PALLIATIVE CARE WEBSITE, AUSTRALIAN STYLE

"CareSearch is an online resource of palliative care information and evidence. All materials included in this website are reviewed for quality and relevance." It is sponsored by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing and in cooperation with Flinders University, Adelaide.

The site is divided into: what is palliative care? for patients and families, finding services, clinical practice, finding evidence, education, research resources, and professional groups. There are quick links for those working with indigenous populations and for general practitioners.

I'm not a medical librarian, so I can't judge the content, but it looks good and useful--even for those outside Australia.

URL: http://www.caresearch.com.au/

GREAT NEW SEARCH ENGINE--MIDDLESPOT

Middlespot is a really neat new search engine. You enter a term (or terms) and you get both a list of hits and a mosaic of screen shots. If you click on the screen shot it takes you to the cite/site (unintentional pun). That in itself is nice, but what I like is that I found links that I'd never seen before. I searched on my name (of course) and on "one person library" and "solo librarian" and was amazed at the results.

There are other nice features, such as being able to store individual results on your personal workpad and share that workpad with others. It is sponsored, but the ads are very inconspicuous. That makes Middlespot free, which we all like. There's a tutorial slide show to help you get started but you don't really need it. The only negative I could find is that there's a limit of 75 citations per search, but if you don't find something in the first 75 hits, you're probably not going to find it anyway.

URL: http://www.middlespot.com/

TOOLS FOR MENTORS AND MENTEES

The Central New York Library Resources Council (Syracuse, New York, USA) has put up a wonderful Mentoring Toolkit. Included is a definition of mentoring, common questions from mentors or mentees, a memo of understanding form between a mentor and a mentee, additional activities that mentors and mentees can do together, and a link to other resources from the Council. Thanks to CLRC and the Federal Institute of Museums and Library Services who provided the money to develop this resource.

URL: http://www.clrc.org/mentoring

CANADIAN CONSUMER HEALTH INFORMATION WIKI

The Toronto Public Library Consumer Health Information Service has put together a wiki “to help you find reliable, understandable health information for you and your family.” The site includes information on locating reliable health information, links to various resources, a browsable list of over 500 current information files held by the library, several health FAQs, and toll-free number for various Ontario health services and organizations. Some of the site is also available in French. Looks to be pretty useful.

URL: http://chis.wikidot.com/

FREE DOWNLOADABLE POSTERS

The State Library of Iowa has several downloadable posters with “fantastic photos and quotes [that] can be used by any library—no need to customize.” Most were developed with a grant by the Illinois State Library using funds provided by the federal Library Services and Technology Act.

Some of the ones available are Can't judge a book by its cover! (teen with orange hair) Who would have thought there's actually cool stuff here? (for teens) Books are good for young children...and not just for teething. (for preschoolers) For people who like to read the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (nonfiction) You mean it...we're really going to the Library? (toddler) Today's Library. Think More. Summertime...and the reading is easy (for adults) He is Into Needlepoint (tattooed man) Tutor doesn't have to be a scary word Young Latino man (in Spanish) Family Destination (in Spanish) Hot days. Cool books. Great prizes. Young girl in star-shaped sunglasses. We think your question deserves more than, "Uh, I think that might be, like in aisle four?" (to highlight helpful staff) It's okay if you don't know what URL stands for. Really. My Library is the Greatest Because... (download and print, let customers write their comments on why they value their libraries, great information for annual reports, budget presentations, etc.)

URL: http://www.statelibraryofiowa.org/ld/tell-library-story/Props/posters

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)

WHAT SKILLS AND QUALITIES ARE EMPLOYERS SEEKING?

Verity Orme [Oxford University, England] researched job ads to see which skills and personal traits employers of librarians in the UK wanted. Number one was professional experience (by a wide margin). Next were interpersonal and communication skills and general computing skills. Much farther down the list were enthusiasm, ability to work in teams, people skills, flexibility, and customer service skills. I am unpleasantly surprised that customer service skills was not more valued; it is conceivable that this was assumed and not mentioned in the job posting, but I doubt it.
You can read the entire article in Library and Information Update (CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) 7(3):30-33, March 2008.

a WONDERFUL MEDICAL WIKI !!

