This morning I saw a tweet from OhioLink about landscapes carved from stacks of old books. So I clicked on the link and saw some extremely creative and beautiful works of art by Guy Laramee. To say that Laramee got some old books and carved them to look like landscapes is an understatement. Do you remember the library phantom who left works of art made from books as gifts in various libraries and museums? Laramee is just as creative and talented.
This is my favorite.
One of Guy Laramee’s book carvings from the project Biblios.
Guy Laramee is an artist who works in different mediums, books is just one of them. If you are interesting in seeing some more of his book carvings click on The Great Wall and Biblios.
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If books had ears then Inkling, a company that makes textbooks interactive for the iPad, would be turning them on their ear. Currently most of us are familiar with ebooks through AccessMedicine, MDConsult, StatRef, and even Unbound Medicine. These types of ebooks tend to be a little bit more than the book in a readable (often PDF) style that can be easily read online. Sometimes there are more graphics, links to online resources, movies or sound files that are embedded in the text, but they pretty much still function like the text.
Recently iMedicalApps posted about Inkling’s webinar on their ebooks. I have included the Inkline webinar in this blog post, please note you may have to watch it at home like I did if your hospital blocks Vimeo.
Inkling Medical Webinar from Inkling on Vimeo.
The webinar goes into a rather long history of how traditional textbooks are boring, printed, linear, and not interactive. But hey that was the best technology we had at the time…I can only imaging the conversations when we moved from scrolls to books. I found the most interesting parts to be the demo of Inkling books. They looked at Harrison’s and Netter’s and showed the difference between their books and regular online books. Some of the difference are the ability to take and share notes with others globally, removing labels for medical images, and linking to multimedia. My explanation is not doing it justice so it is best if you watch the webinar. Librarian, Nadine Dexter, also discussed how her institution is using Inkling books for the new medical school.
Inkling books are available for individual sale as well as institutional sales. They also will sell just the chapters to books. So if your medical school curriculum only needs students to read a couple of chapters within a book, they (or the institution) only have to buy those chapters which is cheaper than the entire book. They already have relationships with McGraw Hill, Wolters Kluwer, Elsevier, etc. so it isn’t like iBooks where we are waiting for something medical to happen.
The webinar is only 30 minutes and they did a good job of answering the questions people had but it was directed to a lot of different health care people (not just librarians), so some questions that librarians often think about weren’t asked or answered during that time. Some of the questions that I thought of while watching the webinar were about perpetual access, licensing, how does it work with Blackboard and other course management systems. If a library bought a book what is the best way for them to distribute it their institutional employees. In terms of library purchases, is it something that is ”check-out-able” and is unavailable while somebody is using it (similar to public library Kindle books) or can any number of institutional users use it at any time?
I have been saving up to purchase an iPad 3 when they come out and I am looking forward to testing all sorts of online books (Inkling included) to see how they measure up. I am just glad I found this webinar because it looks like Inkling is nice addition to the already small field of medical ebooks and even small field of those willing to work with institutions.
The MidContinental blog posted information about the ALCTS webinar: The Black, White, and Gray Areas of Licensing: a review and update for librarians and publishers.
The webinar is FREE and is February 29, 2012 11am Pacific, noon Mountain, 1pm Central, and 2pm Eastern.
The presenters are Becky Albitz, Electronic Resources Librarian at Pennsylvania State University, Bob Boissy, Manager of Account Development & Strategic Alliances for Springer, and Tracy Thompson-Przylucki, Executive Director of NELLCO.
The presenters will discuss library licensing issues and answer pre-submitted questions. Webinar attendees will be asked to submit questions upon registration.
For additional information including links to the registration page, please click on the following link:
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/022912.cfm
ALCTS webinars are recorded and registrants receive a link to the recording shortly following the live event.
For questions about registration, contact ALA Registration by calling 1-800-545-2433 and press 5 or email
registration[atsign]ala[dot]org. For all other questions or comments related to the webinars, contact Julie Reese, ALCTS Events Manager at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 5034 or alctsce[atsign]ala[dot]org.
We need you on the team for 2012! The Official MLA blog has become a relied upon resource for both meeting attendees and non-attendees to stay current about the meeting. So apply to be a blogger! Applications will be accepted today through February 10th via SurveyMonkey.
True to the baseball theme, we have roster spots for various utility bloggers. Wireless cards are available to 12 people in select categories. Blog posts typically are 250 – 500 words in length and correspondents post 1-2 times each day (unless otherwise noted) depending on their category requirements. For complete Guidelines for Bloggers go to the blogger page. All correspondents will receive 3 AHIP points for their participation.
Blog Correspondent Categories
Training Camp
1 post/day about what you’re learning, 1 post must be a description of a CE course you took while at the conference
Hall of Fame Player (10+ years)
2 posts/day from perspective of a long time MLA member. Suggested topics: What has changed? What has stayed the same? What are you excited/disappointed/curious about?
