Barnett-Briggs Unfiltered

Pesky Publishers

2012-01-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

They're at it again, those pesky publishers, specifically those belonging to the Association of American Publishers (AAP). They're trying to preserve their profits at the expense of the public who has already paid for the government-funded research they're publishing. They're currently behind a legislative effort to overturn the NIH Public Access Policy, the federal requirement that authors of government-funded research deposit their manuscripts in PubMed Central where they will be made public after a 12-month embargo period.

Shouldn't government-funded research be freely accessible by the public in open-access journals, rather than sequestered in expensive subscription-based journals? Of course...a no-brainer. And by the way, I think the 12-month embargo period is way too long. But this is what publishers are supposed to do. They're not in business for their health. They're in business to stay in business, and that means making money. And this is what librarians, academics, researchers and other clear-thinking people are supposed to do: protest and point out the errors in the AAP's collective thinking.

I'm letting my Representative know what I think about this proposed legislation, HR 3699, the Research Works Act. How about you other clear-thinking people?

Yay, LibGuides!

2011-11-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our Consumer Health Guide (click the blue Consumer Health link in the widget below), the library's latest masterpiece. It was created by librarian Liza Ly with the assistance of the LibGuide software. Our relatively inexpensive subscription to LibGuides enables us to create these fantastic-looking sites, all without benefit of html or xhtml knowledge or whatever the heck it takes to build websites,and about which I know nothing.

We think the applications are endless, and not just for libraries. Plus, LibGuides has a mobile site builder which enables you to create a mobile-enhanced site, the sine qua non of web presence these days. Let me know if you want more details about this product.

Google Vs. Librarian

2011-10-06T10:50:00.001-07:00

This is the message that greets you (imprinted on the carpet) when you step in the door at the Gungahlin Public Library in Canberra, Australia. Ironically, I immediately Googled Neil Gaiman to see who he was and what his credentials were for making such a strong statement about the value of librarians.

Turns out he's one of the top ten living post-modern writers, according to the Dictionary of Literary Biography. So he should know what he's talking about, I would say.

That being said, I would also say there's no contest here: no adversarial relationship between Google and librarians. Google is the librarian's best friend, and I frankly can't remember what we librarians did in the days before Google. I do remember, though, that it took us a lot longer to do it than it does now.

Yea for National Academies Press

2011-06-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

The National Academies Press, the organization that publishes reports for the National Academies of Sciences, the Instutute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, announced last week that it is making all of its published reports freely downloadable to all. They used to provide free content in underdeveloped countries, but the policy change now makes their content free to everyone everywhere. This includes their current offerings plus all future reports published by the Press.

According to NAP's Executive Director, Barbara Kline Pope, "Our business model has evolved so that it is now financially viable to put this content out to the entire world for free. This is a wonderful opportunity to make a positive impact by more effectively sharing our knowledge and analyses." The free PDFs are available exclusively from the NAP’s website, http://www.nap.edu/

Happy National Library Week

2011-04-14T14:52:00.000-07:00

That's right, all week this week, you'll find us librarians celebrating in the stacks. And those of us who don't have stacks will be feeling equally festive in front of our computer screens.

A recent blog post by CNN Librarian Kerith McFadden pointed out that librarians are not only heroic (example: Alia Muhammad Baker, the chief librarian of Basra, Iraq, who removed 30,000 books from the city's main library before it was destroyed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq), but also powerful. According to a character in Spider Robinson's "The Callahan Touch", one of "Librarians are the secret masters of the universe. They control information. Never piss one off."

Michael Moore adds this more ominous note, "I really didn't realize the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous group. ... You think they're just sitting at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them"

So we'll carry on here with the celebrating. LOUD and PROUD as my friend and colleague Lauren Maggio, Clinical Librarian at Stanford's Lane Medical Library, suggested on the back of the above postcard she sent me. Thanks, Lauren. If you hadn't sent that card, the entire week might have gone by without celebration.

2010-10-18T14:35:00.001-07:00

Visit Open Access Week

AND don't forget to visit our information table on Thursday, October 21st, 1-2 p.m., Bldg. 3, room 505. If the weather's nice, we may opt for the covered entrance in front of Carr Auditorium. We'll have cookies, stickers, pens, t-shirt giveaways, and, oh yes, information on why you should consider publishing in Open Access journals or, at the very least, depositing your postprints in OA archives such as the UC eScholarship repository

Podcast

2010-09-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

Powered by Podbean.com
I just learned how to create podcasts using a few free online resources: Audacity, Freemusic, and Podbean.

Farmer's Markets at Hospitals

2010-09-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

There's a story in the New York Times this morning about Preston Maring, an Oakland Ob/Gyn physician who's influencing his organization's food environment by establishing farmer's markets in and around Kaiser medical centers. Check out his blog

PubMed...Half Full or Half Empty?

2010-09-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's interface to Medline, recently announced proudly that it just added the 20 MILLIONTH citation to its database. It's considered to be the world's largest and probably most important strictly biomedical database, although there are other databases that are larger in scope that contain more records. What's interesting to me is not the size of the database, but the fact that 3 million of those citations have full text connected with them, a fact that was buried in the second paragraph of the announcement.

This could be seen as a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty situation, although I choose to see it as a half-full glass, or to be more precise, a .15 full glass, probably because I remember the days when there was zero full text connected to PubMed, and even the days when there was no PubMed.

Obviously, the Open Access movement has a long way to go, that is, .85 of the full glass. I don't want to put publishers out of business, but I do think something needs to change in their business models in order to facilitate scientific information discoverability and collaboration. Technology has provided the means for access, and the time is ripe for a scholarly publishing paradigm shift. Next time you're wondering what journal to publish your scientific paper in consider Biomed Central journals. Let's get that glass filled up.

Review of the iPad on Medical Rounds

2010-08-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

For all you proud iPad owners: here's a physician's take on the practicality of using the device on patient rounds. According to him, the availability of wireless connectivity is crucial. What's your experience been on the wards here? Please comment.

Assessing the Human Health Effects of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: An Institute of Medicine Workshop - Institute of Medicine

2010-08-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Thought you might be interested in looking at a video summary of the IOM workshop, held June 22-23, 2010. Assessing the Human Health Effects of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: An Institute of Medicine Workshop - Institute of Medicine

Text-A-Librarian @ SFGH

2010-08-09T09:19:00.001-07:00

Responding to the increasing popularity of texting over phoning, the Barnett-Briggs Medical Library has begun a new Text-A-Librarian service. "Why", you may ask, "would I ever want to text a librarian?" Since you asked, let me digress and tell you a story about the olden days, that is, pre-Google days, when librarians provided what was quaintly called "Reference Service".

We had a collection of books quaintly called "the reference section". These books consisted of now-antiquated publications such as directories, almanacs, yearbooks, gazeteers, encyclopedias, dictionaries, indexes, etc., and we pretty much knew what was in each one of them. So when someone asked a question, which they did frequently, we would go straightaway to the reference section, pull off the most likely book and look in the index to find the answer.

