage. All of these educational resources have brought much attention to NOVEL. In 2009, the Web site received 2,270,000 hits, 1,390,283 page views, and 199,974 visits from users in more than 100 countries. Approximately 440 video clips in the library were accessed. We need your financial support to continue to build this valuable resource. Tax deductible contributions may be made at http://www.nanosweb.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageID=3477. Nancy Lombardo, MLS Kathleen B.