PubMed Preview Goes Stampeding

Circus elephants need to eat too via c.a.muller

Like retweets through the Twitterverse, so is the elephant stampeding through the information silos of our lives - my current Facebook status.

Edit: I've since learned an entirely different webcast was the source for this information, but it was offered by staff at NCBI. The one I mentioned below was publicly available for a time as well. None of this changes the fact that a streamlined and effective communication policy is needed!

I shouldn't be surprised that the PubMed preview was leaked before the National Library of Medicine (NLM) was ready for the public to know about it via a link from the main PubMed website.

The discussion first began on Twitter this afternoon with the beginning and a sample of how it quickly spread.

Then it popped up in Facebook links.

Then the blogs from Emerging Technologies Librarian, NLM Toolbars and David Rothman, with many more to come I'm sure.

MEDLIB-L should catch up either sometime tonight or tomorrow.

There is one important point of clarification that needs to be made regarding the source though.

The preview website was not disclosed via any public webinar from NLM. I will always share any public information possible as fast as I can, especially when it comes to something we've been waiting for since May.

That 'webinar' was an internal, private staff meeting via web conference last week that was recorded for other staff members to watch if they weren't able to attend. Someone, in my not so humble opinion, made a very serious error in sharing that recording with everyone and to be honest I'm angry about it.

Why? I was the one on the web conference who asked about the preview URL being live and whether or not it should be promoted. The answer was no because bugs are still being worked out with it. What you see may not be what you eventually get. Confidentiality and integrity are at the core of librarianship and business; of course I wanted to share this with the world but I didn't. I still haven't linked directly to the preview site here.

Public URLs want to be free as does information. I keep trying to advocate for clear communication and social media presence. To be fair, @NLM_SIS and @medlineplus4you are on board which is great. The elephant in the medical librarian world is PubMed though, and today we've seen how important it is for things to remain on the development server until they're ready for the world and the need for information to be shared from an authoritative source in social media right from the start.

Clinical Reader: Starry ethics fail

July 17 '09 7:40am edit

Closing this entry with an open letter to Clinical Reader.

July 15 '09 7:20am edit

Thank you for your support!

July 14 '09 3:42pm edit

With permission from the author, here is the email apology I received this morning from Clinical Reader. I have replied that I accept it.

I would also like to note that there is mention of the above apology on Twitter yet still not a public apology to me as there was for one of the artists yesterday.


July 13 '09 4:00pm edit:



As of this time, Clinical Reader is or already has removed all images I discussed below from their website. I commend them for their quick attention and responsiveness.

However, there was this before that:




I do not remove my blog articles. I am happy to edit when information within them is in need of updating, as am I doing now, or corrections with clear markings as to what is original and what is corrected.

Others speak well about that legal ramifications part.


Original, unedited post below

It is with concern that I've heard about some of my colleagues promoting and collaborating with the newly launched company, Clinical Reader.

Why? (red scrawl emphasis mine)


This above-the-page-fold graphic is intentional (not accidental, this is clear marketing intent to lend quick visual credibility to the organization) and currently displayed everywhere (homepage, sections pages, multimedia page, the newsletter, etc.) throughout the resource.

It is bogus as far as the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is concerned since the U.S. Government doesn't endorse or grant 5 stars to anything. The NLM Copyright Information page offers more elaboration, bold emphasis mine:

Endorsement: NLM does not endorse or recommend any commercial products, processes, or services. The views and opinions of authors expressed on NLM Web sites do not necessarily state or reflect those of the U.S. Government, and they may not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

But wait, there's more.

Clinical Reader also currently uses two copyrighted images on their Partners (specific original source, copyright notice at bottom) and Advertising pages (from somewhere on Signalnoise). A 'credit' link to a source doesn't honor an image copyright. Even free open source images, such as this set of Springer Images, are often limited to usage for noncommerical purposes. Commercial organizations can well afford to purchase or design their own graphics.

As a medical librarian, I respectfully request that Clinical Reader remove all occurrences of these images from their website immediately. If not, this is my statement of intent that I'll request removal of my blog from their proposed medical librarian resources. I have already notified NLM and the artists involved about these images. All have replied and thanked me for doing so, one noting "They might have credited me, but not cool using my work to sell something."

I uphold the Medical Library Association code of ethics, the Library Society of the World Cod of Ethics, and my professional photographer friends deal with people stealing their copyrighted work all the time. Professional integrity means taking a stand to explain who, what, where, when & why when something is amiss. I'm a bit more direct than some.

Always carefully review new resources (and re-evaluate the old ones from time to time) for information. Any company that falsifies endorsements and displays copyrighted materials for their own use should raise immediate red flags for librarians. How does it reflect on our profession to recommend a resource that is not compliant for accountability to clinicians, faculty, students and your own colleagues regardless of how nice it looks and functions?

An Aggie does not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do. - Aggie Code of Honor, Texas A&M University, recipient of a 2003 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant that funded my MSIS education in partnership with the University of North Texas.

Live near DC and have an hour to help NLM?

From the MEDLIB-L listserv

Volunteers Needed for Web Site Evaluation

The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications at the
National Library of Medicine is seeking people interested in
evaluating a web site developed by NLM. The feedback received from
evaluators will help NLM develop effective and easy-to-use web
interfaces. Participants will be asked to spend one hour using a web
site on the Bethesda campus. Federal employees, contractors and
members of the public who can travel to NIH are encouraged to respond.
Although no monetary compensation can be offered, evaluators will
receive a small gift for their time. Forward this message to anyone
who might be interested in participating. Contact Sarah Ward at
saward@mail.nih.gov or (301) 496-9301 for more information.

