TRAVEL DIARY TOOL

I just happened on TravelPod Community, a neat tool to let you create a travel blog, complete with photos, that you can share with others. You can add to it while you’re on a trip and notify friends and family that there’s something new. It also makes a map of your trip and keeps track of all the places you’ve blogged on your own personal world map. And of course you can look at other people’s trips for ideas and recommendations. I’ve one trip so far, to Africa in 2005, but I plan to use it for creating trip reports in the future.

URL: http://www.travelpod.com

SPEECHMAKER’S AID

CuePrompter.com is a free utility that can turn your computer into a teleprompter, so you can be just like all the politicians and celebrities. I got it to work with Firefox, but it is best with Internet Explorer. You can change the size of the type and the scrolling speed. What a neat idea!

URL: http://www.cueprompter.com

MS. OPL IS MOVING

My husband and I are moving back to Champaign, Illinois. I grew up there and got my library degree at the University of Illinois and my husband got his B.S. there. We leave Cleveland on 7 May 2008. My email will remain the same, but my new address and phone are 830 Sedgegrass Drive, Champaign, IL 61822-2024, 1-217-355-9071.

Go Illini!

HAVE YOU TWINED YET?

I’ve just started using a new social network called twine. Yes, another one. But this one seems a bit easier to use—there’s an applet you can put on your browser bar that let’s you add a page to your list immediately. You can even share it with others (either individuals or twines—interest-based sub-networks). I’ve added a link to this blog to my twine stuff.
There are a few library-related twines already: social networking, Web 2.0, ready reference, medical libraries, and information commons (a place to share information, not about the physical space). It would be nice if we had more librarians on the network. You need an invitation to join—it’s still in beta (but very full-functioned already). Check the home page for instructions.

URLs: http://www.twine.com/

SOME REALLY GREAT TAG LINES FOR MEDICAL LIBRARIES

When I was working as a corporate librarian, my boss accidentally created my tag line, or slogan—“The Bailey Library—it’s more than you thought!” If you don’t have a creative boss and/or haven’t come up with a tag line yourself, here are some to think about from Amy Frey [Hospital for Special Care, New Britain, Connecticut, USA], editor of National Network, the newsletter of the Hospital Libraries Section of the Medical Library Association (v. 32, no. 3, p. 3, April 2008). They come from some of the HLS members; I’d suggest locating the “owner” (by Googling the phrase) before adopting one of these.

Information today…for smart health care decisions tomorrow
The information you trust
A resource and a refuge
Your link to health information and more
Supporting education and research to foster clinical excellence
Quality information for quality health care
Solving your problems; saving your time
Check it out
Got a question? Step right up, open wide and say ahhhh…
Navigating the maze: health information for the busy consumer

One slogan I just found (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,17689-page,1/article.html; but it’s other places on the Web, too) is Stop searching; start finding; ask a librarian!

A GUIDE TO THE MEDICAL LITERATURE FOR STUDENTS—AND EVERYONE ELSE

A Student’s Guide to the Medical Literature “has been designed especially for medical students, but it can be used by anyone who wants a guide to the medical literature.” It has almost everything you might need, including: a tutorial on a 4-step approach to reading medical literature; search strategies and links to “best” Web sites; “a guide to critical appraisal of journal articles;” an interactive glossary with statistical terms hotlinked; calculators for outcome measures; and a list of useful references. There’s even a version to use on a Palm or pocket PC. This was a fourth-year medical school project of Katherine McLucas [University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, USA], and is being kept up by the librarians there.

URL: http://grinch.uchsc.edu/sg/

SCHOOL LIBRARY WIKI

WebTools4u2use is a new wiki for school library media specialists. It was created by two Ph.Ds from the University of Central Florida, Tampa. “Much of the information is the result of a survey conducted in 2008 of over 600 school library media specialists about their knowledge and use of Web-based tools….” There are sections on audio and podcasting, blogs, calendars and to-do lists, drawing/charting/mapping tools, photo tools, portals and Web pages, presentation, quiz and polling, RSS feeds and aggregators, social bookmarking, social networking, video and video sharing, wikis, word processing, and more. It looks like could be a useful resource.

URL: http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/

HOW TO CONVINCE YOUR BOSS TO SEND YOU TO A CONFERENCE

Just in time for conference season, here is a post from PubCon (sponsor of a major IT conference) on Top Tips to Get Your Boss to Send You to a Conference. Although it is written for IT-types (geeks), it has some good tips for anyone.

For reasons that escape me, but probably make sense to an IT person, it starts at the end with "post conference deal sealers," then covers your presentation to the boss or staff after the conference, what you do when you get back, how to get the most out of the conference, and selling your boss before you go. It's worth a read.

