Mashups and API

Mashups are intriguing! It seems that the applications are limited only by the imagination but execution is not flawless. I used Hub Med but only received an "Internal Server Error" and no results.

eTBLAST is a text similarity-based engine for searching biomedical literature collections and that was more successful. You can compare results, find experts in the field, locate an appropriate journal for submitting a manuscript, and use the Bibus bibliography tool to manage references. The search tool on eTBLAST differs from PubMed in that it searches an entire paragraph of text and produces results that contain similar content. A search on "ice cream headache" produced several different citations than a similar search on PubMed.

Search Crystal is a megasearch tool that searches multiple search engines. It is predicated on the idea that better results are those that are found by multiple search engines and the more agreement between the engines, the better quality of the results. There are nice tabs so you can easly limit your search to images, videos, news, blogs, tags, mashups, and Wikipedia. The analytics feature allows you to analyze the results in various ways.

Privacy on Web 2.0 technologies is an issue. I've been uncomfortable registering for membership in the required tools for this course. I was glad to see this reference in the OA Librarian blog: "University undergraduate students and library-related privacy issues” in Library & Information Science Research, 27 (Sept 2005) 485-495, and even more glad that students objected to their personal data being used by the library even if it would provide improved tools and better service. Some research had indicated that young people don't share the same privacy concerns of older folks but are more concerned about having improved functions and personalization of Internet tools.

Scanning the Rollyo Library Blogs was disheartening in that most are personal rants (like this one, I confess!), quite a few were poorly written, and some were downright crude.
I created a searchroll for Evidence Based Practice in Nursing, listing high quality sites. The sites could be searched for specific topics like fall prevention or medication errors and the items within those sites that pertained to the search topic are listed.
http://rollyo.com/librarycardcatalog/ebp/

This tool could be applied to numerous topics in healthcare education. As with most of the free Web 2.0 Internet tools, there is advertising. I would put in a notice to alert students to that fact before making use of the tool in an educational setting.

Podcasting and Online Hosted Video

What is on You Tube?
Like the Internet itself, anything and everything!
During the past week, there have been several cases reported in the media of young people committing physical assaults for the purpose of posting the films on You Tube. There are also speeches by Noble laureates.

What is the value of the video content on You Tube?
Mixed!
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth? We know that seeing things in action can really assist in learning. A You Tube video of someone tying a necktie, for example, could be really helpful to the single mother helping her son get ready for a formal occasion. In the medical world, demonstrations of CPR, examples of physical therapy exercies, and CEU lectures could be (and are currently) posted. For the medical library realm, online tutorials for database and catalog searching abound.

So what is the concern?
The issue of quality and authority remain. The You Tube screen doesn't contain fields for complete source information. Few of the videos posted, even those of higher quality, contain a title screen with adequate source information. Should the medical library world join the You Tube world of advertising, narcissistic amatuer content, misinformation, and the occasional high quality segment? I'm still struggling with this.

Photosharing Online

Sharing photos online, creating slideshows, and editing images was lots of fun and the personal applications are obvious. It takes deeper thinking to develop medical library applications, particularly in light of copyright concerns. I can see how a physical assessment class could make use of photos of various patients with diseases or disorders, but approval would be required by those photographed. If images located from other sources were used, there would be copyright issues. The ease of downloading images and making them widely available would require the library to develop clear copyright policies and guidelines specific to images and disseminate this information to faculty and students using photosharing tools in instuction.

Wikis

Wikis vs. Blogs

• Wikis are similar to an edited book in that each contributor can post original content and contribute fully. They are more collaborative and in areas like meeting planning would be extremely useful.
• Blogs are similar to authored books where the single author contributes the majority of content with only comments on the author's content provided by others. There might be a place in the medical library world for blogs but great care needs to be taken that the authority, objectivity, quality factors are considered. A healthcare provider (subject expert) could create a blog to provide information to paitents in a support group, for example. Diabetes education might work as a topic that could use a blog. Careful disclaimers must be developed.

Web Office Tools

Collaboration spaces and authoring tools on the Web have many positive applications in the medical library world: meeting and conference planning, curriculum development projects, and writing articles or research projects across institutions are just a few. Earlier this year, I worked on an article with three other faculty members, using our college's share drive. It was very cumbersome to keep track of the various edits and versions and group members had to e-mail others when changes were made.

Google Docs makes keeping track of versions very easy and you can set up an RSS feed and/or e-mail notification of any edits. Very slick! Zoho has a nifty tagging feature and provides a database tool in addition to the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software available at Google Docs.

As with any Internet-based application, privacy and security are an issue. Although users can determine levels of access, I think we need to examine the FERPA and HIPAA implications. I would not use Internet-based applications for any material that contains personal identification information of individual patients or students.

The permanence of the tools is also an issue. Both Google Docs and Zoho are labeled as Beta, which means they will change. They could disappear or, more likely, morph into a service that requires payment for the advanced features users learn to like in the Beta version. "It's all about the money!" Because of that, I don't think Web office tools will replace institutional purchases of basic office software.

These tools do work very well for short term projects that do not contain sensitive information. They can facilitate collaboration and communication and have a role in medical library services and healthcare education.