Medlibs Round: PubMed and Discoveries

PubMed class at StanfordEdTech

It is a pleasure and honor to host Medlibs Round here at Eagle Dawg Blog after a few delays I apologize for. The theme this month is PubMed, one of several databases in the the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Entrez life sciences search engine developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), and third party functionalities.

There is much more to the NLM than this single database though, and understanding the Entrez connectivity helps to explain some of the changes that are happening in PubMed today to lead to more research and better medicine for tomorrow. I hope you enjoy the ride!

What is this "Discovery" stuff NLM keeps mentioning?

NCBI's "Discovery Space" Facilitating SNP Research

The above chart refers to information in genetics but it was the 'discovery space' label that caught my attention. This illustrates NCBI's main purpose as not solely being the PubMed administrator but developing resources "for the better understanding of molecular processes affecting human health and disease" (source) which involves information in the other Entrez resources.

In December 2008, I did some research on the Discovery Initiative, "one of the most important projects NLM is working on." If you're not already familiar with the Discovery Initiative please take a look and here's the gist of it:

The bottom line for us is discovery. We want people to make discoveries, and if we’re using up real estate on the Web page for things people don’t click on, and if we can put things on there that would have been associated information, then we should do that.

The Discovery Initiative is behind some of what we are seeing with PubMed changes now after several years of work behind the scenes to encourage cross-referencing within Entrez. We are also starting to see communication from NLM including reference to the Discovery Initiative and suggested resources that appear in PubMed being called Ads. There still is not a clear description/explanation of the Discovery Initiative from a PubMed perspective in either the NLM Technical Bulletin or PubMed New/Noteworthy RSS feed, the resources we're encouraged to subscribe to for current PubMed news. The Discovery Initiative has received coverage in NCBI News in June, March, and February 2009.

Discovery is in the eye of the beholder

Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) seal on the Lillie Laboratory

With that background about the Discovery Initiative covered, Shamsha Damani at MD Anderson created a very clear guide and commentary for her clinicians about the recent and upcoming changes in PubMed: What's New and What's Ahead, These include a great description and screenshots of the Discovery Initiative ads with the suggestion that "they are handy and are a great discovery tool when you are grasping at straws or have too many results to wade through." PubMed: My NCBI changes by Miner Library mentions the new ability to create custom filters as "a terrific new development."

Custom filters in PubMed. Fail. by Mark Rabnett of Gossypiboma begged to differ with this assessment of the custom filter changes due to encountering a failure with the saved searches tab.

In the second incident of NLM staff replying to blog complaints that I know of (the Harvard student being the first), an anonymous comment (supposedly a developer at NLM) was left on Mark's post saying the problem would be fixed. Shortly thereafter Mark posted PubMed custom filters: where the bee sucks which includes

I must apologize for the flippant remarks I made in my previous post. It must have been the nicotine. I hope that the snag with the NLM health literacy filter can be fixed. I intend to use Custom Filters frequently and uncomplainingly when all the kinks are worked out.

In a second comment, the supposed NLM developer replied

Enjoy your filters, and thank twitter’s re-tweets for getting your message across.

Why not have an official PubMed Twitter presence to directly offer feedback in the first place? Clearly someone there wants to engage. Often we hear complaints about PubMed and related services but with the email-only "official" feedback channel frequently is no acknowledgment from either NLM or users that a problem is taken care of, nor a way for others to see if an issue is Down for everyone or just me.

What's your Discovery?

Blue lobster at the Woods Hole Science Aquarium

PubMed Impact Factor from Alisha764's Blog explores the role of offering impact factors of journals and author information as a quality indicator in the wake of fake articles, journals and changed/fabricated data. This is not without controversy but indicates that many are seeking additional ways to check the quality of information. Merely saying something is indexed in MEDLINE is not enough to say it is authoritative health information since Time Magazine is there in the consumer health subset.

Five ways to improve PubMed from Gossypiboma includes his top results from the brainstorming suggestions during the recent Canadian Health Libraries Association conference about improving PubMed. A trick for #5 (Simplify the creation of permanent links to PubMed records) is to begin with http://pubmed.gov, take a look at an article for the PubMed identification number (PMID), then tack that on to the end for http://pubmed.gov/16719081

Shamsha Damani's guide includes

My one hope is to see NLM participate more in social media (especially Twitter!) so more voices are heard. The NLM reps at MLA’09 were extremely nice and open to suggestions; it would be nice if they could extend their presence in social networking venues as well.

I share this sentiment about social media as an official feedback channel for PubMed. This should not be via anonymous comments to blog entries but a sustained, active effort by both NLM and PubMed users utilizing some of the best practices learned from online participation formats such as the Open Government Dialogue.

There is hope for change on this front with the emergence of official Department of Health and Humans Services (HHS) Twitter accounts. @NLM_SIS is a legitimate account from Specialized Information Services (as is their SlideShare account... check out Semantic Processing of Twitter Traffic for Epidemic Surveillance) although considered experimental at this time. For the time being many, but not all, government agency presences on Twitter are essentially push-out news information sources similar to RSS feeds that don't usually interact with followers.

