Lance Armstrong's Foundation and ALA Team Up

via e-mail from the American Library Association this afternoon:

Lance Armstrong Foundation and ALA team up to deliver cancer survivorship notebooks to libraries

AUSTIN – The Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) recently announced it is collaborating with the American Library Association (ALA) to provide libraries across the country with reference materials to better serve those seeking health-related information, specifically cancer. Recently, the LAF began shipping LIVESTRONG Survivorship Notebooks to more than 14,200 libraries across the United States.

"Libraries as places of opportunity that make information affordable, available and accessible to all people," said American Library Association President Loriene Roy. "We are pleased to work with the Lance Armstrong Foundation to bring this information to our libraries and to highlight our efforts in keeping our communities healthy and well-informed."

The LAF created the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Notebook to give cancer information access to everyone, especially low-income or uninsured citizens who don’t have access to a computer or are denied follow-up care after completing cancer treatment.

“As a cancer survivor and someone who grew up in a city where more than 95 percent of families use the public library, I recognize the importance of providing access to cancer resources through libraries,” said Doug Ulman, president of the LAF. “We created the Survivorship Notebook to help cancer survivors be inspired and empowered to live life on their own terms. I am proud that the LAF is partnering with the ALA on such a critical initiative.”

The LIVESTRONG Survivorship Notebooks are a free resource and are designed to help cancer survivors, their families and caregivers organize, keep and access important information related to their cancer experiences. The Notebooks are divided into four sections:

• Survivorship Tools – These tools help cancer survivors organize physical and emotional health concerns; maintain a list of medications; keep track of medical, financial and insurance records; and keep a record of medical history after treatment.
  
  
• Survivorship Stories – This section contains a booklet of stories told by real survivors about their experiences with cancer.
  
  
• Survivorship Topics – This section features information about the physical, emotional and practical challenges cancer survivors and their loved ones may face throughout their battle with cancer. Topics addressed in this section include: the aftereffects of cancer treatment, the emotional effects of cancer, planning your financial future and how to communicate with your health care team.
  
  
• Survivorship Updates – Cancer survivors can use the information in this section to request additional information about cancer survivorship to add to their notebooks. They can also add to this section information they receive from their own health care team, family members, support groups, caregivers and friends.

Individuals, groups and organizations can order the free LIVESTRONG Survivorship Notebook at LIVESTRONG.org.

This is fantastic. And I'm certain Elizabeth Edwards would approve.

To honor this initiative, here's the video of Lance and JRE from last summer riding together at RAGBRAI, and Lance said hello to EE.