Librarians would deal with homework questions, settle bar arguments, such as the number of home runs hit by "X" in the World Series of 19XX, advise homemakers on the correct formulation of a bouquet garni for the evening's stew, etc., or show authors how to figure out which publishers would most likely be interested in their manuscripts. In the case of medical librarians in those pre-Medline days, we would look up journal articles on specific topics in something called "Index Medicus", which came out monthly and were cumulated into a huge annual volume. Considering the size of the print, it was a wonder we ever found anything.

Back to the present day and the original question: Why, when you have all the resources of the Internet at your veritable fingertips and all the power of Google at your command, would you ever need or want to ask a librarian a question? It's because you have all the resources of the Internet at your veritable fingertips and all the power of Google at your command. You have access to so much information that, as the Big Blue Book says, you realize that your life has become unmanageable, at least as far as the information part goes.

Librarians can narrow down those 2,345,644,677 Google hits and give you only those that are recent, authoritative, and applicable to your question. You want only evidence-based articles? Maybe only systematic reviews? Editorials? Only articles by enzymologists in Zaire if, in fact, there are enzymologists in Zaire? Need a handout on smoking cessation in Serbo-Croatian? Interested in up-to-date information on the link between anti-perspirants and breast cancer, or the lack of a correlation?

Those are all good reasons to text us. We are standing, well sitting actually, by the phone ready to text you back with good answers to your questions, thus saving you hours of precious time and those uncomfortable feelings of uncertainty that can accompany unanswered questions. Text to 66746 and start your text with the keyword sfgh. Do it now!

Libraries Bigger than Cupcakes?

2010-07-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

Linda Holmes of NPR's Monkeysee blog thinks that libraries will be the subject of the next big pop-culture wave, right on the heels of the cupcake craze. She thinks this because:

---Libraries give away things for free: unlike Netflix and Kindle who are friendly but want money for their stuff.

---Librarians are nerdy and actively uncool: they know things and are often openly feisty. They may be slightly subversive and don't follow the party line. Pop culture is now embracing such a perspective. Look at the picture of Linda on her blog and you'll see that Linda is a bit on the nerdy side herself, although certainly not actively uncool.

---Libraries are green and local: they reuse books, are anti-chain store, and are down home and folksy, which is all good per Linda.

---Libraries serve the public: Yes, the SFGH Barnett-Briggs Library is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC and open to all that that entails, including unpredictability. Sometimes the unpredictability creates drama resulting in calls for assistance from the Institutional Police. Thank you, Institutional Police.

For the above reasons, librarians here at the BBML are preparing now and will be ready for the coming wave of popularity.

Research Raven Rocks

2010-05-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

I noticed a snippet of news in a library newsletter the other day about a web site called "ResearchRaven" . What got my attention was not the idea or anything related to the content, but the location: Corvallis Oregon. That snagged me because I lived in Corvallis for ten years in the 1980's, and worked as the one-and-only medical librarian at Good Samaritan Hospital for six of the ten.

So I spent some time looking at ResearchRaven and was increasingly blown away by its utility, functionality, aesthetics, and overall coolness. Developed by librarian Hope Leman (I knew her father, Craig Leman, a surgeon) at Samaritan Health Services Center for Health Research and Quality, it's a free service that aims to provide researchers with up-to-the-minute publishing, meeting, and funding opportunities. Using RSS technology (Feedburner to be exact), it aggregates a variety of information sources in the medical and physical sciences into one well-designed user interface. Users can specifiy their area(s) of interest and be informed via RSS when new opportunities are announced.

As librarians know, this is the type of information that's difficult to ferret out, and if it's not current, it's not worth much, so having it combined in one place is real treasure. Not to mention the fact that it's free...or did I just mention that?

Thank you Hope. Well done!

Smartphones in Health Care

2010-04-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

According to a study published this month by the California HealthCare Foundation, two-thirds of physicians and 42% of consumers used smartphones in 2009. The report, written by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, titled "How Smartphones Are Changing Health Care for Consumers and Providers" focuses on how smartphones are being used in health care.

According to the report, a whopping 50% of iPhone apps for clinicians, medical students, and consumers are categorized as "Medical Reference" apps, and although the largest percentage of those are student study guides (19%), medical literature and drug reference apps together comprise the second largest percentage (13%).

Which brings me to the point of this post: Did you know that the SFGH library has a license to DynaMed, one of the highest-quality point-of-care medical/drug apps available today for physicians? It's relatively comprehensive (3,000 topics), has clearly designated levels of evidence, active links to cited articles, and great navigation for small-screen devices. Best of all, it's free to clinicians at SFGH. Take a look at the full version on the library's web site, and see if you'd like to install it on your phone or PDA. If so, email me (jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu) and let me know what type of mobile device you have. I'll email you back a serial number and instructions for your specific device.

Print Textbooks: Going the Way of the Dodo?

2010-03-11T09:22:00.000-08:00

I was working on my semi-annual print medical book order the other day and realized there was a question running in the background of my mind. It was asking "ummm, exactly why is it that you are ordering these astronomically-expensive paper/print books that very few people are ever going to read anyway?"

So I had to stop and remind myself of some of the reasons for having print books, as opposed to electronic books, in today's medical library. Here are a few I came up with, in order of importance:

Some people want to read print books rather than electronic books. They find the paper, the smell, the browseability, something about the esthetics of print books appealing. Although I don't feel that way about textbooks or books I'm using for reference, I do feel that way about leisure reading books, and that gives me justification for purchasing medically-related non-fiction print books such as Atul Gawande's Checklist Manifesto, Paul Linde's Danger to Self, and Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks . These are books I want to read from cover-to-cover, maybe even curl up and get comfortable with.

The second reason is regulatory in nature. The Joint Commission requires that hospital libraries provide access to current reference books in all medical specialty areas during times that computer networks and electrical systems are down. So this means you've gotta have... guess what? Yup, good old-fashioned astronomically-expensive print medical reference books AND a flashlight.

After explaining that to myself, I carried on with my book order.

Postcard from edge...

2010-01-21T16:06:00.000-08:00

From the edge of Lake Mudd, that is. The landscape outside the library's workroom windows in Building 30 changes dramatically every day, and although we're growing weary of weeks of rain, the bad weather has brought us a new water feature to look at...Lake Mudd. Perhaps later in the year, we'll rename it Lake Dust. Then, if all goes according to plan, it will become even deeper and lined with cement, rebar, pilings, tie-backs etc., the foundation of the new hospital. This is exciting business. We never know exactly what landscapes will confront us when we come to work in the morning.

Baaaaad Thoughts

2009-12-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

While Twittering this morning I came across a report that brings scientific evidence to the proposition that bad thoughts cause bad outcomes. DO NOT have these thoughts, or have as few of these thoughts as you possibly can.

Reading Books on Teeny Screens: Good Idea or Health Hazard?