What have third party vendors Discovered?

Fiddler crabs in the Marine Resources Center at MBL

Got PubMed? Pubget Searches and Delivers Scientific PDFs from Bio-IT World news shares the news that this full-text PDF retrieval service has expanded quite a bit from when David Rothman covered it in April 2008, and has just announced it has partnered with 500 institutions including NIH itself (NLM is one of the 27 institutes of the National Institutes of Health).

Hope Leman posted GoPubMed: Interview with Michael Alvers at Next Generation Science where she asked some great questions of GoPubMed's CEO about why medical librarians and others should use this search engine instead of regular PubMed in addition to theoretical (the blended future role of search engine and social networking) to the practical (What's the difference between "find all" and "get all"?). This is a comprehensive interview well worth reading and reflecting upon over a coffee break.

Some non-PubMed but related tangents that were submitted along the discovery lines include Dr Shock MD PhD's posting about Online Medical Book Search and Clinical Cases and Images Blog's coverage of how to Create an automatic differential diagnosis list with Google Squared.


Panel at the MBL Associates Gift shop, home of cool socks

I recently attended the MBL/NLM BioMedical Informatics course and am still reflecting upon what Dr. Don Lindberg, Director of NLM, said regarding the emerging role of interactive publications. Wouldn't embedding an actual rhythm strip in a journal article involving electrocardiograms be a better use of online publications than a snapshot of one still image? I'll conclude with this image from his presentation:


You have seen what everyone else has seen. What do you think?

MBL/NLM MI Day 5/6: Insert witty title here

Please see yesterday's entry regarding my current cognitive ability, and note that not only was I not able to blog first thing this morning but it just took me 3 tries to spell cognitive correctly.

40 hours of continuing education in 5.5 days: Insane yet possible!



Dr. Christopher Cimino from the Office of Computer Based Education at Albert Einstein College of Medicine gave a presentation about education informatics. This isn't a frightening term, it's the use of technology in education, and mostly covered a lot of what I already knew from both my experience as an online graduate student and a current distance education teacher.

This reinforced much of what I suspect in that the role of evaluation is key for identifying educational needs first, then developing a goal, then the learning objectives, and only after all that delving into the method of teaching. Too often I think there is a push to go into 'teaching online' as a primary motivation and that usually doesn't result in successful educational experiences for either the teacher or the learner.



Kevin Johnson from the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University made a return visit to do a presentation on Care Provider Order Entry (CPOE). He didn't win a repeat of Powerpoint layout prize, but did win for groaner comedy involving Presidents (see slides 12, 26, 77 and 82) while outlining the history and many current challenges involved with CPOE.



I feel bad that I didn't get a better picture of Dr. Joan Ash from the Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University, especially since she was the only presenter from our awesome Pacific Northwest region!

She did a great job in her presentation both teaching about evaluation methods in general, applying them to informatics interventions, and keeping us alert with humor and a friendly competitive breakout group project.

Some would argue I wasn't paying close attention when I shared this quote from her presentation on Twitter, but others agreed it needed to be heard. I can always count on my colleagues to offer interesting perspectives too!



Dr. Lawrence Kingsland, Assistant Director for Applied Informatics at the National Library of Medicine, gave a presentation about future trends that are rapidly becoming the norm already on the Internet and the mind-blowing speed and functionality that is still to come on the horizon.

He also literally rocked the house when the bass was cranked a bit too high on the speakers as we watched this. I highly recommend it as part of the answer when someone asks 'What is Web 2.0?'






Last and nowhere near least was Dr. Donald Lindberg, Director of the National Library of Medicine. His presentation about current issues isn't online and includes some embedded features... and that was part of his point.

Online books, journals and related resources need to move beyond being mere reflections of their paper counterparts and fully use their capacity for being interactive publications. A great example of this is the recent Medical Library Association 2009 conference posters, some of which have videos and hyperlinks embedded in them. What if journal articles about electrocardiograph (ECG) studies actually included rhythm strips? How can we tell if someone learned more/better/faster through the use of "supplementary data" that does not yet have standardized metadata in PubMedCentral?

Fascinating and much to think about.

MBL/NLM MI Day 3: All I never asked for when pigs flew

I began the day over breakfast with Dr. Ed Hammond (current Chair of Health Level 7 (HL7), his wife, and Dr. Clem McDonald (Director of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications -LHNCBC).

Ed teaches online in Second Life, something I haven't explored much yet since my workplace doesn't have an instruction space there, and I enjoyed his perspective of believing online modalities are becoming the way to go for education since he himself has been teaching for decades. Unfortunately Clem came to the table just as I was leaving so we weren't able to talk for very long, but I enjoyed meeting him and gave him my leftover syrup for his French toast.



Ed spared no punches with his presentation about clinical information systems and immediately following this slide he had another where he engaged us in a discussion about the following questions related to the recent projected stimulus funds of $36.5 billion to create a national network of electronic health records (EHRs)

• Can health information technology (HIT) improve health and health care?
• Can HIT save $77.8b each year through universal use of HIT?
• What enables this dream?
• What is meaningful use of EHR?

We weren't able to get through all the presentation but the class discussion was invaluable due to the multiple perspectives we all brought to the table & I look forward to much reflection later.



