We interact with so many people in our daily working lives and yet few know us as individuals, few understand our jobs, and fewer still can be called real friends. At CAHSLA, we have something rarely found in a work environment. We get to know each other, appreciate each other, and befriend one another.
Yesterday, we had our year-end meeting in the form of a picnic. It has been a tradition for CAHSLA members for many years. The weather surprised us by co-operating. The Daniel Drake Park was perfect with its green lawns, majestically peaked shelter and even its nearby playground. We enjoyed Burbank’s B-B-Q and sides and gobbled up sweet desserts, all thanks to the Program Committee. We celebrated Barbarie’s birthday, applauded the out-going board members and announced the new officers. We took care of business and pleasure.
Personally and publicly, I would like to express my enthusiastic gratitude to the members of the CAHSLA 2008-2009 Board and especially to Regina Hartman, Vice President/Past President/Program Committee Chair, for all of her advice, support, and hard work to keep me performing as President of CAHSLA. We were also well-served by Cathy Constance, constant Treasurer and Membership Chair. Appreciation goes to Meredith Orlowski, Secretary, for keeping track of even the most disorganized or sketchy of meeting proceedings. Regina’s Program Committee members, Emily Kean and Amy Koshoffer, deserve high accolades for their part in executing the year’s programs. Lastly, I extend my appreciation for Lisa McCormick and Barbarie Hill for their ever-informative CAHSLA Chronicle.
Congratulations to the new officers, Amy Koshoffer, President, Meredith Orlowski, VP and Program Chair, and Emily Kean, Secretary. They will be ready to serve CAHSLA come summer’s end, along with continuing Treasurer, Cathy Constance and newsletter editors, Lisa McCormick and Barbarie Hill. In the meantime, relax and enjoy the respite and return nourished in body, mind, and spirit as we were at the end of yesterday’s year-end meeting.
– Val Purvis
Call for Action!
Further Library funding cuts proposed.
The Governor’s proposed state budget is considering a 50% cut to the Public Library Fund
a $6 million FURTHER cut to our Library funding—our primary funding source—
resulting in a 42% funding slash since 2000!
_________________________________________________________________________________________
ACT NOW! Time is of the essence. Let your legislators know that these cuts will do unacceptable damage to our communities. We cannot afford to lose half of our Libraries at a time when people need them most.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
2008-2009: The CAHSLA Year in Review
For the Program Planning Committee, CAHSLA’s 2008-2009 year was all about “newness.”
We started our year with a September meeting held at the new Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library at the
Our first meeting also incorporated a presentation by Leslie Sullivan-Stacey, President and CEO of the Lam Foundation. Amy Koshoffer worked very diligently to coordinate Leslie as a speaker. Leslie presented us with valuable information on lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) – a rare lung disease, about which many healthcare providers, even pulmonary specialists, are unaware.
The holiday meeting was held at the beautiful McCullough
In early 2009, as many of us were transitioning from Ovid to EBSCOhost for the CINAHL database, Regina Hartman arranged for Kathy Kiely from Ebsco to conduct a hands-on training session for CAHSLA members. A late January snow storm caused us to have an online training in February and the face-to-face session in March, but the wait was worth it, as Kathy provided invaluable tips for maximizing the search capacity of this new (to many of us) Ebsco interface.
Our year of touring newly renovated library spaces continued in April at the VA Library. Sandy Mason and Cathy Constance graciously hosted the meeting and provided tours of their new Learning Exchange Discovery Lab and library space. President Val Purvis also conducted a round robin at this meeting to keep us all up to date on our colleagues’ professional and personal news.
The June end of the year picnic was less about newness and more about tradition. For the second year in a row, we gathered in a local park shelter and socialized over a barbecue picnic. Amy and
The newness theme was present at the picnic in one way: the new officers were announced, and Amy Koshoffer and I will be first-time CAHSLA officers, as President and Secretary, respectively. We’ll be joining Meredith Orlowski (Vice President) and Cathy Constance (Treasurer) as next year’s officers.
I’ve greatly enjoyed my two years on the CAHSLA Program Planning Committee, and as another year comes to an end, I’m looking forward to moving from planning the meetings to recording the meeting minutes. I can’t wait to see what 2009-2010 has in store for us!