I just discovered WikiDoc. It is a wiki run by and for medical professionals--and patients. As usual, I searched for my 2 major health issues (peripheral neuropathy and spinal stenosis). I found very good and accurate information on both, mostly understandable to the reasonably medicalese-fluent layperson. But the best feature was the link to other websites. I clicked on to excellent resources on both conditions--that I had never seen before. One was even peer-reviewed.

You can search or look at content by disease, differential diagnosis, signs and symptoms, lab tests, and drug. There is also the WikiDoc Medical School Curriculum, which has very complete lessons on everything from anatomy to public health. The home page has news stories and links to the WikiDoc Community ("It's the FaceBook/MySpace of Healthcare" where you can share video, images, blogs, and participate in forums. Another neat feature is "What Was My Doctor Talking About?" where you can watch "world experts explain procedures and treatments in language that you can understand." You can even put WikiDoc on your iPod. "There is no industry support for this site."

The site is available in English, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Japanese and Turkish. It is the brainchild of Jacki Buros and C. Michael Gibson MD, but anyone can edit pages. If they approve you, you can become the editor of a page. As of today, there were 64,817 textbook chapters and news articles and far more pages.

I highly recommend this site.

URL: http://www.wikidoc.org/

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING LATELY

Like most of you (I hope), I still get some of my library news from print sources. Here’s some of what I’ve read lately.

Rise and Shine, by Tracey Caldwell, gives an European view of the changes in medical information. Here are some excerpts:
"Dan Penny, analyst at Outsell, identifies a number of issues that will affect the role of the health information professional. ‘The emphasis of the role will change from being purely a curator [!!!!??] to sitting on cross-disciplinary teams working with IT and medical practitioners to establish what is the best value-added product,’ he says.” [In a sidebar…] “Up and Coming in Health Information: Health information professionals and analysts tip the following trends: involvement in cross-disciplinary work and more tailored training; standardizing data input and semantic interoperability in health information systems; librarians’ taking on knowledge management; workflow is a concern of information professionals, not just content service providers; library space usage changing to reflect new roles and priorities; convergence of technologies and content in ways is likely to be reflected by supplier tie-ups; consortial purchasing of health information.” They also list technology trends not yet in the mainstream, including electronic patient records, blogs and wikis (facing reliability and trust issues), PDAs, e-books, and digital imaging management. Caldwell ends the article with, “…it is up to the health information professionals to get in at the beginning to build new models if they are to secure their future.”
Read the entire article in Information World Review (224):12-14, March 2008.

Tales of Technology Innovation Gone Wrong, by Mary Mallery.
It is very unusual for anyone to write about what didn’t work, but Mallery has put together a list of failures that we can learn from. She even says, “technology is not the best solution for every problem in a library”—what a concept! There are good sidebars on issues to consider before and after innovating. Well worth a read.
Computers in Libraries 28(4):22-25, April 2008

In the same issue, columnist Marshall Breeding has a good article, Content, Community, and Visibility: A Winning Combination, on operating “in a dual existence, divided between in-person and online services. Excerpts: “Content is a natural area of excellence for libraries. It’s what we do.” But that’s not enough. On community, “it’s no longer only about serving up pages of static content but also about engagement, community and participation.” “It’s not that I necessarily expect the library Web presence to ever displace social networking hotspots such as Facebook of LinkedIn, but we do need to ratchet up our social engagement a notch or two….” He also writes about the importance of location, findability and measurable performance.
Computers in Libraries 28(4):26-28, April 2008

You should also read the column by Terence Huwe on “understanding fun and its crucial role is an important skill for digital librarians.” (pp. 33-35), Janet Balas’s list of resources on social networks and the library community (p. 40), and the tech tips for every librarian column on Optimizing In-House Internet Experiences (pp. 46-47). And don’t miss one ad (sponsored content): Robert Berkman’s Twenty Years of Changes in Information, Online Technology, and Research. Berkman is the editor of The Information Advisor and the two-page article (pp. 44-45) covers 1988-2013—that’s 25 years, but who’s counting.

Thanks to Information Today, Inc., publishers of The New OPL Sourcebook, for free subscriptions to these journals—but this does not influence my reviews—I read a lot of other not-free journals, too.

THE AUTHORITY OF THE LIBRARIAN

Did you love the Unshelved strip for Tuesday, 18 March as much as I did? It speaks to the authority (or perceived authority) of librarians, but read it for yourself.

URL: http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20080318

The 15 March issue (v. 133, no. 5) of Library Journal also has a bunch of articles, etc. on the same subject. Get an issue and read them!