Social Bookmarking

Using del.icio.us has been very interesting. There are many advantages to a Web based bookmarking tool:

• Portability. The bookmarks can be accessed from any computer.
• Personalization. They can be tagged with terms that are most useful to the user.

I can create collections of bookmarks for specific courses and tag them both by course and by topic. In addition, I can make them available to others. Faculty and students could then have access to a quality collection of Web resources. Having the "tag" function in the browser toolbar makes the process as easy as possible.

Developing a personal system of tags would take some thought but would also assure consistency. I was reminded of the library philosopher, Ranganathan's Colon Classification System as I found myself thinking about the "facets" of a specific resource and assigning multiple tags, each representing a specific facet or aspect, of a source. The "old school" library scheme can help guide the implementation of the "new school" Web 2.0 tool.

Social Networking Tools

I confess that I have been very uncomfortable in using Facebook and My Space for the week's assignments. This discomfort relates to several identifiable issues:

• Avertising: The Knowledge@Wharton article pointed out that these tools are driven entirely by advertising revenue. Could these ads color the image of the library as a place for authoritative, objective information? As an "old school" librarian I think so, but I also recognize that most of the Internet is driven by advertising and users have learned to "tune out" ads that they don't find find interesting.
• Privacy: Comments from class members reflect those of the general Internet using population. They range from serious concern to no concern whatever. The truth is likely to be somewhere in the middle. I personally prefer that my picture and personal information NOT be listed on social networking sites. I also have a concern about the targeted advertising that could result and the stockpile of information about me that is out there on the Web.
• Information Glut: A vast amount of cyberspace is taken up by Web 2.0 content. Some of this might be useful from a medical library perspective but I would guess most of it is not. Does this information overload make finding quality authoritative, objective medical information more difficult? I think so, particularly for the lay person. Do we have any obligation to consider this as we create our blogs and Facebook pages? Again, I think so. The current emphasis among environmentalists about personal resposibility for our "carbon footprint" might eventually be needed for the Internet. Dare I coin the the term cyberspace footprint?
• Quality: Much of the social networking content I have seen is personal in nature and even many professional pages are more like diary or journal entries. An occasional bit of information is valuable, but most are personal musings and opinions (like this posting!).
• Authority: The concept of authority is critical one for medical information and one that I emphasize to all our medical and nursing students. Even though we can publish so easily, that doesn't make us authorities! I found myself wondering why the author of the Knowledge@Wharton article did not put his or her name on it?
• Time: Can I really devote time to maintain social networks in a virtual environment? How much? For what purpose? With whom? What will I have to give up in order to spend time on Facebook, My Space, etc.? I am reminded of a class I was teaching. When students went on break, each one pulled out a cell phone and started talking but none of the students talked to each other. They were socially engaged but not with their classmates; a great loss.
• Effort: So little effort is required to set up blogs and social networking pages that I wonder if the focus becomes the creation of content rather than the value of the content itself. "I have to think of something to put on my page," as opposed to "This is an issue that needs to be discussed." This relates to the quality issue. How much is factual vs opinion? How much planning, thought, revision, and research goes into the postings?
• Image: Librarians have long been concerned about our professional image. I think most of us don't want to fall into the shushing "old maid librarian in sensible shoes" stereotype. We want to keep up with the latest technology, partly to be sure that it doesn't make us obsolete.

The social networking tools we explored this week are not the tools I would use to help my patrons locate, evaluate, and make use of the best quality medical information sources, at least not at this time.

RSS

RSS feeds have real potential to update both library staff and our patrons. I created feeds for a general medical news site (Modern Medicine). In the past, I checked the MSNBC Health page daily and forwarded pertinent items to faculty. Using RSS simplifies the process since the new items are "pushed" out to me.

I subscribed to the two course feeds to get comments from classmates and instructors. I can see new items as they are posted without having to go into the course site. Very convenient! I also subscribed to my own blog so I get alerts on any comments that might be posted.

The Pub Med search RSS will alert me to new articles on the NCLEX-RN exam--a hot topic with my nursing faculty. I couldn't see a way to do an RSS feed to a search on CINAHL but I did a feed on the tables of contents for Physical Therapy journals from CINAHL. We are having a site visit for inital accreditation for our new PTA program and I think the visitors will be impressed that I alert faculty to new articles in this way.

The next step will be to manage all the feeds and to show faculty how to use RSS.

Web 2.0 Technologies Boon or Bane?

As a librarian, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of new information and communication technologies. In the past, decisions about whether to adopt a new format or technology were largely budget based: Could the library afford this system, program, or service and would the cost be the best use of funds to provide resources and services to patrons?

With Web 2.0 technology, most of which cost nothing beyond an Intenet connection, other criteria are needed to determine which services to provide. Is the benefit to patrons worth the investment in staff time to develop, maintain, train users, promote, and troubleshoot problems? Will the technology be around for a while or be dropped in favor of something new and better? The speed of change is accelerating, making it more and more difficult for librarians to keep pace.

This blog will record a single "old school" librarian's thoughts about how each of the Web 2.0 tools could be applied to library practice as well as musings about whether they should be.