Spring Business Meeting - April 30, 2009
Submitted by Meredith Orlowski
Attendees: Cathy Constance, Mike Douglas, Regina Hartman, Barbarie Hill, Emily Kean, Nonnie Klein, Amy Koshoffer, Sandra Mason, Lisa McCormick, Meredith Orlowski, Diana Osborne, Valerie Purvis, Cecil Rahe, Emily Rahe, Barb Slavinski, Edith Starbuck, and Jane Thompson
The CAHSLA spring business meeting came to order 5:50pm at the VA’s Learning Exchange Discovery Lab. Val Purvis thanked Cathy and Sandy for hosting the gathering. Prior to the start of the meeting, members went on a tour of the VA’s new Learning Exchange area. After the meeting, Sandy and Cathy gave a tour of their new library space.
Cathy Constance, Treasurer, reported that our treasury is healthy at $3,578. We have 35 members, many of whom are lifetime members. It was noted that in order to vote in the CAHSLA elections, members must have paid their dues by December 2008.
Regina Hartman provided the programming committee’s report. No place has been booked for the summer picnic yet, but it will be a similar idea to years past. Jane Thompson suggested Symmes Park (location of the Flower Show) because of its beauty and large shelter. However, some members felt that it is too far to drive to.
Regina also presented the new slate of officers for next year. She will be sending out ballots soon. The nominated officers are: Amy Koshoffer – President, Meredith Orlowski – Vice President, Emily Kean – Secretary, Cathy Constance –Treasurer. There were no nominations from the floor. The slate was accepted.
It was noted that both the Bylaws and the Procedures Manuals do not need to be updated this year. Barbarie also put the newest manuals on our website.
The Chronicle committee announced that there was no March newsletter. The next issue will come out in June (after MLA).
After the committee reports, members shared professional and personal updates.
Meeting adjourned at 7:00 pm.
Also these are some of the notes from the Round Robin session:
• Wright State is closing their HSL (Fordam). It is merging with the main library.
• Angela left UC in January for the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
• Lisa & Regina attended Ebsco update day. It was worth going to, they might have another one in the future.
• Barb Slavinski is actively involved with lit searches for Drake employees.
• Mike Douglas said that Penney was sick. He also mentioned problems with book thefts – 80 plus new books were stolen. However, books belonging to other area libraries were dropped off at his library with ownership labels marked out. (other members experienced similar problems of strange thefts and returns)
• Nonnie invited us to attend the Ohio Academy Medical History on May16 at OSU 9-3pm.
• Lisa attended OHSLA
• Meredith, Amy K, and Edith attended NN/LM Toxnet training in Columbus
• Emily and Cecil encouraged us to visit the new Bond Hill public library (formerly Roselawn). It was newly built and nice to see if we’re in the area.
• Sandy said that the VA staff still uses the library despite its new location
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CAHSLA Meeting Minutes
End of the Year Picnic – June 11, 2009Submitted by Emily Kean, Secretary
Attendees: Carole Baker, Cathy Constance, Mike Douglas, Regina Hartman, Barbarie Hill, Emily Kean, Amy Koshoffer, Lisa McCormick, Meredith Orlowski, Val Purvis, Cecil Rahe, Emily Rahe, Don Smith, Edith Starbuck, and Jane Thompson
The CAHSLA End of the Year Picnic began at 5:30 p.m. at the Daniel Drake Park in Kennedy Heights. The meeting was catered by Burbank’s Real Bar-B-Q, with deserts provided by the Program Planning Committee.
The business meeting was called to order at 6:45 by President Val Purvis.
Regina Hartman announced that the CAHSLA election had received twenty-five votes. The elected officers for next year are: Amy Koshoffer, President; Meredith Orlowski, Vice-President/President Elect; Cathy Constance, Treasurer; and Emily Kean, Secretary.
Val then presented the outgoing officers, members of the Program Planning Committee, and Chronicle Editors with beautiful handmade glass pendant necklaces.
Regina presented Val with a Barnes & Noble gift card as a thank you for serving as President.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:00 p.m.
The MLA 2009 annual meeting was held in Honolulu, Hawaii, and it was the most casual, laid-back MLA meeting I’ve ever attended. There were only about 1100 attendees, compared to the usual 2000 or more, and many of them appeared at the sessions in shorts and flip-flops. The speakers and presenters were good, the vendors' parties were fun with delicious food, and a lot of the casual talk was about “hard times” in the economy in general affecting libraries. Trends are toward going “digital only,” assigning librarians as informationists or “information specialists in context” (the old clinical librarian idea), and consolidating resources.