Memphis PL Led by Nonlibrarian (p. 18) -- it was all political, but this is a very disturbing trend, first in academic and special libraries and now in public ones.

The Borders Concept, editorial by Francine Fialkoff. "Bookstores modeled on the library--minus the public service ethos." (Did you read that Borders and Barnes and Noble are both in financial difficulties--welcome to the club!) (p. 8)

What's Your Role? Nextgen column by Cari Dubiel (p. 48). "Will the changes you're considering truly enhance your service?"

and a feature article by Debra J. Stone, After Oil (pp. 28-31). "Public libraries will have an important role to play in our new post-peak-oil society. The aftermath of this 'long emergency' must be understood by those in positions to help society adjust to new ways of doing everyday things."

FANTASTIC PUBLICITY PIECE!

I saw this one in Library Journal (15 March 2008).

"The find engine. Stop Searching--Start Finding."

Comment from LJ contributor Roy Tennant: "Only librarians like to search. Everyone else likes to find." (emphasis mine)

The slogan is from the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Public Library (Cleveland area, but not including the city of Cleveland).

Note: CCPL once used a slogan similar to the one I used at my last place of work. Mine read"The Bailey Library...more than you thought!" and theirs was "The CCPL...more than you think!"

GREAT NEW PATIENT NETWORKING SITE

“Patients Helping Patients Live Better Every Day” is the motto of a new website called PatientsLikeMe. The site provides information and networking for patients with “life-changing diseases.” Diseases included so far are ALS, MS (multiple sclerosis), HIV, Parkinson’s, and Mood Disorders (depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar, or anxiety). You create a profile of your condition, your mood (today), your medicines and dosages (!), a history of your symptoms, and your weight. Not only can you connect with others who have similar conditions or are on similar medications, but you can track your condition over time. You can even print out a sheet to take to your doctor.
It was founded by three engineers from MIT who were inspired by a young friend with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). How do they make money? By selling “anonymized” data and permission-based access to healthcare providers. (They tell you which information they share and which they don’t.)
I really like this site and see great things for it once there are more people on it.

URL: http://www.patientslikeme.com

GOOGLE BLOGGER HAS HOW-TO VIDEOS

Google Blogger now has three how-to videos. They are on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/BloggerHelp. The best is on how to set up your own blog. There's also one on purchasing and setting up a custom domain through Blogger and one on adjusting your Blogger privacy setting, with more to come. Each is about 2 minutes.
What a great idea!

TURN TEXT INTO VOICE

ReadTheWords is a free online service that will read any text you enter aloud. You can upload documents in the following formats: Word, Adobe PDF, HTML, text, website address, RSS feed. There are 15 different voices you can choose, and they can handle English, Spanish and French. They even pronounced my name properly (Siess=cease), but goofed on SLA (they said “slaw”). Supposedly it takes less than a minute to generate one hour’s reading. You can listen online, download an mp3 file, embed it in a website or blog, or turn it into a podcast. Unfortunately, there are no navigation keys for the visually impaired, but it’s very impressive.

You have to register, but it’s free.

Thanks to Stan Schroeder of mashable.com for highlighting this service.

URLs:
http://readthewords.com
Schroeder’s review: http://mashable.com/2008/03/18/readthewords-read-text-aloud/

IF YOU TRAVEL, READ THIS

If you travel a lot--or even just occasionally--you should read this blog. Evolution of Security "is sponsored by the Transportation Security Administration to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process."

Recent hot topics have included: shoes; liquids; inconsistencies (!)' lighters, nail clippers and lithium batteries, and gripes and grins. The most recent post is a video on how they screen baggage. Very informative.

URL: http://www.tsa.gov/blog/

(I may have already posted this, I forget sometimes, but it is worth repeating.)

INSIDER TIPS FOR GETTING AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED

If you would like to get an article published, Kathy Dempsey has published an article to help you. It is in the March-April 2008 (v. 22 no. 2) issue of MLS: Marketing Library Services. Unfortunately, it is not available online, but you can probably get a copy via interlibrary loan. It is well worth reading.

FIND A DOCTOR

There's a new site to help you find a doctor--and it works well. Xoova (zu-vah) lets you search by location and or specialty or services provided. For some physicians you can even make an appointments. And it's free for everyone (ad-supported). I checked for my own physician and for ones in the city we are moving to and found what I needed. Good stuff.

