LIBR534 student, Nancy Anderson, over at Consumer health forum blog, has done an initial evaluation of Healia, a new consumer health search vortal in beta (written about before here at Google scholar blog). Check it out; Nancy’s a natural. Dean
I’ve emerged from my summer of discontent – maybe it’s because our next class is entitled Back to Print. Digital access is great, but I want to show students how health librarians used to memorize hundreds of information sources. Remember the titles imprinted in our minds? Dorland’s, Stedman’s, Gray’s Anatomy, Harrison’s, Campbell’s Orthopedics, Rudolph’s Pediatrics, Schwartz’ Surgery? Well, many of those titles are still around in print AND online, and they are fully-searchable.
For some reference questions, we no longer have to recall memorized sources, and what they cover. We don’t have to fuss with tables of contents, back of book indexes – it’s all searchable now, every last word. All print will eventually be textword searchable, for all published materials across all time periods. Library school students will not be able to handle the sheer volume – nay, the avalanche – of information in Web 2.0 unless they can find a way to tolerate overload and duplication. Repeat. Remix.
For now, let’s simulate how I learned reference. The old way. Back to print.
My advice to our LIBR534 students is similar to that provided to clinicians who are learning how to find the best evidence. Experiment. Use as many tools and sources as you can (or, as many as you can tolerate), and assess what works best for you. Through trial and error, you can begin to piece together your impressions of the medical bibliography into some coherent view.
Learning how to search is an iterative process. Up to now, Greg and I have tried to illustrate at least two dimensions of searching: 1) navigating the major biomedical databases, and 2) using techniques to refine/ define clinical questions. Simply put, clinical questions and information needs are synonymous, and where EBM begins. Then, the fun part – effective information retrieval.
Let’s take a second look at EBM searching (thanks noodle-tools for the inspiration):
1. You need to start by defining your search, and its terms:
– for definitions of terms, use a dictionary, the MeSH browser or Google define.
– for overall understanding of diseases and treatments, use one of our handy subject guides, standard medical textbooks, browse MEDLINEplus or e-Medicine.
2. From there, you can wade into finding the best evidence:
– formulate a strategy; map search; find your terms/MeSH/ filters.
– complete recall needed? optimization (balanced precision/recall) or browsability?
– for clinicians who want immediate answers, use a point-of-care decision making tool or PubMed’s clinical queries, for quick deliverables.
Next week, we’re going back to print books. Oh – remember them – where the evidence used to be found (and still is for many physicians). Dean
Categories
UBC Health Library wiki – new logo
In collaboration with SLAIS’ Shirley Lew, the newly formed wiki committee, and LSL webmaster Suzan Zagar (a technical wiz), we have a new logo for the UBC Health Library wiki. Isn’t it grand? – Dean
Tom Eng over at Healia e-mailed to say that Healia http://www.healia.com/ will be given its official international launch this Monday with improved algorithms, better filters, spelling suggestions, and de-coding abbreviations and acronyms. I’ll get our LIBR534 students to assess it, and we’ll write a review here. See here also.
Categories
Social software LIBR534
Check out the post over at UBC’s The Social Library about LIBR534. – Dean
In light of my interview with one of the developers of the TRIP Database, and the fact that it is now open access, I have completed the September 2006 update of the Sources of Evidence on the Open Web handout. Let me know if something is missing, or inaccurate. – Dean
ps. See also: Point-of-care decision-making tools in the UBC HL-Wiki.
Today’s post is an interview with Jon Brassey, from the TRIP Database, a great chap whom I’ve gotten to know since early 2006. Since moving to an open search model last week, TRIP has been the subject of numerous conversations about what TRIP’s move means for medical searching, and foraging for evidence on the open Web.
TRIP has enormous potential in bringing the highest levels of evidence (from a wide range of EBM sources) to the top of information retrieval results.
Here are his answers to some of my questions during an e-mail interview:
*****************************
1. Congratulations on making the TRIP Database open access, or should I say “open search“. Are you trying to take on Google scholar? [I wish you would.]
Jon: Thanks for that. Take on Google scholar? No, I don’t see it like that. TRIP is a search tool principally focussed on answering clinical questions with a heavy debt to EBM principles. That makes it different on a number of points:
– For a tool to be evidence-based it must be transparent, something we try hard to be. There is a lack of transparency on the part of Google scholar.
– Focus. Our aim is to answer clinical questions. The search algorithm is based on our experience of answering nearly 10,000 clinical questions over recent years. We have an idea of what sources, and other attributes, are good for answering questions. My view is that Scholar is not a tool to help clinicians answer clinical questions.