Clem's presentation isn't online yet and I will link to it when it is, but I had to smile during the detailed explanation of the components of HL7 as part of it. Over 10 years ago I worked for the information technology department of UW Medicine in fiscal administration, and one of the management involved in clinical computing systems had a button on his office nameplate that said 'Ask me about HL7'

I never did but I received an answer anyway all these years later!

I'm having trouble with downloading the audio from video on my cell phone so I won't spoil the surprise with too much detail. My future students will never forget what Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) is thanks to Clem's enthusiastic tossing of stuffed pink pigs at us.



Kathi Canese from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) had the unenviable job of presenting after our shortened lunch and before we let out early for the day to catch the ferry to Martha's Vineyard and did a fantastic job with her presentation!

I'm purposely not linking to or discussing it here as this is deserving of a separate post during the Medlibs Round next week about PubMed since there is more news to share. Please submit your own blog entries in here!



I ended up doing none of what I had planned on at Martha's Vineyard and had a fantastic time!

MBL/NLM MI Day 1: What's biomedical informatics anyway?

While I've simultaneously been excited about and scared of my time as a Marine Biological Laboratory/National Library of Medicine (MBL/NLM) fellow, I've never had a quick and easy way to say exactly what it is I'm studying here this week.

After our first full day of class, I still don't.

This is Dr. Jim Cimino at the beginning of our session mapping out our class answers to 'What is Biomedical informatics?'. Please note that all our presentation links won't last forever, if you see something you like grab it now.


That's about half the whiteboard and the other half has just as much scrawl to it. There is no elevator speech answer! Jim also did a great job in his afternoon database design presentation, and I'm remembering his class exercise activity on mapping out tables for a database with a Medline citation as a model to work from in my own teaching.

This is Dr. Joyce Mitchell's great bioinformatics presentation about genetics and the exciting opportunities that are in development now about research in the field and for us to think about how to integrate them into electronic medical records (EMRs).


Unfortunately I can't remember if the slide that was added in was part of Sid Phillips's presentation or Victor Cid's about the Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC). It noted that 'swine flu' was the most-searched topic on Yahoo at one point, displacing 'American Idol', the Wikipedia swine flu page received 1.3 million hits, and Twitter had 125,000 swine flu tweets a day accounting for 1% of total traffic there.

This is both of them at the beginning of Victor's presentation which I highly recommend, very cutting edge information about the use of Web 2.0 technologies in disaster communication.


We also watched the University of Michigan's Health Sciences Library's YouTube video about Second Life and Public Health

Whew! Enough of all that, here is the beautiful setting of Woods Hole looking out across the Great Harbor.

PubMed update now online.. now share your thoughts!

Were you at MLA '09 and missed some of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) presentations, wanted to watch one again, or were never there in the first place to see them? Check out the Medical Library Association 2009 Annual Meeting Theater Presentations!

In particular don't miss the PubMed Update, 17 minutes long with accurate closed captioning so no sound is required to receive all the information. You did get the news that Single Citation Matcher is not going away, correct? If not, see for yourself at 1:27! An introduction and explanation of the NCBI Discovery Initiative and the PubMed 'ads' are from 12:46-14:13. The PubMed redesign information begins at 15:30 with a great picture of a mockup at 16:00.

I am honestly sorry I can't do a full play-by-play guide like last year, but the life part of my work-life balance is extremely out of order at the moment.

What do you think about how things are currently with PubMed? What at MLA '09 caught your attention for what's in store? What third-party PubMed apps do you love? The delay is over; blog about it by June 5th and share with everyone! Please click to review the rules & entry form.

As an aside: Am I that much of a dork for wondering why they call this a theater presentation when there's no big screen, no comfy chairs or sticky floors, and no popcorn? The answer is probably yes.

Remembering the US Army: the National Library of Medicine's beginnings

Did you know the National Library of Medicine (NLM) was created by and existed for the United States military for much longer than it currently has served the American people through a Congressional mandate in 1956?

In 1818 the first Surgeon General of the United States Army, Dr. Joseph Lovell, dedicated some shelf space to medical books, journals and pamphlets to serve as reference for surgeons under his command. This small collection was officially named the Library of the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army in 1836, although by the 1860s Joseph Woodward was not impressed and stated, "At the time the late Civil War broke out nothing deserving the name of a medical library existed in Washington."

Despite low beginnings the collection grew and by 1895 under the direction of John Shaw Billings it contained medical literature from nearly every era and nation. After President Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the government purchased Ford's Theater and the collection, medical records and an Army museum were housed there. There were additional moves and a few name changes to Army Medical Library in 1922, then Armed Forces Medical Library in 1952.

For much more detail see Milestones in NLM History, A Brief History of NLM, and FAQ: History of the National Library of Medicine.

On April 15th, I thanked American taxpayers for sustaining NLM. On this Memorial Day, I thank the American military for creating & curating it for so many years in addition to our country's freedom.

Medlib's Round delay & near-pandemic social media progress

Due to a combination of people preparing for the Medical Library Association's upcoming conference in Hawaii and the global outbreak of H1N1 influenza, the Medlib's Round blog carnival is delayed until June 6th with publication on June 9th.

Many are, as usual, wondering if "the media" has overblown the H1N1 outbreak. I haven't watched any television news or talk shows recently (I rarely to never do anyway) so I can't comment there. However, when it comes to online and social media outlets, two things in particular impress me for signs of how the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are opening up to these tools as high quality information resources during a near-pandemic situation.

