Welcome to the MedLib’s Round 1.9. This month, the MedLib’s Round did not specify a special theme. This may have encouraged medical librarians and you to submit articles as 13 16 people took part in this round. It is always interesting to read medical librarians’ concerns as they are using state-of-the-art tools and techniques to work better and face the new challenges of communication, information retrieval and are always keen on sharing their impression on new services and debates. You will notice that this month, the MedLib’s Round leaves room for discussions on Social Media, web 2.0 services and Tips for health.

Thoughts

• David Eddy Delivers Controversial Reinertsen Lecture About Future of Evidence-based Medicine posted at ICSI Health Care Blog by Kent Bottles, MD.

Dr. David Eddy is a controversial doctor that questions the reliability of evidence-based medicine. He was invited at the Institute for Clinical System Improvements by Kent Bottles, Chief Knowledge Officer at this institute in early november. His conference was remarkable for two reasons. First one is that more than 300 people gathered to attend it. Second is that no one would have guessed Dr. David Eddy would challenge people to think about the future of ICSI and of evidence-based medicine. An extensive post you should read to keep updated on the future of evidence based medicine. (Follow Kent Bottles on twitter)

• Technology & Medicine: new screens on Alisha764’s blog

Alisha Miles shares with us her interest for new technologies and their interest for medicine and health information. In that case, she focuses on the new screens available or on the market or to be released soon and wonders about their possible uses. (Follow Alisha764 on twitter)

Social Media in health

• How Can We Help? Roles for Librarians in Public Health on PH/HA News by Alison Aldrich

Alison exposes her feelings after she attended the American Public Health Association conferences. Her post is a nice sum up of the conference and the people that were there as lecturers. The amount of conferences about social media for health matters lets us guess its importance in discussions. She raises a great question about the importance of advocating open access to public health research too. Indeed, she spent a time in the National Library of Medicine’s booth in the exhibit hall where she could talk about one common question: “how can I get all of your journal articles for free?“.

• What is Google Wave and why should I care? on Krafty Library.

Michelle sums up what is google Wave about and how you can use it. This article will be perfect for you to discover, understand and start using Wave in a proper way. She describes how medecial librarians have already created dedicated waves but still doubts about usefulness of the tool. (Follow her on Krafty)

• Manhunt: Google Wave for Community (Emergency?) Communication posted at Eagle Dawg Blog by Nicole S. Dettmar.

Nicole took part in the google wave about the manhunt in Seattle that happened in early december. She shows how powerful was the very google wave as to information exchange and how users helped enriching previous content. At the same time, she raises the problem of false information in waves (new email tool from google encouraging real time exchange) and spam that may get into these new communication channels. (Follow EagleDawg on twitter)

• FDASM Highlights for UM Stakeholders, pt. 1: Early Presenters as SWOT-Plus posted at Emerging Technologies Librarian by Patricia F Anderson

Patricia wrote a great post (the second) on the highlights of the FDASM. The FDASM is an initiative from the FDA about the use of internet and social media for health related communications for FDA-regulated products. This public hearing held in early november was a beginning to knowing and discovering how to use social media channels to communicate about products. In that field, she recalls how the FDA has already been providing essential resources online. There is more to learn and I encourage you to read it. (Follow Patricia F. Anderson on twitter)

Web 2.0 services for health

• Biomedical search on Biomedsearch by Dr. Shock on Shock M.D.

In this article, we learn with Dr Shock about a new tool that wants to provide free access to documents relating to the biomedical field. He explains the functions of this search engine and wonders about whether it can be an alternative to the redesigned pubmed.

• How to switch from one to the other antidepressant by Dr Shock.