2009-11-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

I attended a Medical Library Association-sponsored webcast last week, "Cutting the Cord: connecting to our Mobile Users". It was about providing electronic content to users via their mobile devices such as iPhones, PDAs and other handhelds. One thing I was surprised to learn was that people are actually reading books on devices with little bitty screens such as iPhones and iPod Touchs. I can understand Kindles and Netbooks, but iPhones?

Just to prove how ridiculous the idea was I went to the iPhone app store and installed both Amazon's Kindle and Lexcycle's Stanza (both free apps) and downloaded a book (free, of course) from each to see how I liked it. Surprise...I liked it! I don't particularly like reading on my desktop monitor, but this is different, and I'm not sure why. Now I can read books on my iPhone while I'm on Muni trying to ignore the shootings and muggings. Just have to remember not to read while driving. Someone might video me and put it on YouTube.

Health Journalism and the Patient Safety Movement

2009-10-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

UCSF's own Robert Wachter has published another well-written, thought-provoking commentary, this time on the contribution that the media makes in the patient safety effort. Titled "The media: an essential, if sometimes artibrary, promoter of patient safety", it appears in AHRQ's Morbidity & Mortality Rounds on the Web and includes an interview with Charles Ornstein, Pulitzer prize-winning health care journalist.

Especially interesting to me was Ornstein's explanation of how health care reporters get their leads and how good journalists provide balance and perspective (how bad is this compared to other hospitals?) as well as just getting the facts straight on what are often very complex topics.

Front Lines

2009-10-22T16:09:00.001-07:00

I visited one of our primary care clinics today with the goal of showing the physicians and nurse practitioners how to register for our Loansome Doc service, a full text document delivery service that's built into PubMed. As long as I don't get too long-winded (a temptation) I'm well received during these visits because what is being offered is a quick, easy-to-use service at no charge to the individuals or their clinics. Gotta like it.

Here's a secret: although I make clinic visits under the guise of registering clinicians for Loansome Doc, I always manage to propagandize a bit for some of our other library services, including my absolute all-time favorite resource: Da-da...DynaMed. Click the DynaMed link on our home page to take a look.

DynaMed is a point-of-care tool that is in a good position, I think, to knock off the current king of the hill, UpToDate. Unlike UTD, DynaMed has clearly explained graded levels of evidence, great navigation, clickable reference links to full text articles AND a very usable version for PDAs, including smart phones. Not to mention the fact that it costs approximately 1/10th of what an UTD site license costs. If you are a SFGH clinician and would like to get access to DynaMed, please contact me, jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu. I'll send you the information you need to get started.

Oh yes, this post was supposed to be about Loansome Doc. You can contact me at that same email address if you want to register for Loansome Doc.

Blame vs. Accountability

2009-10-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

This week's New England Journal of Medicine contains an article by UCSF's Robert Wachter about the delicate balance between the "no blame" approach and the sometimes overlooked need for physician accountability in regards to patient safety issues. The authors suggest that because physicians are not hospital employees they are subject to only weak enforcement of safety standards. Not wanting to alienate physicians and lose the business they bring in, hospitals have been reluctant to play the enforcer.

Citing the "no-blame" approach as the wrong tool for mature patient-safety practices, Wachter and co-author J. Pronovost (Johns Hopkins) get down to brass tacks by suggesting the circumstances under which physicians should be chastised for lack of adherence to patient safety practices and giving specific punishments such as loss of privileges and education for specific transgressions.

I imagine this article will generate a few letters to the editor, but because it bridges the gap between theory and practice, it's a valuable contribution to patient safety literature and a good starting point for further discussion.

Looking for computer software textbooks?

2009-09-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

I was looking for how-to manuals for Microsoft Access recently when I discovered that UCSF has licensed a database called Safari Books Online
" over 8,000 vetted learning and reference resources from leading publishers like O'Reilly Media, Addison-Wesley, Peachpit Press, Apress, Manning and Talented Pixie"

The collection focuses on computer technology and also includes graphic design, and business management titles. You can browse by category or search for books on everything from Adobe Photoshop to Unix. From the Safari website: http://search.safaribooksonline.com/home, you can read and even download chapters from any computer on the UCSF network or thorough your VPN@UCSF remote access account.

You can also find links to these online books by searching the UCSF Library catalog by keyword. Example: search keyword 'photoshop' - look for [electronic resource] in your search results. You can also search by title and use the option on the results page to limit your search to "Online Books"

Now, I really have no excuse not to learn how to use Photoshop.

Senator Ted Kennedy and good endings

2009-08-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

I just read this article in the NYT and it got me thinking :

After Diagnosis, Determined to Make a ‘Good Ending’

By MARK LEIBOVICH

Published: August 27, 2009

From the time his brain cancer was diagnosed 15 months ago, Senator Kennedy spoke of having a “good ending for myself.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/us/politics/27year.html

The Kennedy family's contributions to policies and impact on the lives of all Americans are profound and will shape the stories we tell about what it is to be a "good" American for years to come. With the death of both Eunice and Ted this month,I 'm glad to see so much media attention being paid to their positive examples of public service as a reminder that 'government' is not a four letter word.

What struck me about this article were the specific details about what a good death meant to Senator Kennedy, sailing, dinner parties when he felt up to it, eating mocha chip ice cream and watching James Bond movies with his wife. Yes, he was the 'Lion of the Senate' but he was also a simple human who found comfort in the same things we all do. Even without the money, influence and prestige he enjoyed, most of us have someone who will bring us ice cream and watch a movie with us. No one is exempt from suffering but luckily most of us can find enjoyment in small things.

I also like that the article pointed out that having brain cancer gave Ted Kennedy time to be with his family and say goodbye, time to work on his memoir and receive appreciation from his colleagues and friends. Of course it's in comparison to the untimely assassinations of his his two brothers; still this is the first time I've seen death by brain cancer mentioned with a positive slant in the mainstream media, as something other than a dread and terrifying monster of a disease.

I'm glad Senator Kennedy got his "storybook ending" even as I know that the living of it for him was something different, more messily human than the story, but no less grand.

Instaneously...if not sooner

2009-08-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

That's how quickly people expect to receive their news in this era of online connectivity and social networking. Example: a photo of the United Airways plane "landing" in the Hudson River was up on Flickr before network news could say "webcam". Physicians have similar expectations. Although they may not be techno-wizzards, they're interested in receiving data on patient outcomes ASAP, before investigators have had time to prepare it for publication, and certainly before the manuscript has made it through the peer review process.

In a commentary in this week's JAMA titled "Registries for Robust Evidence", authors Nancy Dreyer and Sarah Garner called for the establishment of data registries organized around specific conditions, exposures, or products to fill the critical gap between knowledge generation and scholarly journal publication.

In parallel event, PLoS (Public Library of Science) announced today a beta version of a new database devoted to the rapid reporting of research related to influenza, PLoS Currents . According to their news release, it will be a "moderated collection for the rapid and open sharing of useful new scientific data, analyses, and ideas in the field of influenza". It's about time.