URL: http://www.pubcon.com/blog/index.cgi?mode=viewone&blog=1188320040

INNOVATIVE (PATIENT) CARE WEBSITE

If your hospital administrators are looking for ideas for better health care delivery systems—and who isn’t?—then this website may be of some help. Innovative Care Models “provides detailed profiles of 24 successful care delivery models…developed as part of a research project conducted by Health Workforce Solutions LLC and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.”

The models are divided into acute care, bridge continuum, and comprehensive care. The ten acute care models range from ones for a small (12-bed) hospital to ones for medical/surgical nursing teams and patient-centered care [shouldn’t all care be patient centered??]. The ten bridge continuum models include “hospital at home,” chronic care, and “the little clinic.” There are only four models under comprehensive care: one for rural care, the Evercare system, independently living for the elderly, and the values-driven system.

Each model is carefully chosen and is “intended to serve as a starting point in the development and propagation of innovative care delivery models” and includes an overview, background, key elements, implementation and replications, results, lessons learned, a leader profile, discussion board, and links to relevant resources. Organizations are encouraged to submit their own best practices.

URL: http://www.innovativecaremodels.com/

INSITELAW: BLOG AND NEWSWIRE

I just discovered InsiteLaw, a site with both a blog and news "designed to focus on legal news and law blogs." It is a product of Mike Semple Piggot [Semple Piggot Rochez, London, UK] who also co-founded "the world's first Internet law school" (BPP Law School).

The newswire has an editorial, features, law reports, podcast interviews, news flashes, links to the blog (to allow participation), and practice/personnel notes.

URL: http://www.insitelawmagazine.com

SELLING POINT FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES

In these trying economic times, public libraries need all the help they can get. Alice Sneary of OCLC has posted a great way to promote a public library on It's All Good, OCLC's blog.

"I know all too well the whole 'the library is free' mentality is a double-edged sword--it's free but it must be funded adequately."

[Actually, the public library isn't free--it's prepaid with tax dollars. Judy]

"But I was thinking that the economic downturn could be just the thing for libraries to use as a springboard to make their case to the American [and any other] public:
1. We are a vital city service--as important as electricity or clean water. [I'm not too sure about this one.]
2. Use us in good times and in bad.
3. We welcome all the people of the community here for technology access.
4. Hope lives here, at the library--hope for improvement.

"When all the headlines you see are about closing doors and belt-tightening, we can stand out from all the bad news; our doors are open, we are the place to come for education, entertainment, information--basically, we are the place!"

URL: http://scanblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/economic-downturn-could-be-uplifting.html

RESOURCES FOR US NATIVE AMERICAN LAW

Out of the Jungle has a post with Free Online US American Indian [Native American?] Legal Resources. They include:

American State Papers, v. I & II, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsplink.html#anchor2

Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/

9 Early Recognized Treaties with American Indian Nations, http://earlytreaties.unl.edu/

Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1784-1894, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwss-ilc.html

Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project, http://thorpe.ou.edu/

Native American Rights Fund site, http://www.narf.org/nill/triballaw/onlinedocs.htm—including Basic Indian Law Research Tips I and II, http://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/lawreviews/articles/coloradoLawyerArticle-fed.pdf and http://www.narf.org/nill/resources/guide2.pdf

Department of the Interior’s Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians, http://www.ost.doi.gov/

and

The Tribal Court Clearinghouse (for current legal issues), http://www.tribal-institute.org/

URL: http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2008/04/free-online-us-american-indian-legal.html

GREAT NEW BOOK FOR PATIENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Jari Holland Buck has turned personal tragedy into a positive for everyone. Her husband was taken to the hospital with acute pancreatitis. He wound up having crisis after crisis, including heart attacks and strokes, and was hospitalized for over seven months in four different hospitals. If Buck had not been at his side 24/7 and been his advocate, he probably wouldn’t have survived—but he did, though not in great shape.

Buck has written a book about their ordeal and it is wonderful! Hospital Stay Handbook: A Guide to Becoming a Patient Advocate for Your Loved Ones (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7387-1224-6, US$17.95) is just that—a guide. It starts with forewords from the primary physician, the patient, and the wife. Then she makes 14 recommendations: take care of yourself, choose your hospital with awareness, pick the days of your stay carefully, take legal steps to ensure the patient’s wishes are honored, read and use the patient advocacy statement, assume your loved one can hear everything so speak in the positive, educate yourself, ask about every medication, understand every procedure used or denied, keeps track of all supplies and services, arrange for 24/7 coverage, pray, surrender, and (again) take care of yourself. Each recommendation comes with checklists and/or appropriate forms to fill out. There are a few essays at the end for more depth and a list of resources (mostly on the Web) and an index.

There are two other wonderful things about this book: it mentions the hospital library at least twice as a great source of information (even if she does think every hospital has a library) and the extremely reasonable price of US$17.95.

If you have anyone in the hospital or think you might, you should read (and/or buy) this book. It will help you and your loved one survive.

URL: http://www.hospitalstayhandbook.com (a great site with additional resources)