URL: http://www.zoova.com/

ACTUAL ROI FOR A PUBLIC LIBRARY

In a response to a rant for closing the Gainesville Florida libraries, a citizen calculated his (or her) actual return on investment.
Annual cost from my property taxes for the library: $70
Annual cost of magazines I’m able to read from the library: $312
Annual rental cost of videos I’m able to borrow from the library: $208
Annual cost of books I’m able to borrow from the library: $1440
Annual cost of audiobooks I’m able to download from the library website: $2600
Total annual savings so far: $4490
[ROI: 64:1]
Having a Librarian locate a research study my husband was able to join which saved his life? Priceless

URL: http://www.gainesvillesun.com/article/20080303/OPINION03/803030303, comment from “registrationsucks”

AN ALMOST PERFECT LIBRARY WEB PAGE

The only reason I wrote "almost" in the headline is that nothing is really perfect. But this hospital web page comes as close as I've seen.

The page is for the Consumer Health Library at Saint John Hospital, Leavenworth, Kansas. It starts, "If you've just received a diagnosis,want to learn more about an existing condition or treatment or just have general questions about a health issue, the Providence Saint John Consumer Health Library has resources for you." A concise statement about what the library is.

The next paragraph quickly tells who may use the library (patients, visitors, physicians and employees), the cost (free), hours (five days a week), and what resources they have (via the Internet, medical reference books, journals and health literature).

Next up is "How We Can Help" which continues with specifics on library holdings and services ("Come to the library if you want...") and specific topics ("You'll find brochures and specific information on...")

It ends with "Recommended Web Sites for General Health Information." There's even a Spanish version.

But what really caught my eye was the sidebar. Under a photo of a smiling librarian in a purple outfit is "Going the Distance" a profile of medical librarian Sarah Kirby. It reads, in part, [Kirby] "goes to great lengths to make sure library visitors get not only the information they want, but get to the services they need." It goes on to give two examples and ends with "And even those who wander in by accident often find a willing escort to where they want to go."

What more could one possibly want? Congratulations to the Saint John staff and Kirby for a superb web page!

URL: http://www.providence-health.org/sjlkscms/health/consumer_health.htm

NEAT MEDICAL DATABASE

I just ran across SearchMedia, a site that has as its goals to "answer your clinical question, offer additional medically-relevant information and satisfy your curiosity." It searches over 1000 websites but is free to the user (ad-supported). It is a product of CMPMedica, a publisher.
Searching can be limited by type of information: research reviews, practical articles or news, CME, evidence-based articles, patient education, complementary medicine, practice guidelines, clinical trials, or practice management. They even suggest broader and narrower search terms. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the results.
e
URL: http://www.searchmedica.com/

A MUST-READ FOR TRAVELERS

International Travel News is a fantastic resource for information on travel outside of the USA/Canada/Mexico area. Each issue is over 100 pages—on newsprint to save money—on all kinds of travel, from backpacking to luxury. You’ll find reviews of tours (with detailed info), travel reports on exotic places, medical information, and warnings about what to expect in other countries, at the border, and more. They’ve been publishing every month for over 30 years! What’s even more impressive is the cost—only $24 in the USA! (Prices vary elsewhere.)

I have learned so much from this publication. If you travel, or if your customers do (and whose don’t) you should subscribe to ITN or at least let your customers know about their website (which has a lot of the print content available.)

URL: http://www.intltravelnews.com/

TWO GOOD SITES FOR INFORMATION ON PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

I was reminded of these when reading an article in, of all place, International Travel News. The first is RxList, ”the Internet Drug Index for prescription drugs and medication.” In addition to having very complete drug information, with separate “for the consumer” and “for the professional” writeups, the site has a pill identification tool, drug medical dictionary, and a good section on diseases and conditions. The last links to RxList’s parent organization, WebMD. It is easy to use and very complete.
The other site is The Merck Manual Medical Library, the consumer-oriented version of the famous print manual. Entries are in alphabetical order and there are photos, and AV material not in the print version. It is easily searchable, but not as complete as RxList.