The first is MedlinePlus and PubMed with the placement of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) H1N1 widget on the front pages. In addition, the very first hyperlink offered for the H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) MedlinePlus page is @CDCemergency, an official Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Twitter account. When I began writing this post the morning of May 6th, it had 104,266 followers. As of 10:25 that same evening the number had jumped up to 108,698! Others without Twitter accounts may be subscribing via RSS feed, those numbers are not included.

The second is the inclusion of Patricia Anderson's iGoogle H1N1 swine flu tab as an information resource within the NIH Library. To be clear, this is not NLM as NLM is the medical library for everyone and the NIH Library is for the 27 entities that make up the National Institutes of Health.

Are these uses of online & social media and the resources wiki I started all hype? Of course not. As is always the case for work and our own personal sanity, we must enable our own filters to narrow in on quality resources, share them, and tune out misinformation. A bit of humor now and then for you is good for you too.

This is a good opportunity to review your own emergency preparedness plans too... H1N1 isn't too severe now, but nobody can say that will continue to be the case during the flu season this fall. Will your library be prepared to still function if social distancing measures are enacted? Check out a pandemic planning exercise for more details.

I'm still hopeful for the day when we will see an NLM social media presence. CDC are truly the 2009 HHS social media pioneers who have had their hands full between the peanut recall and now H1N1. Hopefully things will settle down to allow for evaluation to determine some best practices to be shared by all, but in the meantime keep up the amazing work!

A Cup of Tea... for Thanks

Tea party, by emkeller

I cannot write about today's 'tea bagging' and protest 'tea parties' with a straight face (I prefer my tea brewed loose leaf and parties with bite sized pastries & sandwiches with gossip about friends of friends) but in the spirit of the day I will drink some tea on this tax day with immense gratitude.

Why? If it were not for my own and millions of other Americans' tax dollars, I would not have received my full time graduate education. I am one of 3,220 master's students funded by the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program since 2003, one of the largest programs of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). I do not see this merely as slanted political hype on my resume but an investment in my potential that I aim to have a very high return on.

The story continues with my first library job at one of the eight federally contract-funded regional offices of the National Network of Libraries of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM). I work with amazing colleagues in my own office, all other seven offices, and at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) itself. While I appreciated my previous career of a decade, I am truly inspired by the intelligence and dedication of my Network colleagues from coast to coast. They have welcomed me in despite my blatant newbieness and they know how to have some serious fun. I can't imagine having my social network completely overrun by colleagues from my previous career and enjoying it nearly as much as I do now.

Live outside of the United States? Great, but thank an American taxpayer today if you use information from PubMed, MedlinePlus, Healthfinder, one of the 27 NIH agencies (National Institutes of Health) or the other 10 HHS agencies (Department of Health & Human Services, here are some on Twitter). Those aren't your electronic database subscription fees paying towards their development and maintenance, nor are these information resources and the people behind them remotely close to "free."

America, these are your tax dollars at work. Thank you. I have said it before and I will say it again: I have not and never will write here on federal taxpayer time, ever. I take that very seriously. I do hit the 'publish' button in blog comment emails, strive to share & help with information on Twitter more than goof off, and poke around Facebook much less these days since I can't stand the new layout.

IntenseDebate & PubMed: Do you see me?

I see you, some would say 'hear' even though much of online communication is visual. We all see each other across the blogs, the tweets, and so many other social media/networking venues.

We've developed social media information filters that help us to identify, learn from, share, and discuss the crucial from the chaff (sometimes mocking the chaff!) to varying degrees. This is amazingly sophisticated cognitive activity, but that is a post for another time. Questions of policies, procedures, and 'what to do' with this information in an unregulated and non-standardized world are a natural and expected response. We always seek order in the inevitable chaos.

What is the answer, the conclusive research pointing to the utmost in best practices for this? I don't know. If you stumble across it out there, let me know?

When it comes to the flow of information in channels we may not necessarily be familiar or comfortable with though, we have to try them out. This has been and always will be the case if the library and information sciences field will continue to not only survive but thrive. Sitting back and watching it fly by without interaction will not cut it in the 21st century, nor result in understanding your users and their information needs... and they can & will go elsewhere to have them met.

You don't have time to try things out? I encourage you to read this and reconsider.

A few examples of trying things out that I'm excited about from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)is the authentication of HHS Twitter accounts (although @healthfinder is legitimate and new as of yesterday) and the use of IntenseDebate on newmedia.hhs.gov. Newmedia is where various parties across HHS are collaborating on ways to incorporate social media in their institutions. A comment and invitation follow:

This is an experiment in social media, in using the tools of social media to inform, shape and educate about social media. As such, it really ought to involve everyone. . The site was conceived by and run by folks across HHS. But we've opened it to the word. We do so for both altruistic and selfish reasons. Altruistic because it costs nothing and benefits all if we share what we learn. Selfish because the bigger the crowd, the greater the wisdom. We're interested in what you think, not who you are or where you work

I see you. I see your frustration, feeling that your feedback about the changes in PubMed are not being heard. For context; PubMed is one of many services of the National Library of Medicine, which is one of 27 organizations within the National Institutes of Health, which is one of 11 agencies under HHS.

