The Search Principle blog

After eight months, the UBC Health Library wiki is taking hold. Initially developed to support the work of LIBR534 at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, the wiki is moving way beyond its original audience and purpose. However, a number of difficulties remain.

One pernicious problem is participation. Honestly, the wiki has been authored mostly by the UBC Google scholar so why didn’t I just publish a book? Well, I think my role is not to publish as much as find ways/mechanisms/tools to encourage health librarians to work together. To create together.

It’s not enough for librarians to horde information anymore. We must create it. Share it. Remix and repurpose it. So, I’ve unilaterally decided to start signing the articles in the wiki. I have a hunch it will increase participation. Let’s see how it works.

ps. Here are the top ten categories at UBC Health Library wiki based on traffic:

1. Evidence-based health care (7,130 views)

2. RSS (5,021 views)

3. Google scholar (4,680 views)

4. Reference collections (4,623 views)

5. Bloggers in health & medicine (4,255 views)

6. Wikis (3,949 views)

7. Gaming in health libraries (3,300 views)

8. Point of care decision-making tools (3,059 views)

9. Institutional repositories (2,902 views)

10. Filters & hedges (2,809 views)

Will I return to UBC Google scholar blog? Don’t know. Will I continue at OM blog? I have committed for a year. After that, I’ve been thinking about a new blog called The Search Principle(al). It would be a direct competitor to other search blogs.

Remember the Google foofarah? This last month seems to be equally intense. Just thought I’d check in with UBC Google scholar readers (~100 per day, still!) to bring you up to date on my sabbatical, and what’s been happening at Open Medicine.

I love my collaboration with the dedicated group of medical colleagues at Open Medicine. During our weekly teleconferences, the editorial team really gets into the nitty-gritties of running the journal. I enjoy the personalities. Our discussions are quite varied, but run the gamut from Creative Commons licenses, wordsmithing, the functionality of the blog to the differences between an appearance of a conflict of interest vis a vis an actual conflict of interest (OM doesn’t accept money from pharmaceutical or medical device companies). However, we do accept and need donations. Be a Friend of Open Medicine.

In the midst of OM’s launch two weeks ago, a reporter called to ask for comment about the World Health Organization‘s plan to use wiki technology to revise the ICD-10. Sure! I’ll tell you what I think. The story “WHO adopts Wikipedia model” was remixed and refashioned numerous times, generating lots of e-mails. My few quotes appeared in major and minor Canadian newspapers. Fifteen minutes of craziness.

Then the British Medical Journal asked for my throughts about “Using online sources” in an era of wikis. The best part of the media experience? The opportunity to tell the world about what librarians do. And, the exposure on radio and print media. You can’t buy this type of media exposure for our profession.

I wonder if librarians don’t need to be more savvy about media manipulation? Library schools should think about more coursework on media (traditional vs. old) – oh, and handling the media, a learned skill. Interviews can be terrifying. I’m just happy I haven’t screwed up bad, or made my profession look foolish.

You can always e-mail me to tell me otherwise. Talk to you soon…Dean

Eugene Barsky at UBC Physio blog and I are offering an introductory workshop on social software at the 2007 Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA/ABSC) conference in Ottawa. We would be remiss if we didn’t use social software ourselves – blogs, wikis and podcasting software, not to mention RSS feeds – and we have set up a series of files to support the workshop here.

Please provide us with some feedback. Or e-mail me directly. Dean

My sabbatical is going by too fast. That said, it’s been wonderful to be involved in the launch of the new journal, Open Medicine. How many times does the opportunity to collaborate with smart, sane and decent people come up? I am going to use the UBC Google scholar blog in the weeks to come to bring people into the Open Medicine blog. The OM blog will be used to discuss issues arising from the published research, and today’s post is about the Gordon Guyatt systematic review, which, as you know, involves a lot of searching. In this case, the search was done by my colleague at McMaster University, Neera Bhatnager, one of the organizers for CLARITY every summer. Go have a look…Dean

The Allen Press’ Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing seminar (held last week in Washington, D.C.) focussed on the practical uses and application of social software in scientific, medical and technological domains – but also the real and possible social impact of Web 2.0 tools. Prominent ideas for me? egalitarianism in publishing and peer review vs. reconciling the need for viable business models and maintaining efficiency and high standards in publishing. See my thoughts in progress about Web 2.0 and medicine.

Two of the speakers, Richard Akerman, the only other Canadian, and Konrad Förstner, are bloggers – check out their posts. A number of medical publishers were in attendance such as the New England Journal of Medicine, and several association publishers, who expressed interest in the launch of Open Medicine.

Keynote speaker Jaron Lanier was a whirlwind of intellect, and random pieces of insight that had mixed results, depending on your perspective. Like many intellects, Jaron sees and makes connections mere mortals do not, and uses the excitement of public fora to explore new ideas while adrenalin courses through his body.

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My trip to the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland on day II was definitely a highlight of my trip to D.C. The engaging Canadian Robin Featherstone, one of the NLM associate fellows was my knowledgeable tourguide through NLM. Touring through the bowels of the Library was an eye-opener, especially seeing the ‘three football fields worth of collections’ in compact shelving, and the DOCLINE activity on each floor.

Apparently, Dr. Lindberg was in the house, but I only glanced over at his surprisingly small cubicle in the top part of the Sputnik rotunda of the Library. The NLM associates were a lively group, especially Courtney Crummett and my tourguide Robin Featherstone, who reminded me of how important two-way mentoring is in health sciences librarianship between experienced and new librarians. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be mentored by these newcomers??

Hi blog-readers,

Yesterday, Eugene over at UBC Physio-blog participated in a blogger’s salon, organized by the inimitable, enthusiastic Brian Lamb. The session pointed out the commonalities (and differences) among education-related blogs. I tip my hat to Eugene for his excellent work at UBC Library, and for mentioning this blog.

I’m working with the clinical and academic folks at Open Medicine on branding, overall vision and purpose for our new, peer-reviewed, independent, open-access journal. A few interviews are coming up with journalists, and Nature Medicine is writing a piece on wikis and Web 2.0 that includes a few quotes from yours truly.

Yes, it’s true I will begin blogging in less than two weeks. What a difference six weeks make! for a blogger. The OM Blog will look a lot like this branding template, but we need to replace the photo on the far right. Any suggestions? See you soon, peace out! Dean

You just can’t keep a blogger down.

The editorial board at Open Medicine and I are working on the details of a new blog, with a new voice – with me at the helm. (Yes, during the sabbatical.) It will likely have a byline such as “Discourse for physicians and medical librarians”. I doubt that there is a single blog in the blogosphere that provides a forum for discourse between physicians and librarians. This, despite the importance of searching – and medical librarians – in evidence-based practice.

In the meantime, let me thank all of you for your e-mails about the BMJ editorial – I’m glad it’s been useful and is creating conversations….Web 2.0 is alive and well. Dean

Giustini D. How Web 2.0 is changing medicine: is a medical wikipedia the next step?. British Medical Journal. Xmas Issue. December 23rd, 2006

“Few concepts in information technology create more confusion than Web 2.0. The truth is that Web 2.0 is a difficult term to define, even for web experts…”