http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/biomedical_db_moves.html
PubMed Extends Its Reach
Biomedical Database Moves Back in Time to 1947
Harry Truman was President, gas cost 15 cents a gallon, the transistor was invented, and internationally renowned surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey was publishing articles on the US Army's World War II experience with battle injuries, military surgery, and the use of streptomycin therapy. Citations to these and more than 60,000 other articles indexed in the 1947 Current List of Medical Literature (CLML) are now available in the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE/PubMed database (www.pubmed.gov).
When the original MEDLINE database made its debut in 1971, it contained citations to journal articles mostly published from approximately 1966 forward. NLM began to expand the retrospective coverage of the database in 1996, when more than 307,000 citations originally published in the 1964 and 1965 Cumulated Index Medicus were made available as OLDMEDLINE. The Library has been moving steadily backward in time ever since.
Although 1947 may seem far back in the rear view mirror of history, important articles in biomedicine appeared that year and may hold vital lessons for research in the 21st century. "Some contemporary medical questions can only be answered by consulting the older literature," observed NLM Director Dr. Donald A.B. Lindberg. "NLM is working to make the journal citations in older printed indexes electronically searchable, and our goal is to go back at least as far as World War II."
With the addition of the 1947 citations, the MEDLINE/PubMed subset now contains over 20 million citations produced during 63 years of indexing of the biomedical literature.
For additional information about the data conversion project, go to: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/databases_oldmedline.html.
]]>Saturday, January 23, 2010, 8:30 AM - 2:00 PM
Ypsilanti High School, 2095 Packard Road
Free community event - Everyone welcome! Freebies! Breakfast/Lunch served, too!
This day is focused on educating the community – women and men of all ages – about various aspects of women's health. Attend various workshops led by U of M health professionals who are experts in their respective fields. The keynote speaker will be Florine Mark, President and Chairwoman of the Board of Weight Watchers Group, Inc.
For more information, please email whfd.2010@gmail.com
]]>Free Our Libraries, Cry University Presidents
Presidents of major universities want more library materials distributed online, without prohibitive charges.
At the Universal Access Digital Library Summit, held on September 24 and 25 at the Boston Public Library, Mark Huddleston, president of the University of New Hampshire, Peter Nicholls, provost of the University of Connecticut, and Jack Wilson, president of the University of Massachusetts, called for new approaches to the digitization of library collections that will allow access for all. The presidents urged libraries to halt what they described as an assault on the public’s right to knowledge, done in the name of copyright.
The meeting, which was convened by the Boston Library Consortium, also included the presentations of “Free Our Libraries! Why We Need a New Approach to Putting Library Collections Online,� a white paper by Richard K. Johnson, senior advisor to the Association of Research Libraries. In the paper, Mr. Johnson argues that libraries need to come up with new financing strategies, coordinate their actions, and adopt “forward-looking� principles to guide book and journal digitization projects.
]]>Here is a guest post from Amy Fry, a San Diego-based librarian with whom I’ve done some research on aggregated databases. She was struck by the way a sloppy mistake in handling information led to a plunge in a company’s stock prices - and what the implications might be for information literacy. If you’re low on energy and thinking a cup of strong coffee might wake you up - hang on; this post might just do the trick.
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On September 8, a reporter for Income Securities Advisors, using Google, found a 2002 article from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel about United Airlines’ bankruptcy. The article was undated in the paper’s archive, but used a site header displaying the current date, so the Google News crawler, indexing the site Saturday night, applied the date of September 6, 2008 to the story. Mistakenly identifying the article as current, the reporter summarized it and sent it to her editor, who posted it to the ISA wire service. Aggregated by Bloomberg (though independent from Bloomberg News), the headline was seen by Wall Street traders, and even though the company caught the mistake and removed the headline within 13 minutes (and Bloomberg itself posted a correction), a trading frenzy had already caught hold causing United to lost 75% of its stock value in under an hour.
This story contains a powerful lesson about information literacy.
One: Proper metadata is important.