Grounds Crew
1 post/day, posts about things that happen early in the game, er, day; should include the Major’s walk & a Sunrise Seminar review.
Exhibits Scout
1 post/day on things of interest in the exhibit hall
AAA Player
2 posts/day offering the conference perspective of a library science student. Suggested topics: What events did you attend? What questions arose about medical librarianship? What are you excited/disappointed/curious about?
Rookie
2 posts/day offering the conference perspective of a new member or first time conference attendee. Suggested topics: What are you looking forward to? What events did you attend? If you are presenting a poster or paper, what reflections do you have on the process?
Franchise Player
1 post/day on NLM related events and news (NLM update, Friends of NLM reception, related poster or paper sessions.)
Power Hitter
6 posts total on plenary sessions
Welcome/presidential address
McGovern Lecture
MLA Business Meeting
Doe Lecture
Presidential Inaugural & MLA ’12 Invitation
NLM Update
Outfielder
6 posts total on poster sessions. Suggested topics: What were the most interesting posters from each session? What emerging trends did you observe?
Designated Hitter (3 positions available)
2 posts/day on section activities
Posts on section sponsored programs, papers/projects by section members, business meetings, incoming/outgoing officers, etc.
Membership in Section is preferred.
List of MLA Sections
Pinch Hitter (3 positions available)
2 posts/day on special interest group activities
Posts on SIG sponsored events, papers/projects related to SIG interests, informal meetings, incoming/outgoing officers, etc.
SIGs are ad hoc groups open to all members of MLA. Active SIG members are preferred, but anyone with an interest in blogging a specific SIG’s activities are invited to apply.
List of MLA Special Interest Groups
Mascot
1 post/day on social events, include Bearded Pigs, receptions and other events. Photography encouraged.
Your idea here
1 post/day from a perspective of your own design.
Please consider contributing to MLA’12 by being a blogger. Providing great information and coverage of the meeting is a team effort and we need you on the team.
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The MARquee posted a link the most intriguing medical facts of 2011 as collected from the pages of the American Medical News and I thought I would pass it along as it is perfect for a little Friday Fun.
The list is pretty long, here are just some that I found to be the most interesting. Go to the website for the complete list, the links within the list go to the full story.
If you are curious about past intriguing stories, check out the 2009 and 2010 lists.
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Apple announced today the release of iBooks 2 which is supposed to revolutionize the etextbook market.
The area of ebooks is very tumultuous in general but then add specialty books like medical texts, volume usage (libraries buy one book for many to use), license agreements, platforms, and easy discoverability and accessibility and it becomes a giant quagmire. Additionally, I think major medical publishers have been v-e-r-y slow to get into the ebook market. Oh yeah they had ebooks for a while, but those were produced similar to ejournals. They were available online and accessible usually by desk top or laptop. The Kindle started the movement but the iPad just turn things on its ear.
Many of the ebooks medical libraries have bought are from established publishers like the AccessMedicine books through McGraw Hill, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins books through Ovid, or multiple different publisher titles through Rittenhouse or STATRef. The one problem is that while most of these books are online, they are really only accessible via regular computer. The vast majority have not been formatted for the iPad or other platforms. (Interesting since Apple just announced they are partnering with McGraw Hill to make textbooks on the iPad, but it seems like they haven’t really done that with the Access textbooks.) Now for some books not being optimized isn’t a big deal because they display alright using the iPad browser. However even if they display correctly the publishers’ sites make it MISERABLE to access the book. This was a major problem BEFORE mobile readers. Librarians world wide for years bemoaned the difficulty their users had at finding and accessing their ebook packages. The silos that publishers host their ebooks makes it difficult for library users to access titles. The problem hasn’t changed now that we have tablets, it has just gotten worse.
The one saving grace prior to tablets was that many accepted that ebooks were accessible by traditional computers. But when smartphones came out people starting accessing the web using their phones. They were beginning to access online resources via the phone when they weren’t near a computer. Instead of walking down the hall they whipped out their phone. The iPad just continued to ween people off traditional computers. Instead of using smartphones doctors were using iPads and they were using them so much at work that the traditional lab coat got a make over to include an iPad size pocket. People not walking to a computer to access the web, they have the web with them and they want their online texts.
In the past when I would talk to various publishers and library vendors about accessing their texts via mobile device (pre iPad and Kindle) they would smile and gently say that nobody wants to read a book on a phone. Well I disagreed. What do you think Unbound Medicine or Skyscape did? They made texts (and other medical programs) available for handheld devices. Originally they did that with PDAs now they have transitioned to smartphones. Heck they have some of the major publishers, McGraw Hill, Elsevier, LWW, etc. on their site all ready to be used on a smartphone or the iPad (they don’t have Kindle or Nook stuff). Yet the publishers, while trying to push their own silo suite of online books, have been slow to adapt to technology and user demands. The writing was on the wall folks.
