The NC AHEC Information & Library System provides a wide range of services to meet the information needs of North Carolina's health professionals. Whether you are a rural family physician in the mountains, a nursing student near the coast or a mental health professional in the piedmont, AHEC libraries will support your clinical, educational or research activities.
The AHEC Libraries provide answers and expertise to:
For additional information or questions, send an email to a librarian. These questions will be routed to the most appropriate librarian to handle your information needs.
For information about local AHEC libraries, please visit our AHEC Libraries Directory.
North Carolina is divided into nine regions with an Area Health Education Center (AHEC) in each region. Each AHEC includes library and information services to support the clinical, educational, and research activities of regional health professionals and students. These regional AHEC libraries make up the NC AHEC Information & Library System. As a core service of the NC AHEC Program, the libraries have a mission to meet the state's health and health work force needs by providing community-based, customer-driven access to authoritative and current health information.
AHEC Libraries are staffed by masters-level trained librarians and information professionals who have specialized training in providing health sciences information to individual health professionals, hospitals and other institutions. The AHEC Libraries provide an array of services including access to electronic and print information resources; general and customized educational sessions; article and document delivery; and customized searches of the medical literature. The NC AHEC Library & Information System also offers a statewide portal of electronic information resources-the AHEC Digital Library.
NC AHEC Librarians impact health care providers in North Carolina in many ways. In 2013-2014 library staff made over 258 outreach visits to hospitals, clinics, and health agencies and delivered 80,634 consultations and reference services. AHEC Librarians provided information support to more than 15,000 preceptors of health sciences students from NC schools. They supported the medical education programs at Carolinas Medical Center, Moses Cone Health System, New Hanover Regional Medical Center, WakeMED Hospitals, Mission Hospitals and several other hospital and non-hospital based medical residency programs. The AHEC Digital Library (ADL) provided consortium purchases and access to electronic journals, textbooks and databases for more than 30 NC hospitals that employ over 60,000 staff members.
Our vision is to be your first choice for quality health information.
Learn more about how AHEC Libraries can help you in this video (You Tube)
The primary mission of the NC AHEC Library & Information System is to meet the state's health and health work force needs by providing community-based, customer-driven access to authoritative and current health information. Primary customers for AHEC library services include faculty, staff, students, medical residents and educators affiliated with AHEC programs. They also include non-AHEC affiliated health professionals such as clinical healthcare providers, health administrators and certain non-clinical members of the health workforce including regional hospital libraries.
Services offered by AHEC Libraries include:
To learn more about AHEC Library services in your region contact your local AHEC Library.
*Certain fees for some services may apply depending on an individual's institutional affiliations.
North Carolina is divided into nine regions with an Area Health Education Center (AHEC) in each region. Each AHEC includes library and information services to support the clinical, educational, and research activities of regional health professionals and students.