There’s one common problem with antidepressant which is either that the antidepressant does not work or provokes side effects. When that happens, you have to switch from one to another. This can be a tricky task and Dr. Shock presents us some great resources websites to manage it. (Follow Dr. Shock on twitter)

• Medpedia Now Includes News & Analysis, Alerts, Q&A by Walter Jessen on HighlightHealth

Walter Jessen focuses here on new functionalities brought recently to Medpedia and create a richer experience for users. Mepdedia is a medical wiki and has useful functionalities. You will now be able to use in Medpedia the following features: News & Analysis from over 150 professionals, Alerts from real time web platforms and Answers (a kind of medical Yahoo Answers). He then wonders about the possibility for Medpedia to become a medical wikipedia thanks to the amount of reliable information it has. (Follow HighlightHealth on twitter)

Tips

• Adding Methodological Filters to MyNCBI posted at Laika’s MedLibLog by Jacqueline

Jacqueline has created a great tutorial to learn how to add methodological filters to MyNCBI. MyNCBI is one’s account on Pubmed. Obviously, creating filters is a must-use option when you are keen on research and need to automate search processes. In that case, she shows how Pubmed allows to create and run advanced filters to save time. It is always nice to read well detailed techniques that will turn the reader in a better prepared person for searches. Jacqueline writes a lot about Pubmed and she has a great experience with it. Enjoy learning with her. (Follow Laikas on twitter)

• How to follow Twitter users in Google Reader on Clinical Cases and Images Blog by Dr. Ves Dimov.

In this post, Dr. Ves Dimov (who has a great blog in medicine) makes us discover a way to easily read Twitter updates without even following the people via Google Reader. Dr. Ves Dimov explains how this approach makes it easier for him to manage multiple information streams. Plus, Google Reader is web-based and can be accessed from any devide with an interent connection. (Follow Dr. Ves Dimov on twitter)

• How to make and maintain a Library Twitter account on DigiCMB by Guus Van Den Brekel

Guus shows in this example of a new twitter account how to fine tune parameters to receive all the possible interesting updates and twitts right into your twitter account. This tutorial will definitely take you to the best practices in terms of interconnection and follow up! (Follow DigiCMB on twitter)

• Allergy Notes: If you think blogs don’t matter, think again: this blog is the number one search result for “allergic rhinitis guidelines” on Allergy News Updated Daily Blog Dr. Ves Dimov.

Interesting reflexion by Dr. Ves Dimov on the role of blogs when looking for information online through search engines. From the example “allergic rhinitis guidelines” which is the first result on Google, and a blog post -hence listed before NEJM- he shares with us his vision of the future of search results. Blogs and fresh content can play a significant role but better quality source should always be sought for. (Follow Dr. Ves Dimov on twitter)

• A review of the main reference management softwares on Knowledge beyond words by Valentin.

Through a detailed post, we describe the main citation managers available out there and their particularity. You should consult this article if you are to decide what is the citation managers most adapted to your needs and uses. There is also the results of a poll launched on twitter asking people what is their favorite citation manager. (Follow novoseek on twitter)

Thank you for reading this MedLib’s Round on Knowledge beyond words. We’d like to help spread Jacqueline’s message who is looking for ideas for a logo and a new name for the MedLib’s Round which is according to Berci, one of the important things of a blog carnival. So feel free to submit her your ideas, it will be much appreciated.

Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed of MedLib’s Round Blog Carnival. Next MedLib’s Round will be published next January 5th on Dr. Shock’s blog and you can already submit your materials via this form.

Research -medical, biomedical, scientific- is one tricky task medical librarians are here to help you with. It requires training, a strong medical knowledge and advanced computer skills. This is why university, hospitals, private and public companies have libraries with qualified medical librarians who help make one’s daily work easier. Indeed, a medical librarian is trained and keep updated continuously on state of the art research. With the internet, the Medical Librarians have understood how web2.0 technologies would help search, organize and work more efficiently. This is one of the reasons why they are online and are used to posting on their blogs. In fact, medical librarians often have a blog and post about the news and share information about new or existing tools.

This is why we have decided to list 10 top medical librarians blogs you should read to get started.

1. A medical librarians exploration of the web 2.0 world and beyond



Who?
Jacqueline is a married librarian with 2 daughters. She studied Medical Biology and worked as a scientist after graduating a PhD back in 1990. She studied a post-doc course documentary information science (1994-1995) and worked as an information specialist in a pharmaceutical company. She now has been a medical information specialist at the Academical Medical Center (AMC) in Amsterdam for 3 years. Also, she enjoys riding her bike everyday.

