The Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences:

The H.E. French Library of the Health Sciences is a resource for interdisciplinary health students, faculty, health care providers, researchers, and clinicians throughout the upper Midwest.  In addition, it is the National Library of Medicine designated resource medical library for North Dakota.  It is physically located in the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences.  The H.E. French Library has an established track record of providing personal assistance using available technology to meet rural health information needs for a range of users well beyond the university boundaries.

The library serves as a Resource Library for the Greater Midwest Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine and serves individuals and communities in multiple states. The library has participated in the development, acquisition, and maintenance of an electronic document delivery system among hospital libraries in the region to provide high quality information to end users. The H.E. French Library was instrumental in bringing rural hospital libraries in the state into the On-line Dakota

Information Network (ODIN), the statewide catalog and integrated library system.

The library has a wide array of books and journals in both print and electronic format. Categories include: research, clinical medicine, nursing, rural health, public health, health care administration, emergency medical services, anatomy, microbiology and immunology, pharmacology, physiology and therapeutics, clinical laboratory science, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. In addition to providing access to government databases such as PubMed and Medlineplus, the library licenses many specialized databases in nursing, allied health, the behavioral sciences, clinical medicine, and clinical research. These licenses are sometimes limited to affiliated users.  The H.E. French Library is linked with the UND Chester Fritz Library and has access to additional information on topics such as: health economics, the health industry, sociology, and leadership.  Through the ODIN network, the H.E. French Library has access to the agricultural resources of the North Dakota State University library.  Electronic resources and services are listed on the web site at: http://harley.med.und.nodak.edu.

Outreach is a vital part of the H. E. French Library mission. The library staff is currently involved in a National Library of Medicine project to train health care providers on North Dakota’s Indian reservations to find and use health care information available through the Internet.  This project also strengthened the library’s relationship with the state's tribal colleges and assists them in bringing health information to the Native American community. Through past projects funded by the National Library of Medicine, the library has built partnerships with public health personnel and rural health providers throughout the state by training them in the use of health information resources and ongoing promotion of these resources.

UND Center for Biomedical Research - Animal Research Facility:

The state-of-the-art animal research facility (2060 square feet), directed by Kap J. Lee, D.V.M., M.S., ACLAM (American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine) Diplomat, is located at the NW side of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences (Occupied September 2001). There are 10 animal rooms, one quarantine room, 2 Bio-Hazardous Facilities with a common water shower ( one with class 2 Biological Safety cabinet and Chemical Hood and the other has Class 2 Biological Safety Cabinet), one radio isotope room equipped with a Chemical Hood and a water shower. Four out of ten animal rooms have center floor drains that can accommodate large animals if necessary. There is a necropsy room equipped with a fume hood in the ant-room and two small tabletop fume hoods in the procedure room. There is a surgical suite composed of a preparation room, a scrub room, a recovery room, and a large surgery room.

Two of the ten animal rooms have Allentown volume-controlled exit air ducts for individual ventilated caging system. This system will provides a barrier between cages and minimize human exposure to animal allergens. All animal rooms are provided with an Edstrom watering system, which sanitizes the drinking water by a series of filtration and acidification.

There is a disease surveillance laboratory equipped with a SterilGard Hood and a Tissue Trim Hood. There is a cage washroom with two rack and cage washers equipped with bottle washer. The clean side cage washroom has a pass-through autoclave, a bedding dispenser, water bottle filler and the soiled side cage washroom has a bedding dumping station.

There are storage rooms for beddings, food, cages, a walk-in deep freezer for carcasses and loading docks for clean and dirty. There are locker facilities and an employee lounge. There is an office for the secretary and the director and a conference room.

The floors of the animal rooms are covered with a 1/4" epoxy aggregate skid-resistant material. The rooms have 12-40 100% fresh air exchanges per hour with no recirculation. The animal room temperatures can be controlled between 65-85 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity between 30-80%. The facility has a 100% back up system in the event of electrical failure.

Each animal room has its own supply and exhaust ducts equipped with a VAV (Variable Air Volume) box which controls air flow temperature and humidity. There are 13 surveillance cameras directed to the doors and hallways. The University has a Warning System that alarms the UND Facility Monitor Personnel 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. The Duty Monitor contacts the on duty maintenance mechanic, UND police, and CBR director for any abnormalities.

UNDSMHS Computer Resources:

The UNDSMHS has access to Internet and Internet II on redundant DS-3 (43 Mbs) communications lines. This system is fully equipped to conduct H323 Internet video-conferencing. These Internet connections are also used for H.323 (Internet based) video-conferencing with sites in North Dakota and all over the world.  All computer records are backed up every 24 hours. 

UNDSMHS employees have office based PCs and access to a number of lap top computers and printers. These high-end PCs are connected through a shared S drive. Most of the H.323 videoconferences between the four UNDSMHS campuses in Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, and Minot utilize QoS through North Dakota Interactive Video Network, but the UNDSMHS also routinely uses best-effort H.323 to complete links to more than 50 rural sites in North Dakota.  H.323 is also used on a daily scheduled basis for teaching UNDSMHS students at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and Casper, WY.  It is also used to meet with students that are doing their clinical rotations in rural areas. The Center has funded the purchase and installation of a communication bridge that allows several H.323 endpoints from anywhere to connect for multi-point videoconferences.

UNDSMHS Computer Services provides full hardware and software support for both user computers and departmental and school-wide servers on all four campuses.  Computer Services has also implemented an automated backup system that provides backups to multiple, redundant, off-site servers dedicated to that task for users and servers.

The UNDSMHS hosts its own e-mail server that provides anti-virus and anti-spam scanning for all faculty and staff located in the state of North Dakota.  Current user count exceeds 2,500.  Provisions are made for POP3 and IMAP access, and a drop box is available for moving large files and files like executables that are stopped by the anti-virus applications.

UNDSMHS Telephone Resources:

The UNDSMHS telephone system supports 3-way calls, and UNDSMHS uses commercial services or North Dakota’s Interactive Video Network for larger telephone conferences.  A number of Polycom conferencing phones are available for UNDSMHS users.  For voice communications, the University of North Dakota Campus is served by both an Avaya S8700,  installed in March 2004, that will provide the campus with VoIP telephony in the future and an Avaya voice mail system.  All programming is automatically backed up daily.  The campus shares approximately 450 ISDN trunk lines for incoming and outgoing voice communication.  Remote cabinets are located at the Medical Education Center in Fargo, North Dakota and the Center for Aerospace facilities at the Grand Forks Airport to allow for 5-digit dialing between those sites and the main campus and to share telephone, voice mail and long distance services.  The telephone system has many features available for the University community including: 6-Party Meet-Me Conferencing, Best Services Routing for Automated Call Distribution and Extension-to-Cellular.  The University of North Dakota has it’s own Telecommunications Technician Staff for all moves, adds and changes to the voice, data, and video cabling within campus buildings.