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Dallas Librarians Study Up On Health Law

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And you thought learning the Dewey Decimal System was hard. Librarians across the country have been recruited to help people seeking health insurance figure out their options under Obamacare.   

At the annual American Library Association conference, on June 26th, President Obama challenged librarians to be on the front line of providing information about the Affordable Care Act. Up to 17,000 U.S. libraries will be part of the effort -- including Dallas Public Library

Jasmine Africawala, Dallas Public Library's Community Engagement Administrator, attended the conference. She says in September, staff will “be trained on what the Affordable Care Act means and also how to guide customers to the resources they need to sign up for health care on the exchange.”

The training session in September will also be open to other city of Dallas employees and community partners.

Find out more  on the Dallas Public Library's website, which already features a link to Healthcare.gov.

Lauren Silverman was the Health, Science & Technology reporter/blogger at KERA News. She was also the primary backup host for KERA’s Think and the statewide newsmagazine  Texas Standard. In 2016, Lauren was recognized as Texas Health Journalist of the Year by the Texas Medical Association. She was part of the Peabody Award-winning team that covered Ebola for NPR in 2014. She also hosted "Surviving Ebola," a special that won Best Long Documentary honors from the Public Radio News Directors Inc. (PRNDI). And she's won a number of regional awards, including an honorable mention for Edward R. Murrow award (for her project “The Broken Hip”), as well as the Texas Veterans Commission’s Excellence in Media Awards in the radio category.