About a month ago I was told about newmedia.hhs.gov, asked for my own feedback, and posted this with bold emphasis mine here & not in the original comment:

Thank you for this venue! From my perspective (NIH /NLM /NN/LM) there is a need to gather all the news & information-sharing resources within each agency to one central (and easy to find) location on the agency website with RSS feeds available for each resource. On my own time I've researched & blogged some of the frustration encountered trying to locate news about NCBI's (part of NLM) Discovery Initiative and how it affects PubMed at http://eagledawg.blogspot.com/2008/12/pubmed-disc... and http://eagledawg.blogspot.com/2009/02/hidden-in-b...

Would also LOVE to see IntenseDebate as a feedback forum for PubMed!

Do you see me? If so please consider joining IntenseDebate, visiting my link, and clicking the thumbs-up icon. Share your own focused, specific, helpful ideas not just about PubMed but all that HHS encompasses.

This is not The Way, not by a longshot. I'm still reflecting on the feedback about crowdsourcing from President Obama's recent usage of Open For Questions as a communication channel. This is trying something out in a very transparent channel.

ACRL 2009 - Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians

Excellent, thought-provoking papers about the use of social networking in the library and by librarians by both speakers that were well worth dragging my still-sick self out of bed and onto a Metro bus to slog through the rain at 8am on a Saturday morning for!

As usual, some teaser thoughts from my notes (can you tell my brain is on format autopilot?)

• It is not enough to know what social networking is but able to understand nature and roles, importance in research, communication and information life cycle of the social networking site.
• We have to evaluate the tools just as we do everything else and not jump on board just because it's new.
• Librarians who are social networking-literate must be able to apply their current skills and curiosity to emerging and evolving resources.
• Professional associations and library schools can support librarians with CE initiatives
• Require new hires to possess social networking skills (yikes!)
• How frequently do students use Facebook for academic purposes? Most ranked rarely and they feel Facebook impacts their academic study negatively.
• When developing a virtual presence, consider students' actual perceptions of the library. Talk to your students, not student workers or this study's students.
• Becoming a fan of the library involves less effort/awkwardness than friending.
• Don't send apps or poke the students on Facebook.

My thoughts - It is impossible to verify with 100% accuracy any institutional online presence on Twitter. An individual may use a library or library product name, create a profile with the company logo, link to the company website and fill out all the appropriate profile details, follow (and be followed by) others in the field and 'talk the talk'... and not be sanctioned by the library or institution to represent them at all.

I am not going to give further attention to the individuals on Twitter I'm aware of who have done so with National Library of Medicine (NLM) by linking to them here, but be aware that they do exist. As it was in January and still the case now, there is no official NLM presence on Twitter.

Friday Foolery #23: My total failure as a 19th century mom

I was having fun browsing the NCBI Bookshelf and came across this gem from The Care and Feeding of Children: A Cathecism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses by Dr. L. Emmett Holt, published by D. Appleton & Company in New York, 1894. This admonition is from the Miscellaneous section which is mostly focused on poop details (potty training at 3 months?!), just like many parents of babies are still 115 years later.

Hidden in the Bookshelf: PubMed & Discovery Initiative

Many thanks go out to Kathel Dunn, Associate Fellowship Coordinator at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), who sent me an email and Amy Donahue, Associate Fellow at NLM, who wrote a #pubmed tag on Twitter (what does that mean?) at about the same time this morning.



The news?

Buried within the NCBI Bookshelf, yet not the same as the Bookshelf announcement listserv or linked from the Bookshelf front page (check the 'breadcrumbs', or filepath below), are NCBI News archives including a February 2009 article with details about the Discovery Initiative and PubMed.



Please read Featured Resource: Improvements to NCBI Services Promote Discovery in its entirely (not too long & very informative) and click on the links of the PubMed screenshots highlighting the Document Summary view of the Gene Sensor, 'Also try..' and 'Recent Activity' in addition to the Abstract Plus summary view of the pre-computed Related Articles and Recent Activity. See how the article title is the hyperlink in the Document Summary view but not in Abstract Plus view as noted in the PubMed Update guide?

As an update regarding #pubmed on Twitter: I have heard from NLM that several there are 'aware of' this as a user feedback venue, yet feel that 'it is too brief.' Again, to my knowledge there is no official NLM presence on Twitter or other social media venues, although the National Institutes of Health (NIH, which includes NLM as 1 of 27 Institutes and Centers) does have two Twitter news accounts.

I offer as a contrast the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s involvement in social media, which David Rothman has covered well.

Andrew P. Wilson, who describes himself as "Member of HHS social media team," (The Department of Health and Human Services - HHS - includes NIH, CDC, FDA & many others) noticed that many people stopped following the FDA recalls Twitter account today. Note his approach to soliciting and responding to user feedback below (read from the bottom up):



Later he wrote as an additional response "Thanks - an experiment and there will be successes & failures (and in between). Appreciate everyones feedback, & support though."

An experiment. Willingness to try. Soliciting and appreciating user feedback. Placing so much information on a single page instead of having to dig through various venues to find relevant news.

Mr. Wilson, you have my thanks for your approach during the increasing number of peanut product recalls, and I hope NIH (and NLM) is included within the scope of the HHS social media team.

A tweet for change: #Pubmed

The official communication portal for your feedback to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) about PubMed is 'Write to the Help Desk' at the bottom of each PubMed page or via email to custserv@nlm.nih.gov This mechanism is helpful for NLM to have trackable data, much like the tickets that are generated by calls to the hospital IT services help desk, however this format doesn't allow for others to see what insights and challenges their colleagues are having.

