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Thanks to David Rothman for helping me with this. My Cancer Center Library wants to use this service to deliver their newsletter.

Week 8 Medical Mashups/Rollyo

I looked at HubMed and a related mashup Biowizard that both offered an alternative way to search and use results from PubMed. I wasn't impressed with either one for searching. It seemed Biowizard only allowed a simple keyword search and HubMed's Boolean search including MeSH headings did not function well. A search for breast neoplasms and diet came up with only 1 result in HubMed and over 1600 in OvidSP.

I did find this mashup of a journal database with articles that can be discussed, rated, commented on etc interesting. Unfortunatley Biowizard offered additional services but for a fee: searching conference abstracts and visual displays. Isn't a fee for service counter Web 2.0 philosophy?

I also looked at Vimo and thought it offered interesting data on hospitals, health practitioners and insurance. Mashed with Google maps, it offers consumers comparative information on health services and then gives directions to the facility. I don't know if they say how they get their price information. I don't know how reliable or current their information is. I do know, if you fill out a form, several insurance salesmen will call you! I think while users can be wowed by mashup creativity, they still need to evaluate the sites for credibility, purpose etc.

By using Rollyo and its searchroll for libraryblogs, I found the link to the Shifted Librarian and then her blog link to the OCLC report on sharing online and privacy.

I created a searchroll using the sample of reference links Rollyo provided and have added it to my blog.

over the rainbow by connie

Week 7: Podcasting and Online Hosted Video

I am familiar with the use of podcasts to share information on a health topic. I think this is a valuable way to capture timely content and make it available to the public. I thought some of the library podcasts that tried to explain library programs were difficult for me to understand. I think not all information lends itself to an audio presentation, and not all learners learn by listening. I am a visual person so onto YouTube....

YouTube certainly seems to have a little bit of everything, good and bad. I got "stuck" as I watched the videos of a six year old British singing star for about 30 minutes.... I did move on finally to explore some of the libraries that have made videos. That was quite an experience too. It makes you realize, you need to really think about what you're trying to do, how to engage your audience, etc. because some of them were realllly boring. The best ones were short and entertaining.

Best of all, I was able to post a video to my blog! Enjoy, Dorothy fans!!

over the rainbow

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Week 6 Photo Sharing

Flickr is a very friendly and easy to use web tool for a beginner like me. Someone who has been doing this and has lots of uses for their photos may not agree, but I found this free Yahoo product to be very interactive. I also made use of the free photos available from their Creative Commons project and added a photographer to my deli.cio.us list. Or you can check out the Library of Congress for their photo collection.

Now, for everyone who doesn't have a digital camera yet, raise your hand! And if you want to share your personal photos, well, you'll have to buck up and bite the bullet and buy a new camera! I'm still "hiding" behind Dorothy Gale, so I'm not ready to do a whole lot of sharing! I'm from the generation that was taught, or at least I was, that you do your own work. Now the message is share, share and share some more. Probably a good message for the world in this 21st century !