URLs:
RxList: http://www.rxlist.com/
Merck (portal): http://www.merck.com/nmhe/

FREE ACCESS TO LEGAL INFORMATION IN NEW ZEALAND

The New Zealand Legal Information Institute announced that New Zealand acts are now available as searchable PDF documents with hyperlinks from cases to legislation. Another 20 databases on NZLII cover nearly all NZ courts, treaties, law reform reports, and four law journals. Nice to have this all in one place.

URL: http://www.nzlii.org/

SLIDE SHOW & COMMENTARY ON PUBLIC LIBRARY ARCHITECTURE

Borrowed Time: How do you build a library in the Google Era is a neat slide show, with printed commentary, on the message our large public libraries send to our users. It's worth a look even if you don't work in a PL. From Wired.

URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2184927

WHAT A COMBINATION--FOOD AND BOOKS!

Cooked Books is a neat blog from the New York Public Library on "all things culinary." For example, there is George Washington's beer recipe (found in one of his notebooks from the Manuscripts Division). I can't imagine it being too helpful for reference, but it sure is fun to read.

URL: http://cookedbooks.blogspot.com

NEW OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL: MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW

If you work in a museum, you have to check out this new e-journal. Museum Anthropology Review "is an open access journal whose purpose is the wide dissemination of articles, reviews, essays, obituaries, and other content advancing the field of material culture and museum studies, broadly conceived."
There are two issues available so far. The latest includes review essays on two exhibitions and "collecting the 'other,'" a couple of reviews of digital exhibits, a review of a DVD, several reviews of exhibitions and a lot of book reviews. I'd like to see more articles, but it's a good start. You can browse by author, issue, or article title and download either in html or pdf format.
This is a really nice use of modern media. I like it.

URL:http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/index

WOMEN'S HEALTH MATTERS!!

There is a wonderful new resource available to find information on women's health. Since it is from the New Women's College Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, it has a Canadian focus, but many of the sites are good for anywhere. Its brand new product is a toolkit "to assist the many women who have asked us for help in navigating the often confusing maze of health information on the Web." Titled Women Wading Through the Web, it can be downloaded for free. The Toolkit has chapters on "How to use the Internet to search for health information," "How to judge the quality of a website," "how to interpret medical research," and "how to understand media and web-based health information." There are also many links to recommended resources.

Also on the site are feature articles, quick links, discussion groups, answer center, and more.

URLs:
Toolkit: http://www.womenshealthmatters.ca/toolkit/
general site: http://www.womenshealthmatters.ca/

SUPER ISSUE OF INFORMATION OUTLOOK!

If you're a member of the Special Libraries Association, you've already received the February issue of Information Outlook. If you're not a member, you may want to beg, borrow, or "steal" one. Why? There a lot of good stuff in this issue.

Young Librarian, On the Job: a profile of an OPL at the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Proactive Marketing; Connecting with the Corporate Client --highly recommended
Is There Such a Thing as Information Overload? by Pres. Stephen Abram
Know Thyself and Thy Library So You Can Offer Top Service by good guy John Latham

You may be able to access these articles at http://www.sla.org/io/

MICRO-BLOGGING (AKA TWITTERING)

Joe Murphy [Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA] has written a neat article called Better Practices From the Field: Micro-Blogging for Science & Technology Libraries. It was first published in Science & Technology Libraries 28 but is available on eprints.

Here's a bit of it:
"Micro-blogs are social networks for broadcasting news with a very short character limit in the vein of text messaging. These tools are great for library announcements, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. We can post news such as special events.... Think outside the box by posting news from your parent institution or your library's constituencies."

This sounds like a really neat idea.

URL: http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00012752/

OBSOLETE SKILLS

I ran across a really interesting site. It is a wiki called Obsolete Skills and lists 12 skills that used to be necessary but are no longer, according to Robert Scoble. I imagine you can add more if you wish.
The ones there now include:

• dialing a rotary phone
• using a slide rule
• refilling a fountain pen

I'm not too sure all are really obsolete (some people still use fountain pens), but they are certainly less needed. There's also a link to new skills, too.

Very interesting.

URL: http://www.obsoleteskills.com and http://obsoleteskills.wikispot.org

I'M LOOKING FOR REPORTERS FOR SLA CONFERENCE IN SEATTLE

Strange as it may seem, it's time to think about the June SLA Conference in Seattle. The preliminary program is out and, as usual, I am looking for people to report on sessions for The One-Person Library newsletter. I pay US$25 per session for 2-3 paragraphs on the session and its relevance for solos.
I assign reporters first come, first served, so volunteer now. (I will, of course, repeat this post again until I get all the sessions covered.)