What?
She is a clinical librarian so she is involved in developing courses, teaching & searching. She first started the blog as a way to publish the class exercises. However she quickly moved to broader interests and caught the “blogging” virus. According to her About page, she tries to blog about medical librarianship, medical information, EBM and Cochrane Collaboration (where she works as a Trial Search Coordinator).
Jaqueline blogs about her feelings about the web2.0 tools, its evolution and gives well-detailed opinions. Reading a blog post takes some time as they are most of the time quite long but they are worth it. They are well structured and often come with web links that help understand better why she came to that conclusion.

We like:
The Blog Carnival that she helped populate and which is held every other month. The principle is that a medical blogger hosts a round and writes a blogpost based on the posts that were submitted before. We invite you to read the latest round now and see what it is like.

Resources: http://laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @laikas

2. Emerging Technologies Librarian



Who?
Patricia F. Anderson is a librarian from the University of Michigan Health Sciences Libraries. She used to work as a Head Librarian for the UM Dentistry Lab which helped her enter the wonderful world of social media tools. She is a mother and has a fulfilling life as her Flickr Gallery lets us guess.

What?
Patricia writes pretty much about everything around social media activities, services and stories. Her latest post when writing this review was about Augmented Reality and More ETech Trends where she recalls with a great sense of humor that 2 years ago, augmented reality was only for labs and SciFi! She is also very active on Second Life. She mentions and share information about it a lot in the Second life matching section.

We like:
She created a whole set of iGoogle widgets in a single tab that will make your bioresearch easier. Visit Research tools iGoogle tabs to install it now.

Resources: http://etechlib.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @pfanderson

3. Alisha764’s Blog: A solo medical librarian’s ramblings

Who?
Alisha Miles graduated from FSU in 2008 with a Masters in Library Science and Information Studies. She is a solo medical librarian in non-profit hospital in Georgia. She created this blog to post ramblings about the medical library field.

What?
This new-yet-growing-famous blog (February 2009) is a nice place to read the fresh opinions and “ramblings of a young librarian. Among other things, you’ll be able to read quite a lot about Pubmed like this enthusiast post about its upcoming changes.

We like:
The extensive and well-argued post reviews she writes around new services she has been testing. One which is impressive and interesting to read is Google Health information: surprising facts.

Resources: http://alisha764.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @Alisha764

4. Eagle Dawg Blog: Perspectives in health informatics and medical librarianship



Who?
Eagle Dawg or Nicole S. Dettmar is a medical librarian at the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM). Oh, and she is “not an acronym…(she is) a free woman.”

What?
Nicole is an extensive blogger woman who tries to cover what is hot in Medical & Libraries’ news and who takes part actively in discussions with her peers. She also dares to raise her voice to help through her community, like when she posted about the flood in the Louisville Free Public Library.

We like:
The Friday Foolery posts where she allows to talk about almost everything in a more simple way. She already goes by #52!

Resources: http://eagledawg.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @eagledawg

5. Krafty Librarian: Things of interest to a medical librarian.

Who?
Michelle Kraft is a medical librarian since 1998 and currently a medical librarian for a hospital system in Ohio. She is interested in technology and its outcomes in libraries.

What?
A lot of informative and technology oriented posts. For instance, she blogged recently about the Medical Apps and Phones. We lack some effort in design (or some personalization) however it helps reinforce the content over the rest. She is worried about explaining the trends in medical applications and how systems improve and change.

We like:
Her commitment when she went to the MLA conference and extensively blogged about it to keep her medical readers community updated on the news.

Resources: http://kraftylibrarian.com

Twitter: @krafty

6. The Search Principle blog: Dean Giustini on health libraries + web media



Who?
Dean Giustini is a reference librarian at the University of British Columbia at UBC’s Biomedical Branch Library located at the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH).