Medical information professionals have multiple channels of communication ranging from international to regional, state & association listservs, reading each others' blogs, and social networking tools such as Twitter. We can and do share among ourselves! However, each of these communication methods can carry high levels of noise, or information that is neither concise nor relevant to what we are looking for in terms of helpful input.

As I previously explained in my PubMed and the Discovery Initiative post, behind-the-scenes work for the past few years is now manifesting itself in visible changes with PubMed. The main channel for communication from NLM regarding these changes is the NLM Technical Bulletin, where you can quickly browse PubMed-specific entries.

A thought I had for a quick, easy-to-contribute, low-noise feedback mechanism for everyone to see, participate in, and track via a webpage or RSS regarding PubMed is the use of hashtags on Twitter by including #pubmed in your tweet. The hashtagged word works for both a regular message (such as the one from me) and a reply, or @, message (such as the one from dial_m)

Going to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23pubmed
currently brings up the results since I pitched this idea to medlibs, a group Twitter account that David Rothman started & I now moderate:


The RSS feed is #pubmed - Twitter Search

Caveat 1: The 'hashtags' I'm referring to in my tweet is http://www.hashtags.org/tag/pubmed, where currently nothing is displayed. It should since there is reciprocal following of @hashtags on my Twitter account, which displays your hashtags even if you have a private Twitter account. Maybe their system is currently lagged when it comes to new entries?

Caveat 2: If you have a private Twitter account or are sending a group tweet message (such as on medlibs), your #Pubmed tag won't appear on the Twitter search results.

If all of the above didn't make much sense, check out Alison Aldrich's post on the Dragonfly for a great Twitter 101 introduction.

If it did make sense, please contribute your #pubmed thoughts on Twitter separate from your usual discussion of Pubmed (which is still searchable here)! To my knowledge there is not an official NLM presence on Twitter, but I will share this with NLM and encourage them to consider this as a type of social network feedback that is targeted and concise so they won't have to wade through a bunch of noise to get to the point.

Friday Foolery #12: Card carrying member

I think you'd have to be on a serious research mission to put up with the post-9/11 level of security required to actually get in the National Library of Medicine to use their Reading Room, but it is still possible. You can request up to 50 articles per day from their stacks with your own library card, complete with a warning on the back that

It is a violation of Federal Law and punishable by fine and/or imprisonment to steal of willfully damage or destroy Library Books or other Library property.

Here is information about how to receive your own NLM library card when you visit. It was suggested to us as a personalized souvenir opportunity by our NLM tour guide, so please go ahead. It's fun and takes 5 minutes! The machine that churns the cards out now doesn't look like the one in the video at all. It's much more compact and makes a lot of funky noises before it finally spits out this card with your minimized electronic signature & mug shot on it. At the bottom of the webpage is a map; the computers for the first step are in the Online Catalogs section then you head to the Patron Registration Desk to process the card.

Be sure to head over to the History of Medicine Reading Room and peer in at their Incunabula (texts made with movable type before 1501). I do not have synesthesia, but if I did the word Incunabula is one of the closest ones to trigger a response in me to it. Outside the Incunabula (last time, I promise) they had the book with the mandrake illustration in it from 1491!

PubMed & the Discovery Initiative

Why do they keep changing PubMed so much lately? It is driving me crazy!

NCBI: Discovery Initiative.

... huh?

When you hear about the National Library of Medicine (NLM), what do you think of? For most of us the PubMed database is probably at the top of the list. However, PubMed is a very far cry from all the biomedical information resources that NLM encompasses. PubMed is the default at the top of the Databases box on that Entrez page, but have you seen this Entrez cross-database search that gives a brief annotation about the other NLM databases? Try out your favorite medical subject in the cross-database search box and see how it displays the results. It's a nice way to see what might be relevant in these other databases, right?

Nobody knows about the cross-database search (not exactly a catchy name) and the entire research world knows about PubMed though. Leading the creators of the 3+ million searches per day of PubMed to explore these other databases that may be of great value to their medical research yet are completely unknown to them is the driving factor behind what is referred to as the 'Discovery Initiative' of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which is part of NLM.

Most of this work has been done quietly behind the scenes since the summer of 2005, preparing the backend infrastructure to handle this increased connectivity among the databases according to a Bio-IT World news article from January 30, 2006. In a Bio-IT interview published on February 1, 2006, Dr. David Lipman, NCBI Director, explains this concept further

I call it the Discovery Initiative. It’s something new. It’s been percolating. Last summer, I went out to visit Google and Amazon’s A9 [search engine] and the folks from Microsoft’s MSN came to visit. I also went up to Boston to meet with folks from the major hospitals there and MIT and Harvard. We’ve really been giving this a lot of thought. In many ways, we have had great success. Lots of people use the site and 2.25 terabytes of data are downloaded from our site everyday. And yet I find it very frustrating because we’ve connected up the scientific information in very precise and powerful ways: a protein structure to the chemical it’s bound to, to genetic data, you name it. All that is connected up. And yet very few of our users do more than very simple things with our site. It’s as if [they say], “That’s enough, I found the answer I’m looking for and I’m done.” We want them to find answers to questions they didn’t even know they had.

They're trying to make PubMed like GOOGLE?!