Metadata experts have been trying for years to promote universal standards for describing and applying information about content objects, online and elsewhere, and this is why. Why was this article undated when other articles from the same news archive were dated, and how can a header date be mistaken for the date of unaffiliated content? The answer is: improper application and use of metadata. One reason we teach students to use library resources is that we believe that properly indexed information, with standard subject headings and descriptive metadata that is uniformly formatted and properly mapped, aids the user in finding and evaluating information. As this story shows, such indexing can also help information seekers avoid costly mistakes. The problem of universal metadata standards is complicated, but our hard work as information scientists is not wasted in solving it.
Two: There is no substitute for critical thinking about sources.
The reporter, and her editor, did not think critically about where her information was coming from and why it might require a second glance. Even if she didn’t have the background to already know that United had declared and emerged from bankruptcy within the last 10 years, proper critical thinking about sources should have caused her to ask why this story was being fed to her first through Google News from a south Florida Tribune-affiliate instead of the Wall Street Journal or another primary information source of financial news. We teach students to examine a variety of points to determine the authority of an information source, like an identifiable author, author affiliation, publisher and publisher affiliation, traceable references, and external peer review. All of these can help them ascertain if sources they find are reliable, even if they do not have extensive prior exposure to the subject of their research question. This story proves that there are no shortcuts to determining the authority of sources, and no substitute for critical thinking.
Three: Sometimes aggregators are misleading.
Aggregators play a valuable, but complicated, role in information provision. Bloomberg not only provides information to its subscribers – it also aggregates information from other services and packages this information with its own. Operating under the “more is more� and “bigger is better� philosophy has become commonplace in the world of information aggregation, and librarians tend to agree (see Fister, Gilbert and Fry in the July 2008 issue of portal). But, as this story shows, it comes with certain pitfalls. Aggregators have neither the means nor the desire to vet every item of information they provide in their products, but the distinction between their role as aggregator and their role as authoritative information provider is blurred. Often their own status lends authority to the information they package – touted as unintended when that information proves to be faulty. As this story demonstrates, more oversight of aggregators and by aggregators, and a demand of quality over quantity, should be a priority for librarians, especially in this age of information overload.
Four: Google is more powerful than we even realized.
If any one of you has been underestimating the role of Google in the information food chain, STOP. Google has enormous power to direct culture through the control of information. While the company sticks to its mantra of “Don’t Be Evil,� this story proves that high-stakes real-world results can be achieved in moments through Google without Google’s knowledge or intervention and even without intentional sabotage. Google has changed the way we find, use and even produce information – but with great power comes even greater responsibility. Librarians have raised important points about the ethical dimensions of private information ownership in conjunction with the Google Books digitization project. We have warned students to be careful when using Google as a research tool. A private company is not required to act in the public interest. Academic librarians, as educators, are. As more and more information is accessed through and archived by private companies (for example, despite its content, EEBO is still a proprietary resource), librarians must take on greater responsibilities as watchdogs for the public interest. Even if our roles are changing, our mission must not.
Posted by Barbara Fister on September 11th, 2008 under Information Ethics, Information Literacy.
Comments: 1
Comments
Comment from Marc
Time: September 12, 2008, 7:49 am
Good example to use in class as an example of the importance of paying attention to dates. I think the WaPost article describes it right–imperfect search technology combined with human failure.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Scholars' View of Libraries as Portals Shows Marked Decline
By JENNIFER HOWARD
Scholars' View of Libraries as Portals Shows Marked Decline
Know your library user—and worry about who's not using the library. That's the main advice to librarians in a new white paper that notes "a growing ambivalence about the campus library" among faculty members as more and more knowledge goes digital.
The report was released last week by Ithaka, a nonprofit organization that promotes the use of technology in higher education. The paper probes the relationship between libraries and the faculty at institutions of all sizes, and how the digital shift is altering that relationship.
The authors, Roger Schonfeld and Ross Housewright, pulled together the highlights from two surveys conducted in 2006: one of American faculty members and another of librarians in charge of collection development. Mr. Schonfeld is Ithaka's manager of research; Mr. Housewright is a research analyst. Ithaka conducted similar faculty surveys in 2000 and 2003, so the new report is able to examine trends over a six-year period.
The report confirms what everyone already knows—that electronic resources are ever more central to scholarly activity. It emphasizes that scholars still value libraries as buyers and archivers of scholarship, and many still use them as gateways to scholarly information. However, it also confirms that researchers increasingly find what they need through Google Scholar and other online resources, a trend the report's authors anticipate will accelerate as more and more knowledge goes digital.