Don't you just hate it when they do that?

2009-07-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

This falls into the "Don't you just hate it when they do that?" category of petty annoyances associated with daily life at the library that, because I have a blog, I can rant about. Here it is: medical reporters have picked up on, no, jumped on, a Lancet study reporting the disproportionate effect of the H1N1 virus on pregnant women in the US.

Okay, good work, EXCEPT that in order to get the PDF of the article at this moment you have to pay $31 for it or HAPPEN to know that it's available from ScienceDirect, an information platform on which UC HAPPENS to provide this particular journal.

Adding insult to injury, the article is not in the print version of the journal and it's not available in PubMed yet, so you can't get it by clicking on the full text link that your library has so graciously added to PubMed to facilitate your fulltext access. If you'd like to see the full text of this article, just put your email address in the comments box and I'll PDF you a copy, pronto.

Cloud Computing

2009-07-13T16:40:00.001-07:00

I've been hearing a lot about the computing cloud lately. Cloud storage software, cloud nodes, cloud architecture, cloud apps...references to cloud computing abound. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer did a piece on it a few weeks ago,so you know it has entered popular culture.

Although the idea is still a little hazy to me (with a 50% chance of clearing), I've figured out that it's a way of conceptualizing the trend away from storing and using information on your own PC or organization's network to doing everything online via whatever device may be handy...your smart phone, your laptop, what-have-you.

Actually, this is a concept that I've been thinking about alot lately, although I didn't know it was called cloud computing. Here are some possible ways to use the cloud: Don't host your site on your network server, put it up on the open web in a wiki format where everyone can get to it and contribute content. Create your presentation in Slideshare, don't carry it around on some thumb drive you'll lose or forget to bring to the presentation. Write your report as a Google Doc, not in a docx file format that no one can open unless they happen to have the correct version of Microsoft Office. It goes without saying, of course, that you are aware of HIPAA rules and regulations and are sensitive to your organization's privacy and proprietary issues. So don't be hanging around on the ground if you can take it to the cloud. Up, up and away.

The Personal is Professional?

2009-06-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

I remember the slogan ' the personal is political' from the feminist movement in the 70's. It has certainly played out in some twisted ways. I find myself wondering, in these toddler days of online social networking, how the blurring of the boundaries between public and private life will play out over the next few decades.

Have you 'googled' yourself recently? Find anything you wouldn't want a prospective employer to see? Patients can google their physicians, students their teachers, and vice versa. I know my curiosity sometimes leads me to information that, I'm probably better off not knowing. If I'm facing a complex surgery how does it affect my peace of mind to know that my surgeon is a big fan of slasher movies?

Things should get even more interesting as new tools like Google Wave emerge which will take email where it has never gone before. Here's a post about it from Roy Tennant's blog, Digital Libraries: "Google Wave" Aims to Transform Online Communication

Apple Developers Converge

2009-06-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

They're everywhere you look: nerdy guys (where are the girls?) in black-rimmed glasses, rumpled cotton shirts and cut-off cargo pants, pockets overflowing with what?...stuff. They've descended on San Francisco's Moscone Center to learn about how to develop applications for Apple's iPhone.

And not just a few of them are developing health care apps. They're not dumb, these developers. They know that the percentage of us in the geriatric category will be will be increasing over time and that our physicians will want instant, seamless, anywhere/anytime, HIPAA-compliant transmission of the data necessary to take care of us. I want them to have that...I want my providers to be able see my real-time ECG strip, my MRIs, my lab values, my blood gases, and whatever else they might want want to see. Let 'em see it all, instantly, from wherever the heck they might be.

Take a look at one of the new iPhone apps that will let them do just that.

Blogging from my iPhone

2009-05-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

And they said it couldn't be done. Well, maybe it should't be done. But at least I know it can be done. I'm at MLA (Medical Library Assoc) meeting in Honolulu and didn't feel like bringing my laptop. Hence the need to blog via iPhone.

There is some actual work being done here by a few select individuals. See the official meeting blog: http://npc.mlanet.org/mla09

Oops, gotta run. Can't be late for the luau.

The Who, What & Where of Swine Flu Information

2009-05-05T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm on a disaster outreach listserv that deals with the role of libraries and librarians in dispensing disaster and pandemic information on topics such as the recent swine flu outbreak. The librarians on this listserv are particularly proactive and see the dissemination of disaster-related information as something that they are uniquely suited to do because of their technical expertise in web content posting as well as their ability to find, evaluate and synthesize information.

Well, one of the most active librarians on the list was complaining that she got her hands slapped because she was posting links to a variety of swine flu related information on her library web site. Her administration told her to cut it out because they didn't want people to panic. This kind of directive goes against the librarian grain, because we feel that, in general, more and better information makes for less panic, not more, and probable better outcomes for all concerned.

I think this controversy will die down as soon as everyone in the organization gets onto Web 2.0 technology. Or maybe it won't. Maybe it will intensify for a while. Everyone will know how to create web pages with links to information, Google Flu maps, and widgets of all flavors, and they won't have to rely on one IT-based webmaster OR one librarian who knows how to cut code or use web editing software. The underlying issue, though, will remain: who in the organization will be responsible for putting up the official content on the official web site? Through my Web 2.0-colored glasses, I'd say, "let them collaborate".

Swine Flu Alert

2009-04-27T12:25:00.000-07:00

Click here for a comprehensive list of links relating to Swine Flu

Another page of links from the Specialized Information Services at the National Library of Medicine.

And handy box with links that you can put on your own home page using the "Get widget Now!" link

Is the Internet Making us Stupid?

2009-04-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

In this thought-provoking podcast several brain gurus and media experts make the argument that the Worldwide Web is creating generations of information-addicted people who crave distraction, have difficulty focusing, can't analyze complex issues, and pride themselves on being multi-taskers when they're really just inefficient serial taskers, crashing their cars while chattering blythely on cell phones. I'm so glad to know this. Now I can blame the Internet for my ADD tendencies. And I'll be extra careful with my mobile telephony.

Google and User Happiness

2009-04-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

I was interested in the presentation Daniel Russell made at Mt. Zion's H.M. Fishbon Memorial Library in November, 2008 because he's Google's main man in charge of "user happiness." Also because Google is the 800 pound gorilla in the information jungle, where librarians sometimes feel like an endangered species.

Yesterday I gave a PubMed coaching session to a physician who Googles using natural language queries to find journal articles on specific clinical topics. Most of the time he considers his searching successful; that is, he can find one or two good articles. That's all he wants anyway. His only complaint is that he can't always get full text; hence his request for a PubMed coaching session from yours truly.

I start with the unhappy news that PubMed includes links to free full text only when provided by open access publishers. Most publishers want to be paid for their content, so libraries spend millions of dollars providing that content to their affiliated users, something most people don't recognize or understand. I end with some good news/bad news: open access publishing may some day replace the existing subscription-based scholarly publishing model. But probably not in our lifetime.