*****************************
2. In a nutshell, why should physicians search TRIP? Who, besides physicians, should use TRIP?
Jon: TRIP was designed with real clinicians in mind; those with a few minutes, at best, to get an answer. We have been pretty successful at delivering on this. So any health professional who wants high quality results returned quickly, should use TRIP.
*****************************
3. What search tools should be used in conjunction with TRIP?
Jon: Linking in with question 2 it depends on time and circumstance. We often get e-mails from people undertaking systematic reviews, in which case they need to use lots of other sources e.g. MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane etc.
I think the other essential database to use is MEDLINE. TRIP automatically searches PubMed (via the clinical queries interface) and this works very well and is a popular feature. Other sources I use, in answering clinical questions, include Cochrane, Google, RxList and Google Scholar.
*****************************
4. You have your own blog, and wiki. What’s next for Jon Brassey?
Jon: Well the wiki ganfyd (http://ganfyd.org) is not my own wiki. I’ve been invited on as the contributors are meant to be clinicians. Apparently, I have “special skills”. I’m actually very keen to have a go at podcasting and have some meetings arranged to discuss taking this forward.
*****************************
5. We’re seeing Google and Microsoft monetize every aspect of Web searching – but no one has come up with a Google Medicine prototype. I think you’ve come as close to achieving a portal in medicine as anyone, including SumSearch. What’s next for TRIP?
Jon: Well I still have significant work on the search algorithm, as it could be further improved. One example [is tracking search queries] by URL geolocation. So if we know that someone from Canada is searching then the Canadian guidelines would feature more highly than others. I’m also interested in exploring wireless searching. Due to the nature of TRIP it cannot be stored on a PDA – it’ll need an Internet connection. With the significant increase in wireless access I think TRIP needs to make itself more wireless-friendly.
There are also a few fun features I’d like to get off the ground. I say fun as they are not core to the search but I personally like them and you never know they might prove useful:
– Related articles. I love the feature on PubMed. I explored it seriously a few years ago and the maths was amazing.
– Ask us a question. I think our search engine is pretty good but if users don’t find an answer we’ve let them down. So why not allow them to leave their question? The obvious problem is scale, say we get 10 million searches a years and 10% don’t find answers – that’s a million potential questions. So we obviously need to think about, and fund, a potential mechanism.
*****************************
6. Do you have access to a good medical librarian? If you could ask them to teach you something, what would it be?
Jon: We employ a number of information specialists, including medical librarians. We also work closely with a significant number of others. As such, whenever I’ve come across some uncertainty, I’ve always asked their advice. I still have a number of gaps in my knowledge but two stand out:
– Skills on my non-standard databases e.g. Embase, Psychlit
– Skills in carrying out a full systematic review. In answering our clinical questions we have 4 hours maximum and as such need to cut corners. I’d love to do a systematic review – but time and skills are against me.
This week in class, our LIBR534 students were introduced to health and medical blogging, blog searching and new vs. old media. But some have asked for clarification about the pedagogy behind blogs. My intuition has been that blogging is useful for journalling, outreach to colleagues, and creating informal e-conversations, especially with our users. An added benefit is communicating outside our institutions with database vendors like OVID and EBSCO.
Looking to the library science literature, the paucity of research showing value is a concern, especially whether blogs are useful sources of information.
That said, I did find this relevant article:
Bar-Ilan J. Information hub blogs. J Inform Sci. 2005; 31 (4): 297-307.
From the conclusion:
“Professional blogs are excellent [information hubs, and] sources of secondary or tertiary information. Most information (apart from occasional extensive discussions of topics) can be easily found elsewhere, but these blogs concentrate and filter it, and they can be viewed as one-stop information kiosks or information hubs. The postings are based mainly on information appearing in other weblogs, news items and press releases. Often, in addition to pointing to information sources, the bloggers provide commentary and express their opinion on the issues at hand.”
Dr. Ves Dimov – over at Clinical Cases and Images blog – and I have communicated over the past eight months. I interviewed Ves about his use of Google, and his overall search habits here.
You might call Dr. Dimov a champion for Web 2.0 for physicians. Ves is a natural ally for health librarians as well, and the type of physician that we really want/ need on our library committees.
Ves is this week’s host for Best Posts in the Medical Blogosphere. Dr. Dimov is also interviewed by the popular medical website Medscape here about his use of Internet blogging in training medical residents at the Cleveland Clinic hospitalist group.
I think of Ves as the Robert Scoble among physicians. Ves: we really must write that article about convergence and Web 2.0 for NEJM, and soon. – Dean