Posted by Laurel K. Graham from the ADA on MEDLIB-L today:

My first thought was librarians need a true lobbying organization.
Please read this article. It is almost funny to hear technology wizards come
to same realizations Dewey and all those forgotten Library Scientists came
to years ago. Specialized indexes?? Organization?
This excerpt is telling:
If one man's trash is another man's treasure, that must explain the comment
by Yahoo's Tim Cadogan that "integrated information sets" should be
developed by editorial staff and product managers so that they could be
presented automatically at the top of the search results page for the most
common types of user query (such as weather). In some ways it seems as if
the four largest portals are today working towards doing more of the
"integrated answer set" work that Ask Jeeves itself has abandoned.
** Librarians are replaced with the terms "editorial staff" and "product
managers". Product managers? They broker information?
Yes they do and that is why librarians are vital to society. "Information
sets" = pathfinders by another name.
Ok, where's the ALA? MLA?
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3384481

Posted to MEDLIB-L today by Bruce Abbott at LSU HSC Library:
This article should be of significant interest to all Institutional Review
Boards. You may want to forward the citation to your committee(s).

Resnik DB.
Liability for institutional review boards: from regulation to litigation.
J Leg Med. 2004 Jun;25(2):131-84. Review. No abstract available.
PMID: 15204904 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

Here is a metasearch medical search engine you may wish to try out. I received a direct mail on it today, and saw it discussed recently on [note on 30 July 04-I don't remember where I saw this discussed! Please let me know if you have seen any comments on it, as we are currently evaluating this new resource!]:
Omnimedicalsearch. com http://www.omnimedicalsearch.com/ . The company states that it has the following functions/options:
* 12 Medical Search Engines (Default Search)
* 8 Health and Medical News Sources
* 5 Medical Image Libraries
* MedPro Search for medical professionals.
* Basic Search for the general public.
* Related Search Options.
* Single Site Search Focus.
* One-Click Dictionary look up.
I am looking forward to what other librarians think of this resource, [as well as finding out who is behind it]. [note on 30 July 04 - I have heard from the developer of OmniMedicalSearch, Jason Morrow. Here is the link to an article offering background on the resource: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/7/emw141182.htm]

SLA CONTRIBUTED PAPERS SESSION CALL FOR PAPERS
Biomedical and Life Sciences Division, Special Libraries Association
Conference June 4-9, 2005 in Toronto, ON, Canada
  
The SLA Biomedical and Life Sciences Division invites submissions for its
annual Contributed Papers Session at the Toronto Conference in June 2005.

 
SESSION THEME:
Digitization Projects in the Biomedical and Life Sciences

 
If you haven't already undertaken a digitization project, you are probably
at least considering how to translate some of your physical collections to a
web accessible format. We want to hear from members who have undertaken
innovative digitization projects. Tell us about your final product: the
challenges and pitfalls; the technology and products employed; your metadata
standards; your decision-making challenges; and your assessment of the
process. We would also be interested in hearing from members who have
launched institutional repositories or other open access sites.

 
ABSTRACT:
A 200-500 word abstract should accurately convey the subject of the paper,
its scope, conclusions, and relevance to the program theme. Attention will
be paid to evidence of scholarship and methodology.

 
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: September 15, 2004.

 
PAPERS:
If chosen, acceptance of your paper reflects a commitment on your part
to: 1) submit the complete text of your paper to the program convener by
March 31, 2005; 2) give a presentation of your paper for no longer
than 20 minutes at the SLA annual conference, June 4-9, 2005 in Toronto, ON,
Canada; 3) where appropriate and feasible, offer a brief
demonstration or representation of your project during your presentation.

 
SUBMIT ABSTRACTS TO:
Barbara A. Butler
butler@darkwing.uoregon.edu (e-mail submissions preferred) Oregon
Institute of Marine Biology P.O. Box 5389
Charleston, OR 97420
541-888-2581, ex.219 (phone)
541-888-3391 (fax)

As part of a settlement with the recording industry, school, public, and college libraries are beginning to receive free CDs. As this story in the Stevens Point Journal points out, though, the CDs are not what the librarians would have chosen for their collections: http://www.wisinfo.com/journal/spjlocal/292464933486275.shtml

I heard (through a Six Sigma discussion list) about a great resource for team building and other items of use to folks that do training is businessballs http://www.businessballs.com . This is a free online development resource for people and organizations, run by Alan Chapman, in Leicester, England.

"Robots get bookish in libraries" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3897583.stm . We might find use for these guys on the midnight to dawn shift, but probably not for creating user education on demand. Next thing you know, there will be copyright conferences discussing the legalities of having robots chock full of pdf documents running around digitizing and delivering on demand. Is there a mobile version of Ariel in our futures??

Check out Hubmed, "an alternative interface to the PubMed medical literature database": [ http://www.hubmed.org/ ].

Keeping up with usability issues is easier with a free newsletter like Usability News [ http://www.usabilitynews.org/ ]. Topics in the recent issue include: Reading online text; comparing data input methods on handheld computers; technology in the classroom; and Blackboard. There is a link to archived issues on the page as well.

A story from a recent edition of the Omaha World-Heraldon on how the Vatican is using RFID technology to track books in the library collection: [ http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=57&u_sid=1138621 ].
A longer version of the same story (cached by Google from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch): [ http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:x3munBS1_9oJ:www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/Life%2B%26%2BStyle/Religion/749BC57BB79F7FE886256EB1000234CA%3FOpenDocument%26Headline%3DVatican%2BLibrary%2Bgoes%2Bhigh-tech%2Bwith%2Bmicrochips+pergamon+system&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&strip=1]
Here is a link to blog that posts RFID news: [ http://www.rfidbuzz.com/ ].

From a recent post to MEDLIB-L by Joy Kennedy of Northwest Community Healthcare: Folks, I don't know how many of you are aware of WebJunction [ http://webjunction.org/do/Home ]. This is a site sponsored by OCLC and a number of other organizations and funded with a grant from the Gates Foundation to establish an online library community with information on using technology in libraries. Most of the information for now seems geared to public libraries but there's a lot of GOOD STUFF here. There are online courses and articles about technology and lots and lots of good ideas. The information on managing public access computers is great. How many times have we come in Monday morning to find that folks have done dastardly stuff to the computers over the weekend! The article on Protecting and Restoring Software and Data is great. Check it out. Joy