Then I give my spiel about how using PubMed's controlled vocabulary MeSH (medical subject headings) can increase precision and recall and is especially useful for very complex searches or very exhaustive ones, such as when you're designing a research project and absolutely, positively have to know everything that's been published in your area of research. I could tell he wasn't buying it. Too much work for too little return. He was perfectly fine with his established system of Googling. The truth is that not everyone wants or needs to be a PubMed virtuoso. But if you'd like to add to your PubMed searching repertoire, please give me a call, 206-6639. It's free...except for your time, that is.

Experiment you can do at home

2009-03-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

Check out this video. There may be no evidence that shows a connection between cell phones and brain cancer, but what about the brain popping problem?

Progress

2009-03-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

A picture is worth 1,000 words. 'Nuff said.

Glass of Resveratrol Anyone?

2009-02-04T10:24:00.000-08:00

If you're not comatose, you may have noted the recent media attention to the "evidence" that resveratrol, a substance in red wine, adds years to your life and may contribute to a happier death when your time finally does come. By the way, it also cures wrinkles which is more important than longevity, at least from a business point of view.

Health reporting happens. People read it and believe it. Whether it's good reporting or bad, people believe it equally. I've recently become aware of a web site that assigns grades in the form of stars to health articles in the news. Health News Reviews focuses on U.S. news and covers broadcast as well as print media. It is written by University of Minnesota Health Journalism program's Gary Schwitzer and grades health news on 9 no-nonsense criteria including the following: [Does the story] evaluate the quality of the evidence? Quantify the potential harms? Quantify the potential benefits? Use independent sources and identify conflicts of interest? Compare the new approach with existing alternatives? His review of the recent 60 Minutes story on resveratrol got only one star out of 9. That's okay, if it gets rid of wrinkles I can go with one star.

Free is Good

2009-01-21T10:40:00.000-08:00

A Springer journal might not be your first choice of journals to publish in, but here's some news that might influence your decision: Springer Publishing Company has just signed an agreement with University of California's Digital Library that allows for free open access publishing for any and all of their many journals. Well, it's not exactly free because the publishing cost has been rolled into UC's journal licensing agreement, but it's free to you as author. Here are more details of what Springer is calling its Open Choice plan

Jing...a Kewl New Tewl

2009-01-20T10:43:00.001-08:00

In about 2 nanoseconds I learned how to capture a screen shot using a free media sharing tool called Jing. This little gizmo (technical term) has far-reaching implications for creating online tutorials on the fly and for delivering customized desktop support.

Jing allows you to do static screen shots and annotate them, like the PubMed screen in the above example as well as create videos of your mouse movements and share them with people. Now I'm thinking, "Why did I spend all that time and energy on Captivate?" The answer: so I can make tutorials that are more than five minutes long, which is Jing's limit. That's okay. Most peoples' attention span is about that long anyway, mine included.

What, Me Wiki?

2009-01-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

Some people, old people that is, will recognize the above image as Alfred E. Newman. His picture was always on the cover of Mad Magazine, which you smuggled to school when you were in the 4th grade. It was a very subversive thing. It would definitely be confiscated if seen by a teacher, and could even cause you to be kicked out of class. Alfred E. Newman's motto was: "What, me worry?

Keeping in mind the title of this article, can you guess where I got the above image? Yup...Wikipedia. If you're like most people, you've heard of Wikipedia but you don't know that much about it and wonder "Just what is this weird wiki-thing anyway?" The word comes from the Hawaiian language and means quickly, which is surprising in itself because Hawaiians hardly ever do anything quickly. Why would they need a word for it?

A wiki is a web site that anyone can read and/or contribute to. Depending on your permissions, it allows you to add, delete, or reorganize content, all without benefit of HTML or web editing skills. Its strength lies in its use as a collaborative tool.

The following are some reasons you might want to participate in a wiki:

We need to use new and better ways to create, share, store, and retrieve knowledge, especially during the Magnet process, upon which this hospital has embarked.
Wikis work well with any shared governance model because they make collaborating to create content really easy and sometimes even fun.
Wikis can be private, that is, open only to members of the organization. In addition, within any given wiki, some pages can be open to all and some can be private depending on the nature of the content.
Wikis offer content as well as discussion pages.
Wikis break down silos, a cliche meaning organizational divisions.
Wikis distribute the editing workload and take the pressure off the web master who probably never wanted the job in the first place.

Please leave a comment if you'd like additional information on the advantages of wikis over email or organizational intranets. This post is already way too long but hey, why should I worry?

It's Official: Librarian is a Cool Career

2009-01-09T09:03:00.000-08:00

It must be true. I read it in U.S. News and World Report. According to a December 15, 2008 article Librarian is one of the top 30 professions for 2009 in terms of job outlook, job satisfaction, difficulty of training, prestige, and pay. Another semi-interesting factoid: special librarians are especially cool. A special librarian is someone who doesn't work in an academic or public library, so this would include yours truly, having worked in medical libraries for what is now decades.

I was interested to see that the article lists "Health Informatics Specialist" as one of "13 Ahead of the Curve Careers". This confirms my hunch that the combination of medical librarianship and health informatics is where our field is headed. I always like it when my hunches are confirmed, especially by such a highly-revered news source.

Just this week, I found myself encouraging a UC Berkeley undergraduate who was conducting informational interviews at the hospital to consider the Medical Librarian/Health Informatics option. As I was making the pitch, a musical version of William S. Borrough's Words of Advice for Young People kept running through my mind. I'm always surprised at how helpful (ahem) my subconscious is at suggesting songs that suit the situation. Maybe I should give the whole thing some more thought.

Calling All iPhone Users

2008-12-23T15:01:00.000-08:00

If you are an iPhone user and would like free online access to DynaMed, please call me (415-206-6639) or email me (jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu) asap. DynaMed is an evidence-based point-of-care tool that's updated daily. We'll be retaining our desktop access to this resource, but we had to drop our PDA version due to budget cuts. BUT...if you establish you iPhone online access before the end of the year, you'll be grandfathered or grandmothered in.

If you're interested, I'll provide you with a unique serial number which you can use to set up the access.

Cry for Help. HELLLLLLLP

2008-12-03T10:03:00.000-08:00

I've spent hours sifting through and evaluating electronic book, journal, database and package offers from various content providers with the goal of spending the least amount of money on the most valuable online products available. I want to provide resources that nurses and other SFGH staff will find helpful and actually use in their clinical decision making, research, and coursework. I'm also trying to figure out what resources will best support our fledgling Magnet initiative. Okay, so I admit it. I need help. Obviously I've got some ideas, but I need your clinical expertise and years of experience in the field to help me decide what to purchase. Please contact me asap: jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu

Print or Online

2008-11-26T09:15:00.000-08:00

A patron (that's that we call library visitors) came in this morning looking for a print copy of Brenner & Rector's the Kidney. Turns out we have only the 2004 edition, and that we had hadn't purchased the 2008 edition. Oh dear! Or maybe not. We do have online access to the most recent edition of that book via UCSF Library's MD Consult, an electronic content aggregator I think of as an electronic "aggravator" because their PDFs take so long to load.