Here are the sessions for which I need reporters.
Sunday, 15 June
5:00-7:00 pm
Opening general session, Dr. Vint Cerf

Monday, 16 June
7:00-8:30 am
Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget: Effective CI for the Small Guy
Selling Yourself and our Skills
9:00-10:30 am
Leadership: Building on Your Natural Abilities and Strengths
Working Globally
1:30-3:00 pm
The Next Information Revolution and Our Role as Revolutionaries
3:30-5:30 pm
Embedded Librarianship: Background and Overview

Tuesday, 17 June
7:00-8:30 am
Building Bridges, Creating Partnerships
9:00-11:00 am
All I Really Need to Know I Learned…in Library School?
The New Face of the Special Librarian: Lessons from Solos
11:00 am-12:30 pm
If Knew Then What I Know Now: Tales from the Dark Side
3:15-4:45 pm
Educating the Next Generation of Knowledge Managers: How Library Schools, I-Schools, and the Profession are Meeting the Challenge
Keeping Found Things Found

Wednesday, 18 June
8:00-9:30 am
Transformational Roles: Breaking Rules

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY’S RETURN ON INVESTMENT NUMBERS

The Friends of the SF Public Library released a study showing that the library returns $3.34 for every $1.00 spent. The study was conducted by Berk and Associates. This relatively modest ROI is quite credible. For more information, see the press release.

URL: http://www.friendsandfoundation.org/press_release.cfm?id=41

IDEAS FOR BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE

These ideas are some of the ideas from Andy Sernovitz [GasPedal, Chicago, Illinois, USA] and his blog, Damn! I Wish I’d Thought of That! Via Nancy Dowd at The “M” Word: Marketing Libraries.
1. When you open up to customer participation, your brand belongs to your customers, not you.
3. Turn the bullhorn around. Stop talking. Give the community a chance to speak.
4. There is no such thing as a "community strategy". The community will do what it wants. Go with it.
5. Join conversations early. Negative gets worse if you don't respond. Positive grows when you do.
6. Why pay for product photos? Encourage your community to share their product photos. They may even blog about the fact that you chose their photos.
7. Sounding "professional" does not require you to sound like an ass. You don't need formal language or big words. Talk like a human being. Talk to people online like you talk to your friends.
8. The great thing about communities is that you can hear from everyone. The bad thing about communities is that you can hear from everyone.
9. It's ok to moderate and set rules of civil discourse. You can politely refuse to engage with ranters who don't want to have a civil conversation.
10. Your community will support you if you enable them. When a critic gets vocal, let your fans reply instead of you.
11. Listen to experts but design for novices "

URLs:
The “M” Word: http://themwordblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/ideas-from-customer-service-is-new.html
Andy Sernovitz’ blog: http://www.damniwish.com/

WHERE SHOULD YOU PUBLISH? (MEDICAL FIELDS ONLY)

Jane (Journal/Author Name Estimator) will help you find a journal that may be suitable to publish your latest article. It can also help an editor find reviewers for a paper. Jane compares your article title or abstract to millions of documents in MEDLINE to find the best match. You can see a list of similarly titled articles, too—someone may already have written “your” paper. Jane is a product the Biosemantics Group, a collaboration between the Medical Informatics department of the ErasmusMC Univiersity Medical Center of Rotterdam and the Center for Human and Clinical Genetics of the Leiden University Medical Center.

URL: http://biosemantics.org/jane/

SECOND LIFE HEALTH INFORMATION

The following links go to various sources in Second Life or organizations active in SL.

SLHealthy Wiki, http://slhealthy.wetpaint.com/page/More+Web+Resources+of+SL+Health+Information?t=anon
HealthInfo Island Blog, http://healthinfoisland.blogspot.com
Second Life: Lists, http://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/healthcare

CHAT WITH A GOVERNMENT LIBRARIAN

Have a difficult question about US government information? Now you can chat with a government information librarian from any of nearly twenty institutions. The project is organized through the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The hours are 8 am to 6 pm, Central time, Monday-Thursday and 8 am to 5 pm on Friday. You can also ask questions or for advice by email anytime.

