Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Here is a site you may wish to share with your researchers.
Creative Commons now (as of January 1, 2005) has Science Commons http://science.creativecommons.org/ . Its mission is: "to encourage scientific innovation by making it easier for scientists, universities, and industries to use literature, data, and other scientific intellectual property and to share their knowledge with others. Science Commons works within current copyright and patent law to promote legal and technical mechanisms that remove barriers to sharing."
In case you have marketing thoughts as you consider the new year ahead, Mary Niederlander's site is full of great links that you can use:
Marketing Our Libraries On and Off the Internet
http://www.librarysupportstaff.com/marketinglibs.html

One of the links that she has on her site is the Library Lover's Month in February:
http://www.librarysupport.net/librarylovers/

Other health-related observances planned for 2005 that you can highlight in your library's programming and marketing are listed at this site:
National Health Observances (US focus) http://www.healthfinder.gov/library/nho/

Monday, December 27, 2004

Here is a collection of online books that might prove useful to your health professional students that are volunteering over the class break. I learned of them on the hif-net-at-WHO discussion list.
HealthWrights-Workgroup for people's health and rights books online
http://www.healthwrights.org/booksonline.htm

Your students could leave this link with their host clinics/organizations, and point out the additional resources that are available in each of the titles, such as the link to Addresses for Teaching Materials included in "When There is No Doctor" - http://www.healthwrights.org/books/WTINDonline.htm

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Imagine having to get licensed permission to access your home DVDs, similar to the procedures we go through to access licensed journal articles. Here is a story from one person's experience in dealing with DRM - Digital Rights Management - in order to view a DVD of Terminator 2.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1765/

Monday, December 20, 2004

Market your library's services by using the National Observances Calendar to guide your announcements about the resources you offer your customers:
http://www.healthfinder.gov/library/nho/
Examples:
-offer training sessions on how to evaluate health information during Wise Health Consumer Month in February
-create a table-tent listing healthy recipe resources to put on the cafeteria tables to showcase National Nutrition Month in March
-collaborate with a local community college to conduct Senior Health computer users training sessions during Older Americans Month in May
-and don't forget to toot your own horn during National Medical Librarians Month in October

Friday, December 17, 2004

While searching the Penn State site for more news on how the browser switch is going, I found this article on human-Web interaction that might be of interest to you and your customers that work with the Web to reach humans:
Research at Penn State McKeesport focuses on human-Web Interaction
http://live.psu.edu/story/9448

In case you are in charge of making sure your library web site is compliant with the various browsers that our users have, here is a story in the December 10th Information Week that might be of interest. Penn State Tells 80,000 Students to Chuck IE
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=55301109
(I learned about this story from Patricia Anderson, on the Medwebmasters-L list.)
I currently use Firefox http://www.firefox.com/ , and Safari http://www.apple.com/safari/ on both work and home computers. Some library electronic resources have a ways to go in order to be easily accessible on those browsers, however. With news like the article above, I am sure that distance education and eresource vendors will have to address the 'alternative' browsers, or lose money and/or users.
Index Medicus ceases print publication. From today's News From NLM email notice:

Index Medicus Ceases as a Printed PublicationDecember 14, 2004 [posted]
The NLM will cease publishing the monthly Index Medicus (IM) with the December 2004 edition (Volume 45). For more information see the article Index Medicus to Cease as Print Publication. NLM Tech Bull. 2004 May-Jun;(338):e2.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Free cross-cultural communication web course:

FREE WEB COURSE ON CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION:
UMDNJ - School of Public Health-Office of Public Health Practice, in
collaboration with the New York New Jersey-Public Health Training
Center, invites you to participate in a, free, Web-based interactive
learning experience: Communicate to Make a Difference: Exploring
Cross-Cultural Communication. This course, in three modules, introduces
many facets of culture and communication in a real-world public health
scenario. Learners must make decisions while discovering communication
strategies they can employ in their daily work.
The course is designed for public health professionals and may be
completed at one's own pace within a 30-day period. Completion requires
approximately six hours.
For more information go to the Web site: http://www.nynj-phtc.org/cc or call
Robyn Shumer at the School of Public Health-Office of Public Health
Practice at 732-235-9451 shumerrb@umdnj.edu
Learning Objectives:
* Increase the participant's awareness of his/her own cultural
framework, including core assumptions in public health.
* Give examples of discriminating and non-discriminating practices in
providing public health services.
* Recognize and choose effective methods/strategies/techniques for
unbiased communication.
* Identify specific factors that influence an individual's or group's
acceptance of public health information and services.
* Develop increased awareness of diversity.
* Understand how and why stereotypes/generalizations are created.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Share this free curriculum resource with your nursing school, medical school, physician assistant program, and/or inservice trainers - Reproductive Health Initiative Model Curriculum, 2nd Edition http://www.amwa-doc.org/index.cfm?objectId=CD3E4EE4-D567-0B25-5478CC52AE257FE2

