NY-NJ Chapter LogoNewsletter
Winter 2002

In This Issue

From the Editors

Kudos for Chapter Members

Web Watch

Brave New World

In the Literature

Technology Review

Hospital Library Notes

RML Update

In Memory of Winifred Lieber

HLSP Update

"To The Editors"

Special Feature
by Luda Dolinsky

Online Newsletter Index

The Newsletter is published for the members of the New York-New Jersey Chapter of the Medical Library Association.

Editor of this issue:

William Self, Medical Library Center of New York, 7 East 102nd St., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10029, S-1, Phone: 212-427-1630, Fax: 212-860-3496, E-mail: wself@mlcny.org.


Site maintained by Webmaster: Robert Dempsey
Posted 3/15/2002
©2002 NY-NJ Chapter of the Medical Library Association
In The Literature
Medical Publishing and Technology

by Kathel Dunn, MSLS
katheldunn@aol.com

This quarter's In the Literature focuses first on what's happening in the medical publishing and technology worlds with a bread-and-butter article on PubMed Central, BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science followed by an article on the use of handhelds in an ambulatory care environment, containing a useful Appendix on handheld companies with a reference to the larger report upon which the Appendix was based. Finally, a review of two free updating services for librarians both focused on technology.

Delamothe, T. Navigating across medicine's electronic landscape, stopping at places with Pub or Central in their names. BMJ 2001; 323:1120-1122.

While PubMed Central, BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science are not new to medical librarians, this brief article nicely summarizes all of the above initiatives and provides some useful factoids.

PubMed Central
For librarians who teach or conduct a presentation on PubMed, this article may provide useful background information. The author points out the importance of MEDLINE/PubMed for authors, stating that publishing in a journal "not indexed in PubMed is akin to sealing a manuscript in a bottle and launching it on the tide." However, getting a journal indexed in MEDLINE is difficult indeed with only 15-20% of the journal supplicants accepted for indexing in MEDLINE. A way around that, the author indicates, is to publish one's journal in PubMed Central which in turn guarantees its being indexed in MEDLINE. And the quandary here is that the publishers must allow free full-text access of their publications if they are included in PubMed Central. The allowed time lag of up to two years between print publication and publication in PubMed Central makes this a somewhat more palatable choice for publishers.

BioMed Central
BioMed Central is an independent publishing firm that is not a government funded project but is instead commercially supported. Because it publishes its journal full-text and for free, all of BioMed Central's journals (most of which began publication 18 months ago) are indexed in PubMed.

Public Library of Science
Finally the author reviews the Public Library of Science's initative to persuade authors to only publish in journals that grant free distribution of material within six months of publication. While the effort attracted 28,000 signatures to its open letter, publishers had not made the requested change in their publication methods. The Public Library of Science then plans to publish its own journals. While no definitive solution is emerging, each of these initiatives bears watching.

Barbash, A. Mobile computing for ambulatory health care: points of convergence. J Ambulatory Care Manage 2001; 24(4):65-66.

This journal article depends heavily on the report "The Cure is in Hand: Bringing Information Technology to Patient Care," an October 2000 report by senior analysts at WH Hambrecht & Co., for its information on companies providing handheld technologies. The author focuses on the use of handheld devices for physicians in:

  • prescribing,
  • patient encounters, and
  • the provision of documentation tools.

In prescribing, a handheld's capability of integrating drug reference guides with patient medication lists is a natural fit with physicians busy-ness and style of working. The mobility of handhelds also match the mobility of physicians who often encounter patients separate from their complete medical records. Using a handheld to capture a patient encounter when in a hospital or skilled nursing facility and then syncing that data with a larger patient database can be critical to efficient and effective transfer of information. The author then posits that the use of a handheld to capture voice to be synchronized with transcription services will be an essential part of clinical workflow. The article includes an Appendix at the back taken mostly from the "Cure is in Hand" report of wireless handheld health care applications companies. The "Cure is in Hand" report can be found on the Internet through a general search on its title, for instance at www.medicalwindows.com/research/TheCure.pdf.

Email information services
And for those of us who desire to receive yet more email and be kept very up to date, the following free email services will keep you informed on a variety of library issues:

Center for Information Technology's CIT Infobits
A monthly email newssource from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Information Technology. The newsletter provides the latest information on instructional technology. The October 2001 issue included newsbits on scholarly publishing, resources for scholarly e-journal editors and a Text-E Virtual Symposium.
http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/


Current Awareness Application of New Technologies in Libraries
An international awareness news source, its editor reviews the journals received by the Vakbibliotheek of the K.U. Leuven Central Library in Belgium. The November 26 - December 7 issue noted the following article, among others: Cowgill A, Beam J, Wess L. Implementing an Information Commons in a University Library. The Journal of Academic Librarianship. 2001; 27(6):432-439.
http://lib.ua.ac.be/WGLIB/ATTEND/