The Search Principle blog

The other day, I posted about renewing my commitment to ending breast cancer.

Since then I’ve had a number of supportive e-mails, as Meredith says, from my ‘peeps’ including an invitation from University of Alberta’s Pam Ryan who is the national coordinator of Librarians Run for the Cure.

Again, here, is the power of social software: my blog connecting me with others; social networking sites like Facebook bringing people together to organize for various causes like the Run for the Cure.

Makes me feel good inside after a week of heartache. Dean

Occasionally, I lurk on the scientific blogs at PLoS and Nature. Here’s a post, written by an unhappy PubMed searcher, that was brought to my attention by Graham Steel:

“Why is PubMed so behind the times? Why? How does it even work? Does it search only the abstract? Does it also search the body of the papers that are available online? Why does it get so massively confused by an author’s initials and last name together, in one search? Why can’t it alert me when papers relevant to my work are published? When is it going to get better? Is there any chance this might happen before my dissertation is due? Because frankly, it’s driving me more bats than the dissertation itself.”

Here’s a teachable moment. I wonder if Nature has health librarians on staff? I didn’t realize that some scientists felt this way about the premier search tool in medicine. I’d like to take on the challenge of helping her out, taking her questions, and maybe sharing some pointers about how to use this powerful database. Chat me up!

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with blog widgets, and have given up on Meebo. I found I missed messages, forgot to sign in and didn’t ‘hear’ the bleeps of incoming messages. In short, I gave up and have gone to Google talk. Chat me up!

I actually Google-talked with Amy Buckland, one of this year’s Canadian LJ Movers and Shakers via her blog. She’s a mover and shaker at McGill’s Library School, President of the student librarians, etc. etc. I must tell you how generous and welcoming she was, and we had a good chat. I want to congratulate Amy again publicly for being mentioned among such an impressive group of library professionals. Amy is today’s true professional and emerging star. Bravo Amy.

Unfortunately, breast cancer is a disease that has affected a number of close colleagues and family. As an information professional, I have made a special commitment to refer these patients to the right sources of information, cancer libraries and specialists. In oncology, even where many breast cancer patients face a recurrence, reliable information can provide succour and comfort at a very difficult, uncertain time.

Due to confidentiality, information professionals do not disclose details of their interactions with patients. But imagine a hypothetical situation where a single mom of two living in a remote area of Canada learns of a breast cancer recurrence.

This is an extreme example of the importance of open access to evidence-based information. Imagine how this problem is compounded by the challenges of waiting lists and poor health care coverage. Fortunately, a number of excellent consumer information tools and websites can help. And other empowered patients interested in participating in the Cochrane Collaboration can provide feedback to the Cochrane Consumer Network.

Health librarians are important allies in providing care to breast cancer patients. We are trained to lead them to the best information based on our knowledge of sources and our ability to interpret clinical questions.

Teresa Lee, current editor of JCHLA/JABSC (and former NLM fellow) is a terrific colleague, very knowledgeable and positive, and I have had the pleasure of working with her at UBC Library on a number of projects. (Teresa backfilled for me last year for which I am very grateful.)

Recently, Teresa and I have been discussing the possibility of my writing a regular teaching and learning column for JCHLA to explore some of the issues around teaching, our new roles in teaching information skills and expanding our teaching repertoires. I want to explore how better to engage our learners in our teaching efforts and how we should be directing our own lifelong learning as professionals.

My feeling is that a key responsibility for librarians in the ‘Google age’ is to teach information skills, including web 2.0 skills – but, also understanding different learning styles and preferences.

Thinking back to 2005 when I first offered a Google scholar workshop, I remember the criticism we faced for diverting attention from tools like MDConsult and Ovid. But this move was driven by my users’ expressed learning needs. How times have changed – we are now teaching all kinds of free social software and search tools, and strategize how to engage learners while having a good time doing it (most days 🙂

The truth is we need even more strategies in our toolkit to change the way we do things. The drop we are seeing in the use of print collections and physical libraries is only going to continue. What will happen in five years? Ten? What do you think?

There is considerable talk in some hospital library quarters of moving to virtual hospital libraries and even closing physical branch libraries. We’ve heard these threats before but they seem more real nowadays. How we stem the tide of these critical losses will depend on how we articulate our relevance and how we carve out new roles for ourselves in the emerging environment.

For me, that involves managing our digital assets, promoting e-learning and our evolving teaching roles.