From the site: "The RHI Model Curriculum, 2nd Edition (Curriculum), is a comprehensive, 7-module resource designed to assist educators, students, and health care providers with improving reproductive health education and services. As an adaptable teaching tool, the Curriculum can be used in medical schools, nursing schools, physician assistant programs, residency training programs, and as an inservice training tool to strengthen the services of practicing health care providers. "
If you are a librarian in charge of CME, here is a new resource you will want to let your customers know about.
A Family Physician's Practical Guide to Culturally Competent Care
http://cccm.thinkculturalhealth.org/
This HHS resource offers up to 9 free CME credits.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

More information on the Google-libraries pilot project:
FAQ at Harvard: http://hul.harvard.edu/publications/041213faq.html
Announcement at U 0f Mich: http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2004/Dec04/library/index
Microsoft has released a test version of its new desktop search tool: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4094807.stm . It will be interesting to compare Google's, Yahoo!'s, and Microsoft's version, once all are available for testing.
True digital library coming? Google has announced that it will scan the entire library holdings of Stanford University, University of Michigan, Harvard University, New York Public Library, and Oxford University. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/14/BUGADABBS91.DTL
The project page at google is http://www.print.google.com .

Monday, December 13, 2004

Top Ten [Technology] Trends for 2005: http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=11046&hed=Top%2BTen%2BTrends%2Bfor%2B2005%A7or=Briefings&subsector=Trends .
Serials Review 2004; 30(4) is a special issue on Open Access, and is openly accessible at
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00987913 .
Yahoo! Desktop Search is a step closer to becoming reality and competing with Google Desktop Search, according to this story in The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/11/yahoo_licenses_x1_search/ .
The Digital Divide Network has just launched its new website today: http://www.digitaldivide.net/ . Two items you may want to check out right away:
Article by Andy Carvin on RSS feeds and agregators: http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=68 .
The Literacy & Learning Community section: http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/literacy .

Friday, December 10, 2004

Librarians are questioning this Walgreens and ALA partnership:
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=News&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=67309%3E
Here are some of the questions in the Library Journal http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=articleArchive&articleid=CA434411& . Here is a list of other sponsorship programming: http://www.ala.org/ala/pio/campaign/sponsorship/sponsorshipprograms.htm
Sorry to see that Omaha was not chosen to be a site for the "Be Well Informed @your library" consumer health education seminars. If you are a medical or academic library employee, note the cities that are involved, and see if your public library could use some assistance. http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=News&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=77619

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Looking for free resources to use in your library? Thomson Gale offers free marketing promotion tools, product reviews, and dedicated sites to Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Women's History Month, and poetry. http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/
An example of a product review is this one on Google Scholar in the December issue of Peter's Digital Reference Shelf: http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/reference/peter/dec.htm#googlescholar

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

A pat on the back for librarians everywhere:
A Billion Dollar IPO for Johns Hopkins, by William R. Brody
http://www.jhu.edu/gazette/2004/06dec04/06brody.html
A great quote that now lives in my sig file: "Today's technology is spectacular — but it can't always trump a skilled human. "
I bet you would be a great presenter at this conference! Abstracts are due April 30, 2005.

9th World Congress on Health Information and Libraries
The Main Theme: Commitment to Equity
ICML 9 - CRICS 7
Salvador, Bahia - Brazil, 20-23 September, 2005
Website: http://www.icml9.org/?lang=en
Organized by: The Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information - BIREME/PAHO/WHO
the IFLA Section of Biological and Medical Sciences Libraries and the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
§ Focusing on the understanding that knowledge should permeate all action in human health the organizers expect to provide an analysis of the international advances and challenges the health sciences information are facing,
§ with a view to strengthening the universal and equitable access to scientific and technical information worldwide
§ to promote the citizenship participation and health decision making based on information towards the health for all.
The paper and poster submission is open, select one of the subject tracks and submit an abstract in English before April 30th 2005:
1. Health and medical library development and innovation
2. Decision based on scientific evidences
3. Information and knowledge management. Learning organizations
4. Information policy
5. Scientific communication & electronic publishing. Open access, open archives
6. Health consumer & patient
7. Traditional and complementary therapies
8. Virtual libraries & virtual communities
9. Human resources development
10. Other topics

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Libraries and National Security: an Historical Review, by Joan Starr, an LIS Graduate Student
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_12/starr/#s4
I learned about this paper published in First Monday from the SOLOLIB-L digest of Dec 3.