I still haven't quite grasped the whole Google Gadget thing yet and the real significance of mashups. It takes a while for this kind of thing to filter into the recesses of my reptilian brain. But once I get it, I really get it, and I'm an enthusiastic devotee of whatever it is. Once I understand how I can use it to my advantage, I'm converted.
The significance of Rollyo (Roll Your Own Search Engine) is just beginning to dawn. It allows you to search only those sites you select, creating your own, personal, made-to-measure search engine to suit your own needs or those of your clientele.
One thing I do know is that MedWorm, a site I found on David Rothman's blog, which I found as a result of searching for librarian blogs on Rollyo directed me to an article that answered a question I'd been working on for DAYS. The questioner was looking for some kind of benchmark for the amount of time nurses spend teaching hospital inpatients about their conditions. He really wanted this information in regards to CHF, but was willing to take any condition, and by the time I got through telling him how and why this information was impossible to find, he was willing to take someone's best guestimate. Well, I put in "duration" and "patient education" in the MedWorm search box, and up pops a systematic review describing studies with various lengths and schedulings of inpatient teaching. Yeah MedWorm! Yeah David Rothman! Yeah RollYo!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Moving Right Along...
I'm on assignment #7 already in the Medical Library Association's 8-week online social networking class. This one is about podcasts. Mostly how to receive them, not how to make them, although the latter is of interested to me as well.
As directed, I signed up for a free online account at http://www.odeo.com/ And sure enough, I found some really interesting content to listen to. I was initially seduced (but only briefly) by a talk on mindfulness and meditation from a Zen master, but then my conscience kicked in and I told myself, "This isn't work-related...whoever heard of mindfulness at work?"
As penance for straying off the path, I selected the productivity category and wound up listening to some interesting interviews with David Allen, author of "Getting Things Done". GTD seems to be sort of a "meme", see assignment #3. Interview # 5 about e-mail was especially valuable, with the interviewer suggesting that you touch each e-mail only once and then "liberate" it, or take some action on it, so you don't wind up filing, scrolling, fiddling or otherwise messing with previously-read messages. I knew that...now why can't I just do it? Here's the link to that podcast: http://odeo.com/audio/2269951/view
As directed, I signed up for a free online account at http://www.odeo.com/ And sure enough, I found some really interesting content to listen to. I was initially seduced (but only briefly) by a talk on mindfulness and meditation from a Zen master, but then my conscience kicked in and I told myself, "This isn't work-related...whoever heard of mindfulness at work?"
As penance for straying off the path, I selected the productivity category and wound up listening to some interesting interviews with David Allen, author of "Getting Things Done". GTD seems to be sort of a "meme", see assignment #3. Interview # 5 about e-mail was especially valuable, with the interviewer suggesting that you touch each e-mail only once and then "liberate" it, or take some action on it, so you don't wind up filing, scrolling, fiddling or otherwise messing with previously-read messages. I knew that...now why can't I just do it? Here's the link to that podcast: http://odeo.com/audio/2269951/view
Monday, April 21, 2008
Ghosts or Guests?
What do you do if you want to promote and publicize your product and you're not a recognized authority? Easy. You get someone who IS a recognized authority to write what you tell them to or ask them to lend their name to an article you wrote.
In the following NPR podcast, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89695722&sc=emaf commentator and physician Douglas Kamerow tells us how the pharmaceutical industry does this very thing all the time by arranging for guest-authored or ghost-authored publications. Kamerow estimates that 10 to 15% of articles in the medical literature are guest authored or ghost authored! It's worth a 4-minute listen.
In the following NPR podcast, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89695722&sc=emaf commentator and physician Douglas Kamerow tells us how the pharmaceutical industry does this very thing all the time by arranging for guest-authored or ghost-authored publications. Kamerow estimates that 10 to 15% of articles in the medical literature are guest authored or ghost authored! It's worth a 4-minute listen.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Collaboratively Cooking and Dishing Up Documents
This week's social networking tools class calls for experimenting with various online office tools to create and share documents collaboratively. I didn't realize there were so many choices of ingredients, cookware and serving dishes available. I personally liked the Zoho presentation. It was colorful and satisfying. http://zoho.com/ It's a complete meal, prix fixe (it's free.) No ordering a la carte.
Google Docs was also tasty, http://docs.google.com/ I created a blueberry-colored folder and put some documents in it. Yum. But for some reason I found it less satisfying than Zoho. Microsoft Office Live http://home.live.com/?mkt=en-us flavor didn't appeal to me at all. But maybe it was because by that time, I'd had a bellyful of online office tools. All this is purely a matter of taste, of course, and we know that there is no accounting for some people's taste.
Google Docs was also tasty, http://docs.google.com/ I created a blueberry-colored folder and put some documents in it. Yum. But for some reason I found it less satisfying than Zoho. Microsoft Office Live http://home.live.com/?mkt=en-us flavor didn't appeal to me at all. But maybe it was because by that time, I'd had a bellyful of online office tools. All this is purely a matter of taste, of course, and we know that there is no accounting for some people's taste.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Social Bookmarking
My course assignment this week is to investigate the usefulness of web-based social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us. Our Web 2.0-savvy staff at the Barnett-Briggs Medical Library has already investigated and found it good. We use our communal account and add to it constantly. I think bundling is the next step. I'm not sure how to do that, but I noticed it on the SJSU del.icio.us site and think it's essential if you have more than say 50 tags.
At the university library where I worked several jobs ago, Marilyn, the librarian in charge of reference desk organization, had created an elaborate system of favorites on IE on the reference desk computer. Man, was she good. She categorized, or "bundled" as del.icio.us calls it, the sites in a very logical way. Very quickly I came to rely on it to answer questions. It was especially helpful for new staff and those of us who didn't work the desk very often.
Climbing into the wayback machine I vaguely remember a file of 3x5 cards we called the I&R File (information and referral file) that contained references to sources of information such as community agencies, services, other libraries, and also had the answer to obscure reference questions such as: "what does ONT stand for on wooden spools of thread?" Answer: Our New Thread. Now I'm really dating myself. Hardly a person is now alive (let alone capable of typing) who remembers those pre-Internet days.
At the university library where I worked several jobs ago, Marilyn, the librarian in charge of reference desk organization, had created an elaborate system of favorites on IE on the reference desk computer. Man, was she good. She categorized, or "bundled" as del.icio.us calls it, the sites in a very logical way. Very quickly I came to rely on it to answer questions. It was especially helpful for new staff and those of us who didn't work the desk very often.
Climbing into the wayback machine I vaguely remember a file of 3x5 cards we called the I&R File (information and referral file) that contained references to sources of information such as community agencies, services, other libraries, and also had the answer to obscure reference questions such as: "what does ONT stand for on wooden spools of thread?" Answer: Our New Thread. Now I'm really dating myself. Hardly a person is now alive (let alone capable of typing) who remembers those pre-Internet days.
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