This is a new entry (and part of a new series) on the UBC Health Library wiki on Canadian medical librarians who have made a difference in our profession. The first up is the enigmatic but impressively progressive and outspoken Margaret Ridley Charlton:

“Margaret Ridley Charlton (1858-1931) was an early pioneer in medical librarianship in Canada. She helped to found the Association of Medical Librarians which later (in 1907) became the MLA – Medical Library Association (U.S.). (Some decades later, in 1976, a group of Canadian MLA health librarians formed the core of what was to become our national association, CHLA/ABSC (Canada).)

Founded in 1823, the McGill University Medical Library was integral to the university’s Faculty of Medicine where Charlton held the title of “Librarian”. In 1895, she completed a summer course at Amherst College in the at-that-time emerging area of librarianship, and likely studied under Melvil Dewey. In 1896, Charlton was appointed the library’s first Assistant Librarian, a position she occupied until 1914 when she resigned and moved to Toronto to be Librarian of the Academy of Medicine.”

Please let me know if you think a Canadian medical or health librarian, past or present, deserves recognition.

It’s my pleasure to announce the publication of Allan’s article (I was second author) in our national journal. I am proud to be a librarian in this day and age, and to work with so many wonderful young, savvy new librarians. It’s amazing how great these new librarians are! Allan typifies the new generation: he knows how to connect with people, to make the most of any situation and to advocate for our profession.

Allan is today’s star on the rise! Congratulations Allan. (Check out his blog too…)

Cho A, Giustini D. Web 3.0 and health librarians: an introduction. Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association. 29:13-18, 2008.

I learned today that I have blogged more than 500 posts at this blog. It’s been quite a journey, full of highs and lows, and even the sense that I’m now part of a critical discourse involving health librarianship – and our future in the post-web 2.0 universe.

And, I realize that comes with some responsibility to represent us – all health library workers – in a positive light. Of course, I can’t worry about it too much because I have to speak up (and out at times) at things I disagree with while not ruining the place I have found for myself, and as an advocate for my profession.

However, I think that it’s important to look critically at both one’s successes and failures, and how you can mediate them through socially normative processes, and by avoiding certain transgressions. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I didn’t make some mistakes, either speaking out of turn or saying something to someone that I frankly shouldn’t have. (Mea culpa – mega culpa?) For one, I think it’s important to reflect on what we do as professionals. It ensures some sense of balance, objectivity and some perspective on one’s best (and not-so-best) accomplishments. I think the best way for me to do this is to write a wiki article!

(See its progression over the next few weeks here….)

Digital reputations: upholding them in pre-web 3.0
“In this paper, I explore some of the successes I have had in building a digital reputation, and in advocating for the profession of health librarianship since I commenced blogging in 2005. However, I also look critically at some of my failures, and mis-steps, both to recognize certain opportunities and seize upon them but also with an eye to looking carefully at their impact on my identity management in a pre-web 3.0 context. I draw on a number of examples, and examine how these cases may have had a hand in shaping my emerging digital reputation both negatively and positively. In doing so, I draw on the theories of social situatedness by Varela and Vygkotsky, and Bourdieu’s social theories in shaping this discourse.”

My work with the Canadian Council on Learning last year had me mucking around with grey literature in the best (and worst) way. Doing exhaustive, expert searching in education-related areas is extremely difficult and time-consuming (think weeks); the educational literature is fragmented, difficult to find and Canadian content suffers from a lack of accessibility. Canadian grey lit is even more difficult to find given a lack of our own ERIC database for our national bibliography (yes, ERIC is American-biased).

There’s a possibility that a group of us will be discussing these issues at the Campbell Collaboration here in Vancouver in May. In the meantime, I’m working on the greylit wiki entry based on the work that Diane Helmer and I did at the 2006 CHLA/ABSC Conference. (btw, here’s the inadequate Wikipedia entry.)

Marcus Banks and I have shared ideas about the end of grey lit. Formerly hard to find literatures are now easier to track down by health librarians. But they’ll be even easier to find if we see web 3.0 to fruition.

I went on a bit of a bender with the Facebook story involving Ryerson student Chris Avenir (who now has a Wikipedia entry – gotta love that). But thank goodness cool heads prevailed – he won’t be expelled. Well, according to the press, he’s as innocent as you can get in a university academic misconduct hearing involving something as incendiary as using Facebook to study.

This is an historic day in two senses of the word, and for two people: Barack Obama (arguably the shrewdest web 2.0 politician ever) and Chris Avenir (the kid who’ll always be linked to Facebook). This is what the ancients called a kairos moment, Greek for a time of destiny; a time when attitudes change.