What?
Dean is a state-of-the-art social medias specialist and blogs a lot about it. The blog is a nice place to stay updated on the new tools medical librarians can use and on their applications in Canada.

We like:
Dean is a endless worker and shares tons of nice information on slideshare that will be very valuable to other medical librarians but not only.

Resources: http://blogs.ubc.ca/dean/

Twitter: @giustini

7. Women’s Health News: Women’s health news, politics, information, and resources from a medical librarian



Who?
Rachel Walden is a medical librarian with a degree in library and information science (MLIS) from the University of Pittsburgh, where she focused on medical librarianship and currently works in a prominent academic medical center library. She also works as an Editorial Assistant for the Journal of the Medical Library Association and handles clinical questions for medical center, including the diabetes clinic, impatient internal medicine, and the order set teams.

What?
She focuses on Women’s health News and is willing to provide information regarding current women’s health topics, including policy, legislation, news, and events, as well as to point readers to additional useful resources online. For instance you can read this post:How do you not know when you’re pregnant.

We like:
The blog posts by this medical librarian are more notes. They are most of the time short with a view to making it informative and straightforward. This is when the conversation begins with her community through the comments where she takes good care to answer them. Aditionnally, she proposes a list of useful health information you should be interested in if you’re into Women’s health.

Resources: http://womenshealthnews.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @rachel_w

8. Blog: Library of the Institute of Public Health



Who?
Ewa Dobrogowska is medical librarian from Cracow interested in Web & Medicine 2.0.

What?
She blogs in Polish but you will easily translates it to English (or other) through the Translate tool in teh sidebar. Plus you can follow her on twitter where she twitts almost exclusively in English which allows better interactions.

We like:
Her struggle to make Health information accessible on the internet and understandable by everyone.

Resources: http://www.bibliotekaizp.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @pudliszek

Edit: The two following librarians mentionned in this list (#9 & #10) are not medical librarians, nevertheless their work and blog posts appeared interesting enough to be listed here. We apologize for the lack of accuracy in the title and description.

9. The shifted librarians: Shifting libraries at the speed of byte

Who?
As she says:”My name is Jenny, and I’ll be your information maven today“. Jenny Levine is an internet Development Specialist & Strategy Guide at American Library Association. She is a highly skilled person in all emerging technologies and new tools and has already traveled across the US and Europe to give presentations.
By the way, what’s a shifted librarian? A “shifted librarian” is someone who is working to make libraries more portable.

What?
Her blog homepage is interesting as it consists of a daily stream displaying what she has been doing, reading, commenting and liking the past few days. You’ll have to click on the blog section to access the medical articles.

We like:
Jenny brings nice and educative resources as well as more distressed sections such as the gamin in libraries’ where you’ll find a set of posts about games (and mini golf) in a library!

Resources: http://theshiftedlibrarian.com

Twitter: @shifted

10. Musings about librarianship

Who?
Aaron Tay is a librarian at the social science departments of the National University of Singapore. Aaron is a librarian really into web2.0 who wants to keep track of interesting and cool ideas that might be used by libraries for benefit of users.

What?
The blog is really oriented to making the students’, professors’ and readers’ lives easier through the use of web2.0 tools. The posts aim to explaining in depth how to make the most out of them. For instance, the latest posts explain 8 ways to share links with users.

We like:
We like the top ranked post Subject guides on web 2.0 startup pages – 12 widgets! A must read.

Resources: http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @aarontay

And now our bonus medical librarian we highly recommend for the Spanish speaking people.

11. Biblioteca Médica Virtual

Who?
María García-Puente is responsible for the library of the Torrevieja Hospital (Spain)

What?
The blog’s objective is -according ot her saying- to make health science easy. She blogs regularly about the new services on the internet that make the medical librarian’s life easier. She also collaborates in congresses and recently made a bright presentation of how to get the most out of RSS feeds in the medical field.

We like:
The regular work she brings to her blog which has helped her become the reference for medical librarians. The fact that she is form Spain makes us like her even more.

Resources: http://bibliovirtual.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @bibliovirtual