Aggravation aside, the question remains: does the library need to spend $400 on a new edition of this title? If we buy it, will you use it? Please advise.

Embase, anyone?

2008-10-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Recently I've run into a few researchers here at SFGH, (not really run into them, just talked to them) who are beginning new projects and need to do exhaustive literature searching. They can't risk missing any of the European biomedical literature that may not be included in Medline. They need access to a database called "Embase", the database formerly known as "Excerpta Medica"

UCSF's Parnassus Library does not license this resource. The Mount Zion library is the only UCSF affiliate that does, and will very kindly do literature searches for SFGH staff on request. My question is: should the SFGH library subscribe to this database? Is there enough demand out there to warrant the purchase? Would you use it if you had it? Let me hear from you!

Librarians as Educators

2008-10-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

While I don't often take the time to read Library Journal, preferring instead to let them pile up on my desk so no one else can read them, I did notice one news item from the October 1, 2008 issue that struck me as significant. It referred to a faculty opinion survey called Ithaka's 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education that revealed an "...emerging disconnect between librarians' perceptions of their roles and the expectations and habits of the faculty they serve."

The study drew a lot of comment from academic librarians, among them Steven Bell of Temple University, who suggested that the next study should include librarian roles of educator and instructional partner along with the more traditional ones. Good thinking, Steven. I believe this is a area where librarians can make the greatest impact, both now and in the future, and in all types of libraries.

Paging Dr. Google

2008-10-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

Interesting article in the International Herald Tribune about how the public uses the Internet for health information. And later Twitters about their treatment.

Don't Wanna Come to Class?

2008-09-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Would you like to get the scoop on PubMed but don't want to or can't take the time to come and sit in class? Well, here's a sneak preview of tomorrow's class: PubMed Basics

If you come to class, you'll get hands-on experience with some of PubMed's search features, and we'll show you how to get full text articles. But if you really can't make it, you can call 206-6639 to arrange an individual coaching session. We'll even come to your office or work space.

That Time of Year Again

2008-09-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Last fall we made the announcement that in order to fund online resources for both UCSF and SFGH affiliates, we planned to cut the library’s print journal subscriptions The decision was based on what we saw as dwindling use of print titles, rising subscription costs, and desire to fund electronic resources such as DynaMed, Nursing Reference Center, and online databases such as CINAHL and Medline with their accompanying full text journal content.

After we announced the cuts, we hunkered down to await the fallout. But aside from several requests to retain specific titles, the negative reaction never came. Is it true that our staff is so well served by existing electronic resources that current print subscriptions aren’t all that important any more…except maybe for browsing? If that’s not true, we need to hear from you because it’s that time of year again, and we’re planning more print journal cuts. Here are some of the print subscriptions that are on the chopping block but available online:

Academic Radiology
Annals of Emergency Medicine
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
Journal of Investigative Medicine
Pediatrics in Review
Scandinavian journal of Infectious Diseases
Seminars in Thrombosis and HemostasisTransfusion

Drug Error Finder

2008-09-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

This just in from the U.S. Pharmacopeia people:
"As a service to healthcare practitioners, industry, consumers, and others, USP has developed a free tool for accessing drug names that have been identified with a medication error. USP's Drug Error Finder allows a user to search more than 1,400 drugs involved in look–alike and/or sound–alike errors. It not only lists the other drugs involved in a mix–up, but also designates the severity of the error where at least one report was received through USP's Reporting Programs. Use USP's Drug Error Finder*."

Clarification from NIH

2008-08-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

This just in from NIH regarding methods of manuscript submissions: NIH Public Access web page . For more information, see the NIH public access FAQ.

Just How Happy ARE You?

2008-08-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

This past spring we conducted our annual customer satisfaction survey. The only change we made in the content was the title. This year we called it the "Customer HAPPINESS Survey", a la Google who has an actual salaried person called the "Customer Happiness Manager". (We figured we couldn't go too far wrong copying Google.)

Day before yesterday someone, not a library staffer either, actually asked about the results of the above-mentioned survey. Only then did I realize I hadn't publicized them to anyone but the library staff. So for all those inquiring minds out there, here are some statistically significant findings:

Frequency of use - Up by 13% in the frequent or relatively frequent library use category. This includes walk-in use as well as online electronic use of resources.
Usefulness of services - This year, respondents found our provision of health information for patients and families 12.4% more useful, our classes for staff 10% more usful and our one-on one information retrieval coaching 8% more useful than they did last year. We're actually doing pretty much what we did last year, but more people are finding out about it.
Overall satisfaction - The percentage of highly or mostly satisfied respondents increased from 46% to 68% with the Neutral/No opinion category decreasing by almost half. I was really glad about that because I feel better if people have at least some opinion about us, either good or bad. Speaking of bad: our hightly dissatisfied and mildly dissatified people are still out there and still represent 6% of all those who responded. I suspect some of those folks are just basically curmudgeonly or were just grumpy that day, but some did give us good feedback about things we need to change such as our printing set up. And it's good to know those things. That's what surveys are for.

Thanks to all who took the time to respond, and for those who didn't, you're in luck. You'll have another chance next year.

PubMed Central and You

2008-07-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

Most people have not given a lot of thought to their relationship with PubMed Central...unless they're NIH-funded researchers, that is. What does PMC expect of you? Why is the law so confusing? Why is communication so difficult? NIH Public Access Policy expert and UCSF Librarian Marcus Banks will be at SFGH, Building 3, 5th Floor Library on August 6, 2008 between 4 and 5 p.m. to answer these and other troubling questions including tips to make sure you are in compliance with the law and completely out of jail. Marcus's talk is sponsored by UCSF's Division of Experimental Medicine.

DynaMed for All

2008-07-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, you can now get a PDA version of DynaMed, an evidence-based point-of-care resource, on the device of your choice. Although I don't personally own a new iPhone, I understand it works beautifully on that machine, as well as on Blackberries (would that be Blackberrys?) and Smartphones. If you'd like to give it a whirl, please email me jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu to get the necessary serial number and include your SFGH or UCSF affiliation information.

Here's the scoop: http://www.ebsconewsletter.com/eletra/gow.cfm?z=dmweeklyupdate%2C282033%2Cb9mqlGw4%2C1066298%2Cbd6r91r

RSS and Why You Should Care

2008-06-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a difference of opinion. RSS is either going to revolutionize the way people receive new online content OR it's way too complicated for most of them to deal with. Another possibility: it may land someplace in the middle. I'm voting for that. I'm thinking a less complicated way to receive RSS feeds will emerge in the next several years and the old-style RSS will be voted off the island. At the very least, the feed aggregator part of it will get the boot.