John P. McGovern Lecturer: Adam Bosworth, technology leader and innovator who was instrumental in building numerous technology products including Google Health, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and BEA WebLogic Integration and Workshop.
• Bosworth’s underlying premise is that the American health care system is broken. The term is also a misnomer because the system is really a sick care system. It doesn’t encourage or reward those who focus on prevention and keeping people healthy.
• Medicine is too complex for doctors to keep it all in their heads. They need decision-making tools, and librarians need to work on providing the content for these systems.
• Consumers must also be an integral part of the health care system, and electronic information is not enough. They need to understand what their health data means for them. Do they have a problem, and if so, how bad is it and what can they do about it. A computable health action plan is needed to deal with a problem.
Janet Doe Lecturer: J. Michael Homan, director of libraries and assistant professor of Medical Informatics and Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN.
• Medical librarianship is the science and art of linking information and knowledge to important clinical, scientific and business decisions that must be made.
• Information isn’t the scarce resource—human time and attention is the scarce resource.
• Given the limits on human processing, it is clear that selectivity, not speed, is the name of the game.
Joseph Leiter lecturer: Ben Young, native Hawaiian psychiatrist and former faculty at John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii-Manoa, and Castle Medicle Center, Kailua, Oahu. He also helped build the voyaging canoe Hokule’a in the early 1970s and was the physician on its maiden voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii. Young gave a lively history of Hawaii focusing on medical aspects such as the diseases brought by Europeans that were so deadly for the previously-isolated native Hawaiians.
Terry Shintani, native Hawaiian physician with a law degree, a master’s degree in nutrition and board certification in preventive medicine, was the final plenary speaker of the conference. He spoke about the lifestyle choices we make and how they affect our health. In particular, he discussed his work in the Waianae Diet Program in which the participants had dramatic results in lowering cholesterol, reducing medication for diabetes and hypertension, and losing weight simply by changing their diet to eliminate processed foods. His books such as Eat More, Weigh Less Diet and The Good Carbohydrate Revolution might sound like all the other popular diet books on the bookstore shelves, but he has the academic credentials and the scientific evidence to back him up.
There were lots of good posters this year, and MLA has added a new feature on their web site that makes it possible for those who could not attend the meeting to enjoy the posters at their leisure. Check them out. I wasn't very successful with the search feature, but mine is #148 if you're looking for it.
-- Barbarie Hill
We in the Pratt Library at Cincinnati Children's have been working on our first-ever strategic plan. In looking for guidance on how to approach this process, we of course Googled and found a wonderful site that we didn't know about and maybe you don't either. SirsiDynixInstitute.com offers a wide range of free, on-demand, library-focused webcasts including the one we were interested in, "Fast, Cheap and Decent Strategic Planning: More Effective Responses to Library User Needs." There are many other topics that look interesting as well, and most of them have slides or supplementary material that can be printed in pdf format. Check it out.
-- Alison Kissling
Mark Your Calendars and Make Reservations for Columbus
Registration will soon be open for this year's Midwest Chapter/MLA annual conference. Check out the web site and make your plans to attend now. rdThe CE offerings couldn't be better, and they're a bargain, too. Courses are being planned on a variety of edifying topics from which we can choose to start our conference experience on Saturday, October 3. We can learn how to make a podcast or how to develop a strategic plan. We can explore communicating with physicians or measuring our impact. We can advance our PubMed searching skills or learn more about understanding health care literature.
Saturday evening will be a great time to socialize and catch up with colleagues from around the region at a welcome reception in the Hyatt with appetizers and music to start the conference off on the right foot. Afterward we’ll have the opportunity to go on our own to the Short North Gallery Hop for dinner and shopping and enjoying the art.
Sunday will be a very busy day. The official conference program will hit the ground running (literally) with plenary speaker Clifford Stoll and fill the day with a panel discussion of “What Administrators Want,” an NLM/GMR update, contributed papers, time with vendors, and a business meeting. The events don’t stop there, though. In the evening we’ll enjoy a gala event with dinner, tours, and entertainment at the Ohio Statehouse.
Monday will be another full day featuring plenary speaker Lorcan Dempsey and an MLA update, a panel on “Scholarly Communication,” a poster session, and the GMR Technology Forum. It’s a full schedule, but we’ll have the evening to relax before more CE classes on Tuesday when we can learn about distance learning or emergency preparedness.
Several of your CAHSLA colleagues are working very hard on the planning committee to make this a productive and memorable conference for everyone. We hope you'll all plan to attend!