URL: http://131.193.153.128/

TWO NEW RESOURCES FOR LAW LIBRARIANS

The Public Library of Law is a free site that includes “all the available online caselaw, statutes, regulations, court rules and constitutions from the federal and state governments.” Acesss to the following is through FastCase’s “intuitive interface that woks like popular Web search engines” (read, Google©). The site is updated daily

“All” of the free legal resources that exist on the Internet

An additional 10 years of case law from all 50 states

U.S. Reports: Vol. 1-546, inclusive (1757 to present)

F.2d Vol. 178-999, inclusive (1950 to 1995)

F.3d Vol. 1-491, inclusive (1995 to present)

State cases from 1997 to present

Statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions of (federal and all 50 states)

Commonly used legal forms

URL: http://www.plol.org/Pages/Search.aspx

The Law Library of Congress now offers RSS feeds, consisting of headline, brief summary, and a link back to the website for more information. You can sign up for each of the 4 available feeds or receive the updates by mail.

that leads back to the Library's Web site for more information. You can also keep up with the LLOC by signing up for an email newsletter at http://service.govdelivery.com/service/multi_subscribe.html?code=USLOC&origin=http://www.loc.gov (free registration required)

Law Library News and Events: http://www.loc.gov/rss/law/news.xml
Legal Research Reports: http://www.loc.gov/rss/law/reports.xml
Law Library Webcasts: http://www.loc.gov/rss/law/webcasts.xml
Global Legal Monitor: http://www.loc.gov/rss/law/globalmonitor.xml

KEEP UP WITH THE TSA

Evolution of Security: Terrorists Evolve. Threats Evolve. Security Must Stay Ahead. You Play A Part is sponsored by the Transportation Security Administration to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process. If you travel a lot or have clients that do, you should monitor this blog. And you can even express your concerns or ask questions (but there’s no guarantee they’ll listen).

URL: http://www.tsa.gov/blog

GREAT NEW BLOG—THE FRONT DESK SPEAKS

The Front Desk Speaks is written by the Desketeers, the staff of the Darien (Connecticut, United States) Library.

Here is a recent post:

What passes for extraordinary out in the world is just ordinary for us.

Sometimes I lose sight of how wonderful the people I work with are and it takes a patron comment or the observation of an interaction to remind me of that very fact.

Last month a patron told Desketeer Alison that they felt we were the “Jet Blue of Libraries” for our willingness to go above and beyond for our patrons. How nice is that?

So I end the week with a salute to my wonderful co-workers: To the Desketeers in all their fabulous Desketeer Diva-ness, to the Ref-Cadets who take on any and all questions (you would not believe the stuff they get asked!), to the Children’s Room Scouts who I swear must be deaf at the end of the day from all the activity that takes place in their room, to the Techies who if a computer can do, they will find a way to make it work for you, Shelvers who have the most thankless yet important job in the joint and to Admin-ministers who toil behind the scenes and do all the stuff that makes us able to open our doors every morning. Yeah us! We rock!

So next time you walk through the doors, check us out. You will be amazed at what we do.

URL: http://www.darienlibrary.org/frontdesk/blog/archives/2008/02/
what_passes_for_extraordinary.html

HOW MUCH IS YOUR LIBRARY WORTH TO YOU?

Here are the URLs for two versions of a calculator of the library value to an individual. They are designed for public libraries, but you certainly could develop one for any other kind of library.

URL: State Library of Florida, United States, http://www.levy.lib.fl.us/rooms/documents/
worth.htm

Rockingham Community College, Wentworth, North Carolina, United States, http://www.rockinghamcc.edu/MR/
Library_Use_Value_Calculator.htm




Thanks to by Michael Stephens [Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois, United States] for posting this on his blog, Tame the Web (http://tametheweb.com/2008/02/05/how-much-is-your-library-worth-to-you/)

TA TA FOR NOW

I'm off to the hospital tomorrow for back surgery. I hope to be up and blogging again in a couple of weeks.

Judy

TWO GREAT ARTICLES IN ONLINE

I want to call your attention to two articles in the January/February 2008 issue of Online (v. 32, no. 1). The first is When Internet is InterNOT (pp.32-36), by Arno H.P. Reuser [Ministry of Defence, the Netherlands]. Reuser writes that the Internet is NOT: international, easy, just like Google, large, objective, or anonymous. This is a good article to send to your boss (and his or her boss, too).