Since 2003, faculty members across the disciplines have shown a marked decline in how devoted they are to libraries as information portals. Eighty percent of humanities scholars are still devoted to library research—although that may be not because they're traditionalists but because they can't yet get what they need in digital form. But only 48 percent of economists and 50 percent of scientists value libraries as gateways.
That should worry librarians whose budgets are eaten up by high-priced science journals. What if the designated users of those materials are sidestepping the library altogether?
Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of librarians still consider the gateway function of libraries as essential. "Obviously there is a mismatch in perception here"—one that librarians need to confront if they want to stay relevant to campus intellectual life, Mr. Schonfeld and Mr. Housewright caution.
In an interview, the report's authors said that they hoped the report would get librarians talking about whether libraries should "ambitiously redirect resources" toward new and better ways to serve scholars operating in a digital environment.
"Right now we're seeing a library community that doesn't seem to be sure and isn't staking a claim to the gateway function," Mr. Schonfeld said. Perhaps some traditional functions, like the gateway role, "are things that libraries can safely retreat from."
In an interview, Steven J. Bell, an associate university librarian at Temple University, described the report as "required reading for academic librarians." Mr. Bell posted about the report on ACRLog, a blog run by the Association of College and Research Libraries. In his post, he urged librarians to think past libraries' traditional roles of gateway, archive, and buyer of scholarly material.
"We could really carve out a much more significant role" as instructional partners, Mr. Bell said.
"The good news is that faculty members still believe that libraries are working well for them," he told The Chronicle. "The bad news is that we're working so well that they may not need us any more."
The report, "Ithaka's 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher
]]>Students reject creepy treehouses for one reason: they are creepy. I think a better approach to education is the idea of a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) … which [students] can invite the professor into when they feel comfortable doing so.
In Students should build their own tree house
Library fines could become a thing of the past if a group of librarians get their way. A fiery debate has been raging for the past week between librarians, with anti-fine campaigners describing the charges as punitive, old-fashioned and creating a negative impression of libraries.]]>
The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.
I normally don't go in for reading personal diaries (though, I did - I admit - read Manuscripts Don't Burn a couple years ago), but for some reason this old-time diary blogging is quite intriguing (to me).
]]>UW Website Allows Researchers to Share Projects With The Public
The Office of UW Technology at University of Washington is developing Research1, a Web site that will allow scattered researchers to reunite in online communities and share their projects with the general public through various media, including audio and video files.
“We also see it as a good place for postdocs and graduate students to get exposure and post information about their research,� Andre Tan, the lead Web architect, told University Week.
Research1, which is now in beta testing, revolves around “project hubs,� each with information that can include the project’s team members, grants, and related sites. The hubs can also contain blogs and discussions about the research.
Scientists can chose to share what they upload with the public under a Creative Commons license, or to allow only colleagues or members of the media to view, download, or use the material.
Research1, which has the support of the National Science Foundation, is a project of the ResearchChannel, a national television channel operated by UW Technology that broadcasts research videos from several universities and institutions. —Maria José Viñas
]]>Sick Celebrities and Seasons Influence Internet Searches for Health News
With a tool from Google that tracks searches, researchers from Ball State University have uncovered a few patterns in the way that consumers search for health information.
The report, released yesterday and available free from the university, shows that the time of year and the health problems of the rich and famous influence what health topics people research on the Internet, according to the investigators from the university’s Center for Media Design.
The researchers used Google Trends, a tool that tracks public searches and holds data going back to 2004.
Information on diet and exercise peaked around New Year’s Day, says Peter Ellery, one of the researchers. That’s not shocking: it’s New Year’s resolution time.
The researchers also learned that illnesses reported by celebrities led to more searches about such diseases. People in the public eye have always been able to draw attention, and their health problems draw attention as well.
Barron Lerner, a medical historian and physician at Columbia University, has chronicled this pattern in his book, When Illness Goes Public. I asked him, a few years ago, why sick celebrities are so important to other people. “There’s a sense that celebrities have access to the best care and that you’d be wise to do what they did,� Dr. Lerner told me. “Would that work for me, people wonder? Lance Armstrong says that people write to him asking about everything he did and ate while fighting testicular cancer.
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