Registration will soon be open for this year's Midwest Chapter/MLA annual conference. Check out the web site and make your plans to attend now. rdThe CE offerings couldn't be better, and they're a bargain, too. Courses are being planned on a variety of edifying topics from which we can choose to start our conference experience on Saturday, October 3. We can learn how to make a podcast or how to develop a strategic plan. We can explore communicating with physicians or measuring our impact. We can advance our PubMed searching skills or learn more about understanding health care literature.Saturday evening will be a great time to socialize and catch up with colleagues from around the region at a welcome reception in the Hyatt with appetizers and music to start the conference off on the right foot. Afterward we’ll have the opportunity to go on our own to the Short North Gallery Hop for dinner and shopping and enjoying the art.
Sunday will be a very busy day. The official conference program will hit the ground running (literally) with plenary speaker Clifford Stoll and fill the day with a panel discussion of “What Administrators Want,” an NLM/GMR update, contributed papers, time with vendors, and a business meeting. The events don’t stop there, though. In the evening we’ll enjoy a gala event with dinner, tours, and entertainment at the Ohio Statehouse.
Monday will be another full day featuring plenary speaker Lorcan Dempsey and an MLA update, a panel on “Scholarly Communication,” a poster session, and the GMR Technology Forum. It’s a full schedule, but we’ll have the evening to relax before more CE classes on Tuesday when we can learn about distance learning or emergency preparedness.
Several of your CAHSLA colleagues are working very hard on the planning committee to make this a productive and memorable conference for everyone. We hope you'll all plan to attend!
NLM is launching a new program to ensure that its holdings of journals, indexes, and other serials are as complete as possible. Your library can help by donating print volumes that you no longer wish to retain. If you are a DOCLINE library, use the new Web based system to find out what NLM needs.
The system is easy to use. All you need is a list of the titles and volumes you are planning to discard. You can search by title words or phrases or by ISSN. The system searches your DOCLINE holdings so titles are retrieved quickly. If NLM does not need any volumes of a title, the system notifies you immediately. If NLM needs volumes, the system displays a list of them, and you just click on the volumes you will donate. For some titles, the system cannot do an automatic check on what volumes are needed. In these cases, the system will ask you to enter the volumes you can donate, and NLM will send you an email when we determine which volumes we need. You submit your offer electronically from the system. You can print your offer or save it to an Excel file. NLM will send an email to confirm receipt of your offer and to provide instructions on how to have NLM pay for shipping.
If you are not a DOCLINE library, please contact us at 301-496-0081 or at NLMJournalDonation@mail.nih.gov to make donations. NLM appreciates your help with this important program.
CAHSLA Colleagues
Professional Travels
Barbarie Hill (Children’s) was the only Cincinnati representative at this year’s MLA meeting in Honolulu. Barbarie presented a poster session titled “Library Role in Identifying Institutional Publications.”
Lisa McCormick (Jewish Hospital) was again in Columbus for the OHSLA spring meeting on April 3rd also held at Mt. Carmel Health System and hosted by the library staff at Mt. Carmel. The meeting had a great representation from across the state and provided two CE courses.
Meredith Orlowski (UC Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library) attended the week-long How to Teach Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Workshop at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada the first week of June. McMaster University is known as “the birthplace of evidence-based medicine (EBM).”
Barbara Slavinski (The Drake Center) and Lisa McCormick (Jewish Hospital) will attend the Supporting Clinical Care: An Institute in Evidence-Based Practice for Medical Librarians at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in early August. Angela Myatt, formerly of UC and now Curriculum Liaison Librarian, Briscoe Library University of Texas, Health Science Center at San Antonio, is a faculty member for the Institute.
Miscellaneous
Now that Don Smith (formerly of St. Elizabeth) is retired we hear that he keeps busy entertaining his grandkids and doing ‘power’ grocery shopping. Good to see you at the picnic, Don!
Congratulations to Alana Hartman daughter of Regina Hartman (The Christ) and Greg Hopkins on her graduation from Loyola University. After a short summer stay in Cincinnati, Alana will be off to New York City.
Carol Mayor (formerly Mercy Health Partners Mt. Airy) was seen recently at the Mercy Health Center in Anderson. She is now volunteering at the Mercy hospital in Anderson.