Not really. PubMed will never recommend you go check out WebMD & someone who has a website about a rare disease just because they have the same keywords in their metadata. Think along the lines of the suggested products when you're shopping at Amazon.com. If you're searching for information about genetics in PubMed, in the future you probably will receive the 'But WAIT! There's MORE!' blurb about Gene, NLM's database of genes. From Dr. Lipman's February 1st interview,

The bottom line for us is discovery. We want people to make discoveries, and if we’re using up real estate on the Web page for things people don’t click on, and if we can put things on there that would have been associated information, then we should do that.

and

It marks a change in perspective and philosophy that will lead to constant changes in the system [in coming years].

Where was this Discovery Initiative announced to the medical library community and discussed?

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Middle Atlantic Region (NN/LM MAR) blog entry on February 7, 2006 cites the Bio-IT article as "the official word about the new NCBI Initiative." The October 2006 minutes of the PubMed Central National Advisory Committee note Dr. Lipman referring to the Discovery Initiative as "one of the most important projects NLM is working on." I encourage you to go to the source article for additional comments and insights about it from the committee.

There are additional brief mentions in the May-June 2007 NIH Catalyst (for NIH intramural scientists), and an NIH advertising feature in Nature from 2007, and the Nature citation was mentioned by someone in the comments to the Anna Kushnir incident on March 22, 2008. Other than these scattered bits of information, I can't find anything else. NLM Technical Bulletin has no mention of 'Discovery Initiative', MEDLIB-L has no mention of 'Discovery Initiative', and MEDLIB-L posts including either 'PubMed' or 'NCBI' around the same time as the Bio-IT & MAR blog posts don't appear to discuss it either. If you're aware of other sources that do discuss the NCBI Discovery Initiative, please post a comment and I will gladly edit my post to include them.

Why am I hearing about this from you almost 3 years later?

The changes you are now and will continue to see in PubMed are a result of the Discovery Initiative, which I heard mentioned for the first time during NLM orientation last week. I made a note of that term to research it further since I am new not only to my job but the field of medical librarianship. I thought I didn't know about something everyone else already did.

In my opinion, the existence and ramifications of NCBI's Discovery Initiative weren't communicated as clearly or as widely as they needed to be to the medical library community in 2006. It still isn't being mentioned as the reason behind the changes that are now rolling out at the front end of PubMed (remember my first shoutout about this back in May and my guide to the Chicago presentation in June?) and will continue to do so for a while. I am but one humble blogger, but believe that the more the history, background and reasons behind change are explained, discussed and understood, the better the outcome of the change is for everyone.

A tip: Start using Advanced Search now if you haven't already, the tabs are becoming obsolete for updates and are probably on their way out next year.

WHAT?!

The old "tab" version of Limits will not be updated. Future changes will be made only to the limit feature on the Advanced Search screen.

(December 5, 2008 NLM Technical Bulletin, which I really wish wouldn't be referred to as the TB. I like Tech Bull since I'm a moderately geeky Taurus!)

If you are not already subscribed to the NLM Technical Bulletin, I definitely recommend it to know what's on the horizon.

I'll have more reflections on this, communication, and medical librarianship work culture in a post next week and encourage you to share and participate from your perspective. What do you think about this?

NLM: Second Life vs. Reality

I'm a fan of the security process (no fences, no guards who wand you spreadeagled in front of your colleagues after your watch sets off the metal detector, just fly on in!) and perpetual Spring at the Virtual National Library of Medicine (Virtual NLM) in Second Life (SL) compared to the real life deal in Bethesda, MD.

The Virtual NLM seats in a completely empty auditorium, yet they still won't allow you sit down on them? Not so much.

During my recent orientation at NLM (the real deal), Second Life was mentioned more than a few times so I came over to check things out. I freely admit I have no clue how to do much except basic navigation in Second Life since I've logged on to it maybe 4 times, but can envision this as a great distance education platform to go well beyond PowerPoint & web pages. Since Adobe Connect functionality is pushing it for some rural/lower income areas I know SL's massive memory consumption & connectivity speed requirements are major barriers for the time being though.

I will share more information about my time at NLM, including some blurbs about PubMed and cool new things in production now, during the week. Stay tuned!

Friday Foolery #11: Worthless PubMed trivia query

I'm at the National Library of Medicine for orientation this week where I'm learning loads of useful information. I was worried that I'd have no content to add to my Foolery line and would have to research or come up with something original (I don't recommend that after jumping 3 time zones) when the perfect solution arrived Thursday afternoon.

In PubMed, how many articles were indexed for MEDLINE on your birthday assuming that was a business day from 1966 onward (more on earlier dates soon), not a weekend or holiday, and not during late Nov/December/first few days of January? (more on that at the bottom))

What, how can I do that, you ask?

medline[sb] AND YYYY/MM/DD[mhda]

My son's example of 2,896 articles indexed is


What if you were born in 1949-1965? (MeSH wasn't around before then, sorry)
I did not make this up, it's just fact

oldmedline[sb] AND YYYY/MM/DD

How about for the full year?

medline[sb] AND YYYY:YYYY[mhda]

For 2002 there were 615,062 articles indexed.


Compare that to my birthday (144!) & year (219,614) in the 1970s. I'm not sure if I was born on a slow day or what.

2008 ends with 676,277 articles indexed. What is the deal about nothing being indexed in late November-early January? They're preparing for 2009 MeSH.

Go ahead and make the PubMed staff wonder what the deal is with all these searches coming in! :)