The second article is Put the “Service” in Self-Service (pp.55-57) by Darlene Fichter [University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada] and Jeff Wisniewski [University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States]. “To improve online customer service, be willing to do two things: Act quickly and fail.” They really “get it.” Unfortunately, neither is available for free online.

FIND ACADEMIC PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH BLOGS

Research Blogging “allows readers to easily find blog posts about serious peer-reviewed research, instead of just news reports and press releases.” Fields covered are: anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, clinical research, computer science, environmental, economics, engineering, mathematics, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, sociology, and research/scholarship. The blog is “a community-run non-profit organization…created by bloggers for bloggers.” Interesting.

URL: http://www.researchblogging.org/

THREE SITES FOR LAW LIBRARIANS

MASSACHUSETTS PUBLIC LAW LIBRARIES
Information for and about seventeen public law libraries in Massachusetts, including laws, regulation, and cases; subject guides; laws by popular name; full-text law journal articles; find-a-lawyer; ask-a-librarian; and podcasts. Good stuff.
URL: http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/

SCOTUSWIKI
If you are interested in the US Supreme Court, you should know about this site and its companion site, SCOTUSblog.com. The wiki will have a complete archive of Petitions to Watch since 2006, Supreme Court statistics, a case index, with more to come.

URLs:
Wiki: http://www.scotus.wiki.com/
Blog: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/

Congressional Documents Online
There are over 7000 full-text documents online totally over 1.5 million pages. From Rutgers University School of Law.

URL: http://lawlibrary.rutgers.edu/gdoc/search.shtml

KNOW THE RULES—OF THUMB, THAT IS

This is a fascinating site. It has “every rule of thumb on earth in one place!” Some of the 151 categories are: advertising, automobiles, business, children, entertaining, farming, gambling, language, management, movies, relationships, restaurants, sports, weather, and writing. For example: “If you don’t want a cat to jump into your lap, don’t make eye contact with it.”

URL: http://rulesofthumb.org/

HOW DO YOU MAINTAIN YOUR PUBLIC COMPUTERS?

The MaintainIT Project, from TechSoup and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has tips and techniques for dealing with technology. There are free “cookbooks” to download. The first two are A Cookbook for Small and Rural Libraries and Recipes for a 5-star Library. Also available are reports from individual public libraries on their experiences with IT.

URL: http://maintainitproject.org/

DON’T TAKE YOUR ORGANS TO HEAVEN, WE NEED THEM HERE

OrganDonor.gov is the official US government website on organ and tissue donation and transplantation. (At the end of January 2008, there were over 98,000 people on the waiting list. In the first ten months of 2007, there were 23,706 transplants made and 12,031 donors.) There’s information here on how to become a donor, how to get on the transplant list, and health suggestions. From the Department of Health & Human Services.

URL: http://organdonor.gov

GO FOR THE GREEN

Greener Buildings has news and resources on architecture and design, building materials, energy use, facility management, interiors, waste management, and water use to promote more environmentally responsible construction. Each topic contains the following five elements: background articles, links to relevant organizations, tools and resources such as audits or handbooks, case studies, and recent news stories.It is a product of Greener World Media Inc., which also produces GreenBiz, ClimateBiz, and other sites. They offer a free e-mail newsletter as well. It is sponsored by various construction-related companies.

URLs:
Greener Buildings: http://www.greenerbuildings.com
GreenBiz: http://www.greenbiz.com/
ClimateBiz: http://www.climatebiz.com/

ALL ASIAN-AMERICAN NEWS, ALL THE TIME

Asian Week is a website with “everything” you need to know about Asian-Americans. It’s produced in Sacramento, California and has a section on (San Francisco) Bay area activities. There are news items, advertising, and columns such as The Small Business Advocate, Capitol Watch, and Voices from the Community. Good coverage of a growing segment of the US population.

URL: http://asianweek.com/

WHAT’S IN THAT CLEANSER?

The Household Products Database will tell you exactly what’s in auto products (like brake fluid, de-icer), pesticides, personal care items (antiperspirant, shampoo) arts and crafts (glue, varnish), home office (ink, toner, pens), home items (air freshener, bleach), yard (fertilizer), home maintenance (paint, grout), or pet care items (litter, flea & tick control). You can search by product or ingredient and records include links to similar products and complete MSDS data. I’m not too sure what you get from this database that’s not on product labels, but if you need more information, here it is. It’s from the US National Library of Medicine, so you can rely on its quality.

URL: http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/products.htm