It has become somewhat of a tradition for many CAHSLA Colleagues to volunteer for the annual “Upstairs Downstairs” Historic House Tour. A sunny and perfectly warm May 9th was the date for this year’s tour East Walnut Hills which showcased six architecturally distinct homes. The Cincinnati Preservation Association (CPA) benefits from the proceeds of the tour. Mary Piper (UC Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library) is in a leadership role with CPA and invited CAHSLA Colleagues to volunteer. Some Colleagues volunteering in recent years have included: Shelley Paden, Regina Hartman, Edith Starbuck, Meredith Orlowski, Emily & Cecil Ray, and Lisa McCormick.
In the Literature and on the 'Net
From the Cincinnati Enquirer, June 1, 2009
What libraries are worth to us
It is needlessly provocative and shamelessly antagonistic behavior to pit books against technology. No one should ever do this. They are both sources of information. They are entirely different species, never meant to compete with each other.
None of which explains the delicious thrill some of us feel when we hear that book reading in the Public Library system of Cincinnati and Hamilton County skyrocketed 12.5 percent last year while audio-visual circulation climbed a "mere" 5.7 percent.
No insult to DVDs, CDs, Twitter, Flutter, Flipper, Dipper or Gumby. It's just great news to learn that books, whose death is periodically predicted, are no longer on the endangered list - at least not here. Last year 15.6 million items were checked out of the 41 libraries in the Hamilton County system. The Main Library downtown is the single busiest library in the nation despite serving the 34th largest market. People may have stashed their credit cards in a drawer, but 250,000 Hamilton County adults, teenagers and kids flashed their library "plastic" last year.
In lean times and fat times alike, the public library is the one place where it's always OK to overindulge.
The economy is no doubt a factor in the library's banner year. Not only did the borrow-rather-than-buy principle find new appeal, but people flocked to reference materials and programs that helped with job searches, resume writing and interview skills. Still, there is more to the library's appeal than economics. Much of it has to do with how a library makes you feel.
Sanctuary might be an overly serious word, but a library projects an unmistakable sense of civility and calm. Young and old come together peaceably here, rich and poor, readers of mysteries and lovers of ancient philosophy. A library is a bastion of non-judgementalism and one of society's great equalizers.
This atmosphere is in no way accidental. Librarians are almost eerily aware of what goes on inside your head. They know your tastes better than you do, being trained to cut through your vague references to plot or author and put their hands on what you need.
So they know, for example, about that independent streak that makes you want to handle your library business yourself. When 12 libraries put in self-checkouts last year, usage soared. There's something oddly empowering about knowing how to unlock DVD cases all by yourself.
Equally appealing is the library's unusual status as an intensely private public space. It's the one place you can move in the presence of others without saying a word and not be thought rude. The library "dance" is the epitome of socialized behavior, strangers gracefully giving way to one another as they peruse books and DVDs. Yes, cell phones ring and children sometimes use their playground voices, but library users still rank among the most civilized creatures on earth.
That is not to paint too Victorian a picture. The library's Web site had 87 million hits last year, making it the far busiest "branch" in the family. Patrons download audio books onto their MP3 players and reserve books at 3 a.m. from the privacy of their home computers. This week, the library's summer reading program kicks off for children, teens and - this year - adults. There are prizes to be won, plus you get smarter. Nice way to spend a summer.
Next fall, Hamilton Countians may be asked to support a library levy. The state has cut $10 million from the local system, and its reserves are being eaten through.
It wouldn't hurt a bit, as we enjoy their bounty this summer, to think about what public libraries are worth to us, and how to keep them strong. Bad economy or good, it's never wise to let such a gem slip through our fingers.
Krista Ramsey is a member of the Enquirer Editorial Board; kramsey@enquirer.com
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From MedLib-L, May 8, 2009NEJM on Kindle
I have a Kindle (based on a recommendation by one of my docs) and just found out that they have added New England Journal of Medicine to their magazine subscription offers. For $8.99 per month you can get it delivered wirelessly and automatically to your Kindle 1 or 2 or DX. You can buy the May 7th issue now for $4.49 as a one shot deal. I expect we'll see a lot more of this. With the new DX larger format, can electronic medical textbooks for students be far behind. One of my doctors says he doesn't even want to read the print journals he gets as a member of his subspecialty medical organization. He accesses the journal online each time it comes out and downloads pdf versions of the articles he's interested in, emails to Amazon to re-format for the Kindle for a quarter and keeps them on his Kindle. Lots of airline and vacation reading at his fingertips or when he's waiting for a case. If he requests an article from me on a medical condition, he does the same thing. Then he's never hunting for that photocopy on his desk or remembering that he left it at home or in his office when he needs it at the hospital. Very convenient and he says he's really pleased with how much more on top of the literature and his cases he is. It makes him much more efficient and "up on things".