Until an updated model comes along, however, RSS is the absolute best way to keep on top of new online content. The University of Wisconsin's Ebling Health Sciences Library has put a lot of work into the RSS section of their web site. They've collected the URLs for an incredible number of medical journals and arranged them both by specialty and alphabetically so that you can add them to a feed reader such as Bloglines. I just love librarians, don't you? BTW, if you're interested in looking at the current tables of contents for specific journals and don't understand any of the above, please give me a call at 415-206-6639. I'm standing by the phone. Sitting actually.

Overheard at MLA

2008-05-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

A la Leah Garchik of the San Francisco Chronicle, here are some of the more memorable sound bites from the Medical Library Association Conference held in Chicago this past week:

"JetBlue takes the suckitude out of flying." I love that word. Couldn't wait to use it in a sentence. I'm already planning how to use it again in another sentence.

Moodle will be the most important learning management system in the future.

Want to adopt a sister library in a developing country? See the International Cooperation Section 's "Tips for sister Libraries" on the MLA web site: http://www.mlanet.org/

To find out about using RFID clickers in classrooms, go to http://www.turningtechnologies.com/

The personal health record (Google Health & Microsoft's Health Vault) is one of the most significant tech trends in healthcare today.

Huge display screens help people see the big picture.

Invite your IT people to your next strategic planning session...just don't let them run the meeting.

The "Medici Effect" says innovation takes place at the intersection of professions.

Good Book: Serious Play, by Michael Flange.

The QR (quick response) code - holds 8,000 bits of information and is the next generation bar code.

Unbound Central is a platform on which libraries can perch their content for handheld devices. And 65% of all physicians own them, devices that is.

Your job is to craft great library experiences - Andrew Zolli

Our Logo

2008-05-14T11:14:00.001-07:00

Our Logo
Originally uploaded by joygraham45

So okay, i've got it now. just took a little futzing and now i can include photos from my flickr account in my blog. Here's the official logo from our esteemed library.

JIT for Medical Literature

2008-05-07T12:40:00.000-07:00

The JIT or Just-In-Time concept is a major tenet of supply chain economics that’s been around for a while. Here’s how it goes: don’t order it, pay for it, or warehouse it before you really need it. Have on hand only what you need to make and ship what is currently on order. Computer technology has made it possible for businesses to put this theory into practice and save bundles of money in the bargain.

I’m thinking about how the JIT concept can be applied to the medical literature, as a response to or perhaps defense against the infamous information glut. BTW, I’m not advocating that you apply this theory to your leisure reading, everyone should feel free to range far and wide in that field. But in regards to your professional reading, the idea would be to read only what you need to on the topics that are of immediate concern to your current clinical, research, or academic interests.

PubMed and many other databases allow you to do just that in a jiffy. You do a nice, precise search in a specific area of interest and then save it. The technology will alert you by e-mail when anything new is published that meets those search parameters. When the topic is no longer of interest, you cancel the search alert without a second thought. You can also set up journal alerts and receive the table of contents of your favorite journals every time new issues are published.

The same thing can also be accomplished using RSS technology, which notifies you when your favorite web sites are updated. The orange RSS icon on a web site indicates that RSS is available, and you can set up an RSS feed using a free service such as Bloglines . Please call me (415-206-6639) if you’d like more information on that. I’ll give you just enough information to get started. Not more. I promise.

Go MedWorm

2008-04-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

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!

Moving Right Along...

2008-04-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

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

Ghosts or Guests?

2008-04-21T12:45:00.001-07:00

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.

Collaboratively Cooking and Dishing Up Documents

2008-04-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

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.

Social Bookmarking

2008-04-02T09:14:00.001-07:00

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.

I understand your pain BUT I do not share it

2008-03-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a blog post from a Harvard Medical School PhD student complaining about the user-unfriendliness of PubMed: http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/U2929A0EA/2008/03/22/i-am-not-yelling-not-out-loud She's right, of course, PubMed is complex. But then so is her field of expertise, cell signaling and gene transcription. Why does she expect PubMed to be simple? You know why, because Google is simple, and Google sets the standard for search engines. But consider this: PubMed has powerful search features that allow for precise retrieval of information, for finding needles in haystacks, for separating the sheep from the goats, for executing complex search strategies. Those are things that Google does not do with the same consistency and predictability. So maybe this student would benefit from investing a bit of time learning the capabilities and complexities of the world's largest biomedical database.

Serious Stuff Here

2008-03-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, joining Facebook really is part of an assignment for my Medical Library Association Social Networking Tools class. I had some peculiar responses to the Facebook invitations I sent, and they seem to be stratified by age group. One of my younger co-workers had invited me to join Facebook several months ago, so I was already signed up. My daughter responded to my invitation immediately, setting up her own profile and populating it with photos from her recent honeymoon in Austrailia and Bali. An older co-worker responded by asking me to send the invite to her personal e-mail. Ouch. A third older friend didn't respond electronically, but later asked me in a phone conversation if he'd have to put in personal information for all to see.

These are only 3 data points, but they seem to be pointing to an age-related phenomenon. Another experience I had with wikis: I tried to get the women in my family to participate in a creative writing wiki because, of course, we're all very clever and have interesting things to say. I was warned (by someone from the generation even older than mine) that this would be dangerous because of the identity theft problem. I know that sometimes kids reveal too much information and are pounced on by predators, but I think the new social networking paradigm asks people to examine their worldview from an Einsteinian perspective: Is the world essentially a friendly place or is it not. The answer to that may determine whether you're a social networker or whether you are not.

Flu Pandemic Wiki

2008-03-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

When I first saw the URL I thought it was someone sniveling about their latest illness, but i went to http://www.fluwikie.com/ (yes, that's wiki with an "e") and found out it's an entirely serious site devoted to surveillance of H5N1 avian flu. It includes data from all sorts of national, international and statewide oganizations. It seems to be very authoritative, although I had a heck of a time figuring out who the editors were. I guess that's what makes a wiki so very wiki-like. It's very democratic...all contributors are equally authoritative, or appear to be.

On another note: it occurred to me that this site and/or others like it will probably become very important in the days and years to come. It's like they say about earthquakes and San Francisco: "It's not a question of IF, but WHEN."

Librarians With Laptops

2008-03-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Beware of librarians carrying laptops. They're like door-to-door evangelists, no offense door-to-door evangelists. They want to raise your information consciousness for your own good and the good of humankind. If you let them, they can totally take up an hour of your time helping you with evidence-based literature searching, setting up email current awareness alerts, managing your citation lists, or with whatever else you have going on in regards to medical literature. Luckily, there aren't too many of them, only Terri and Joy here at SFGH. Forewarned is forearmed.

Va-Room

2008-03-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

As part of the Medical Library Associations online Web 2.0 class I'm currently enrolled in, I've been assigned to add at least one post to my blog each week for the next eight weeks. Nothing like hitting the ground running. Welcome to the reality school of blogging, where it becomes clear to us blogging bootcamp recruits that having a viable, dynamic web site means posting regularly. No waiting for inspiration to strike. No time management excuses or whining about higher priorities. No leaving your blog to languish by the wayside of the information superhighway. Just get it in gear and go.