Joy Kennedy, MLS
Health Resource Library
Northwest Community Hospital
800 W. Central Rd.
Arlington Heights, IL 60005-2392
Phone: 847-618-5180; Fax 847-618-5189
email: j1kennedy@nch.org; library@nch.org
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How Evidence-Based is UpToDate Really? The debate among librarians on the value of this prohibitively expensive, high-demand resource goes on ... See a summary of opinion at http://laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/how-evidence-based-is-uptodate-really******
Don’t forget the Quality journals.Karen Wells and Jenny Garcia just published an excellent advocacy [article] in the Journal for Healthcare Quality. It has many good points and an excellent bibliography. Karen and Jenny co-developed the Myths and Truths presentation on MLANET. This was brought to my attention by Margaret Bandy. It’s also at this time open-access online.
Knowledge-Based Information to Improve the Quality of Patient Care
Jenny L. Garcia , Karen K. Wells
Journal for Healthcare Quality
Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 30–35, 2009
.... http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121675417/HTMLSTART
-- Roz Dudden
I asked Jenny about their process for getting this article published. She said “We just sent the manuscript in with a cover letter. We didn’t even call first to see if they might be interested. I had honestly expected to get a few rejections before it was accepted. I encourage anyone to send articles to non-library journals. Most have not published anything on libraries before and it is a new topic for them.” -- Margaret
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“Medtronic paid doctor accused of false study” and “Merck paid for fake journal” are two recent headlines you may have read. A June 19th Reuters news item refers to a Wall Street Journal story that “Medical device maker Medtronic Inc. paid almost $800,000 in consulting fees to a former U.S. army surgeon accused of fabricating a key study.” According to the item, Timothy Kuklo, now an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis is accused of faking a study that reported positive findings for a Medtronic bone growth product, Infuse. The story also goes on to state that Kuklo “forged signatures of purported co-authors of the study.” Kuklo publishes his report in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery in August 2008. In March 2009 JBJS retracted the article. Sen. Grassley (R., Iowa) is looking into the allegations because of the links to the Department of Defense and Walter Reed Army Hospital where Kuklo was employed at the time he submitted the article.
World media goliath Elsevier is linked to an alleged scheme by pharmaceutical giant Merck to produce several volumes of a fake peer-reviewed journal, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, to publish articles favorable to Merck products. The fake journal is described as a “creative marketing strategy” that was formatted to appear as a respected, peer-reviewed publication. The journal was never selected for indexing by Medline/Pubmed and is said to have only contained summaries of select articles with favorable data on Merck products. There was no disclosure in the journal of Merck’s sponsorship. For more information search the website TheScientist.com
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From Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12, 2009
Google Books Mutilates the Printed Past
by Ronald G. Musto
“That massive text-digitization project, working in collaboration with several of the world's most important library collections, has now made available, in both PDF and text view, tens of thousands of 19th-century titles while it awaits the results of a legal settlement to determine whether and how it will make available tens of thousands of 20th-century works. Meanwhile Google Books offers scholars all the pitfalls and benefits of using the research results of the 19th century … While that is no substitute for primary research in the archives or in manuscript collections, it's truly a revolution in research on previously edited and published documents. For the history of late medieval Naples, with its relative paucity of physical archives and its dependence on later editions, Google Books is a godsend… In its frenzy to digitize the holdings of its partner collections, in this case those of the Stanford University Libraries, Google Books has pursued a "good enough" scanning strategy. The books' pages were hurriedly reproduced: No apparent quality control was employed, either during or after scanning. The result is that 29 percent of the pages in Volume 1 and 38 percent of the pages in Volume 2 are either skewed, blurred, swooshed, folded back, misplaced, or just plain missing. A few images even contain the fingers of the human page-turner. (Like a medieval scribe, he left his own pointing hand on the page!) Not bad, one might argue, for no charge and on your desktop. But now I'm dealing with a mutilated edition of a mutilated selection of a mutilated archive of a mutilated history of a mutilated kingdom — hardly the stuff of the positivist, empirical method I was trained in a generation ago.”
CAHLSA Calendar
Enjoy the summer!
Oct. 3-6 Midwest Chapter/MLA annual conference, Columbus, OH
Enjoy the summer!
Oct. 3-6 Midwest Chapter/MLA annual conference, Columbus, OH