Evolution in teaching

2008-03-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

Interesting editorial in the Feb. 6, 2008 issue of JAMA. Written by an attending physician regarding how the information revolution has changed his approach to teaching interns and residents, he observes, " I increasingly find myself teaching less about the current state of information and more about how things have changed and how our understanding of an illness or treatment has evolved to where it is currently.... I am more likely to point out how scanty the evidence actually may be when making a decision." He sees his role as helping to integrate and synthesize overwhelming amounts of clinical data and interpret them in the context of the patient as a whole and complex individual. Here's the link if you want to read the article: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/299/5/497?etoc

Book Sale

2008-01-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

Staff is pretty much recovered from the library's first annual "Clean Sweep Book Sale" held January 23-25th on the second floor of the Barnett-Briggs Medical Library. Although the tumult and shouting has died, one question remains: "Will there be a second annual Clean Sweep Book Sale?"

Polishing up my crystal ball with my soft chamois cloth reserved for this purpose, I would say the answer is "A definite maybe". In other words, I don't have a clue. Although we took in over $1200 in the three days of the sale, and managed to donate all but $50 of that to SFGH's Volunteer Program (refreshments took their toll), the future of the book sale remains murky at best. In January of 2009 the second floor of the library may no longer be part of the library. It may be turned into an Information Commons, a possibility I heartily endorse, or put to some other purpose which I endorse less heartily. Since one of my major objectives in holding the sale was to raise awareness regarding the existence of the library, having the sale in a location other than the library might not have the same consciousness-raising effect.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that everyone needs to come to the library to check out books and read journals and all that other good stuff. I would consider it a huge success if people NEVER came to the library but knew about all the online books, journals, and databases that the library licenses and pays for AND knew how to access it from their homes and offices without ever setting foot in the good old Barnett-Briggs. Maybe they could just IM us from time to time to tell us how much they appreciate our content.

Poll

2008-01-15T15:41:00.001-08:00

Opinion Polls & Market Research

I'm playing with the Vizu poll application, thinking it could be used with interesting results in a blog or a wiki. I'm a little confused about the spacing of the text vis a vis the poll text box. We'll see how it turns out when I publish.

What were they thinking?

2008-01-14T14:33:00.000-08:00

Alert NYT reader and Florida hosital librarian Patti Reynolds
brought this important news item to the attention of the MedLib-L listserv.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/nyregion/09dead.html?_r=1&em&ex=1200200400&en=82dcdb8fa84ead1b&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin

Picture this: two guys trying to steal the proceeds of a dead guy's payroll check by wheeling his dead body seated in an office chair into a check cashing business. Maybe they thought no one would notice? We're talking New York here, you know.

She'll Google That - Rant

2008-01-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

A nursing faculty member at an Australian University was complaining in the December, 2007 issue of the AORN Journal that when she did her usual Google searching for data on incidence of accidently retained sponges, she got waaaaay too many results. What a surprise. (Dripping sarcasm). Her solution? Use Google Scholar, and oh my, was that better! (More sarcasm). Only 231 hits. But she was thrilled because the search contained mostly credible resources and went back 30 years.

This is the kind of report that makes librarians crazy, or crazier than we usually are. And it's published in AORN, one of the world's top nursing journals. We're concerned. We wonder: how'd she get to be in a position of teaching future nurses doing Google searching with nary a nod to the concept of database searching? You know, databases such as Medline, the world's largest biomedical database with 15 million citations and indexing back to 1950, and CINAHL, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health, the world's most comprehensive indexing and abstracting database for nursing literature?

Poor baby. How upsetting that her Google search yielded too many hits and "...an eclectic range of information and 'facts'" Does she not have a clue that databases such as PubMed have search features such as subject headings, subheadings and limit capabilities that allow you to hone your search to get the precise retrieval you're looking for?

But wait...there's more. She's saying that the "World's best books and scholarly journals will become increasingly available on your computer monitor at the touch of a key..." Well, sure. But whom does she think is going to be paying for them...the Easter Bunny? Unless the publishing industry suddenly decides it no longer wants or needs to be in business, these resources will have to be paid for. Guess who's paying for them now?? LIBRARIES, THAT"S WHO. Ok, I'm calming down. I'll stop shouting now.

My New Hero

2008-01-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

Julie Stielstra, alert reader of the New York Times and hospital librarian in Winfield, Illinois, recently brought this article to the attention of the MedLib-L, a medical librarians' listserv:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/arts/31rese.html?pagewanted=print

It describes how David Smith, reference librarian at the New York City library affectionately known as the "NYPL" (say it), has given so much really valuable reference help to so many people, some of whom are famous authors. The article refers to him as "Librarian to the Stars". He says he used to be shy and retiring, but at some point later in life (age 45) got to be good at schmoozing. All right, David! David has become my new role model. If you'd like to help me out with that, come by the Barnett-Briggs Medical library and ask me for reference assistance or email me at jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu. You don't have to be famous, but it wouldn't hurt.

CDC Song

2007-12-19T14:06:00.000-08:00

It's holiday time, and the CDC is lightening up. Enough already with dire disease warnings, cautionary traveller's advisories, with always being the first to proclaim the bad news. Someone at CDC is in the holiday spirit and has written a little song to the tune of "12 Days of Christmas". Altho it's still advisory and cautionary in nature, it's in musical format. As soon as I get to a computer with speakers enabled (I'm on the Reference Desk now) , I'll have a listen: http://www.cdc.gov/family/holiday/12ways.htm

The Importance of Having Checklists

2007-12-17T16:40:00.000-08:00

Interesting article in a current issue of the New Yorker regarding the use of checklists in medicine:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=1
According to the author of the article, the implementation of checklists in the ICU "...has saved more lives than that of any laboratory scientist in the past decade". Wow.

Commitment

2007-12-13T14:23:00.000-08:00

I was actually thinking of this concept in terms of a pledge to follow through, as it relates to posting to your blog regularly after you've set it up. But because I went to a dictionary to make sure I was spelling the word correctly, I was reminded that "commitment" can also be defined as "consignment to a penal or mental institution" and has some other negative nuances related to obligation and indebtedness. I think that's what stops me from blogging: the notion of being obliged to be creative, clever, and perhaps even inspirational on a regular basis. Once in a while, sure, no problem. But every day or even every week, on cue? I dunno. Some days, it's hard enough to get it together just to get to work. Blogging might consign me to a penal or mental institution.

Finding My Voice

2007-12-12T13:32:00.000-08:00

This is a recent photo of me in San Francisco, lurking in the doorway of the "Voice Studio" on Potrero Hill. It's allegorical because I'm in the process of finding my blogging voice.

I would really like to start a blog on the library's new web site. I would like it if the blog became very popular, a site staff go to first thing every morning, just to see what fascinating thing I have to say.

I want to make the writing informal, but not too irreverent. Hip, but not slick. Cool but not irritatingly so. Interesting but not too controversial. It may take some experimentation