Medical librarians are left trying to figure things out. We have the silos of ebooks that were difficult to find and access prior to mobile devices and now we are getting more users asking us for ebooks. What do we say or do? Do we tell them we have ebooks…sort of? Yeah you can access it online but no it isn’t optimized for the tablet or smartphone so it may or may not be readable. We have quickly moved from ebooks as simply online books on the computer to a portable information resource that can be accessed anywhere without lugging around a computer.
Recently there have been a lot of emails (most with the subject line ”sad state of hospital library”) hitting MEDLIB-L about the closings of several hospital libraries and what needs to be done to prevent this from happening to more libraries.
It is a complicated issue with many sides and it is only exacerbated by the down turn in the economy and the changes in healthcare.
As Jerry Perry, MLA President, mentions, everyone has a role in hospital library advocacy. Jerry wrote a very interesting and thoughful blog post on this issue. His post has great suggestions for how to prevent library or position from being downsized. The only thing I would like to add is to start NOW! Don’t wait for trouble or rumors of downsizing for you to start. Don’t wait for budget cuts. The time to start was when you started in your position. But if you didn’t do that, do it now. Some of these things that Jerry mentions take time and require you to make contacts.
Yet even with the best activities of the best librarians some libraries have closed. Look for a future blog entry by Jerry on what MLA is doing at the national level to advocate for all health sciences libraries.
The SCR CONNECTions webinar, Unwrapping Mobile Technology Trends for the New Year is now available in the SCR CONNECTions archives http://nnlm.gov/scr/training/webmeeting.html#Archives. The PowerPoint presentation which has a lot of great links to the references she mentions is also available on the website.
The webinar is very good for librarians new to the area of mobile devices. Emily Hurst, the presenter, discusses smartphones, tablets and e-readers. Mobile devices in libraries is still fairly new. According to Emily’s survey most of the people attending the webinar use them for education and instruction, but there were still those who don’t use it in the library. What was interesting was LSU mentioned in the chat that they use mobile devices to check off campus access. That is how the systems librarian and I use our personal mobile devices at work too. Often we are told a resource is unavailable off campus, but of course we are told this while we are work (on campus). Now when we are notified of problems either the systems librarian or I turn off wifi on our smartphone and use 3G to access the off campus server and then try and access the problem resource for troubleshooting.
Emily also described the differences between mobile sites and mobile apps. There was a brief discussion about the pros and cons for each. Emily asked the question, “Providing direct access to a specific type of data, program, or information on a mobile device is best archived with a… mobile site or mobile app?” While most of the people in the webinar answered mobile app, I feel the question was kind of a loaded one. I think the real answer is, “it depends.” It depends on how you want to use the resource, does it need to be loaded and “on” all the time regardless of 3G or wifi connectivity? If so then you need an app. How often does the information change and how robust is your computer programming skills? If your information changes quite often and you don’t have a cadre of computer programmers then you need to go with an mobile website. Finally you need to think cross platform. If all of your users have iPhones then that is great you only need to develop one app. But if your users have a variety of devices and you don’t have variety of programmers, you might consider a mobile site which can be read by any mobile device.
Two valuable resources Emily mentions are CNET’s Updates Tablets Test Results and Yale’s Mobile Device Options for Healthcare Professional. CNET’s is a listing comparing LOTS of tablet devices with each other so that people can make an informed decision as to which one they would like. The nice thing is this list is updated regularly. Yale’s is a listing of various resources (phone and tablet) and healthcare things to consider prior to purchasing a device.
The last technology discussed was the e-reader. The nice thing about Kindle is you DON’T have to have a Kindle, you can download the free Kindle app on your Android, iPhone or iPad. It is important to remember that e-readers aren’t just for books. Librarians might want to consider creating or selecting PDFs, Word docs, audio files, or collection of works for specific users or groups. This works especially well in outreach and education endeavors. Suzanne Shurtz and Megan von Isenburg describe using e-readers in medical education (Shurtz, S., & von Isenburg, M. (2011). Exploring e-readers to support clinical medical education: two case studies Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 99 (2), 110-117 DOI: 10.3163/1536-5050.99.2.002) and although medical students did use them at the bedside they said they were very helpful in their studies.
Mobile devices are a part of our daily lives. The largest growth in smartphones was from women and older individuals, as Emily notes this really indicates that smartphones have gone mainstream. This is a great webinar for those new to the technology in medical libraries.
This week (and part of next) I am in jury duty. Thankfully the jury pool room has free wifi so I have been able to keep up with the online world a bit (If my laptop battery lasts, there are precious few electrical outlets).
This morning I received an email from another librarian asking me how I use an iPad as a librarian. Well, I don’t have an iPad. I am saving up for one when the iPad 3 comes out. So a lot of the ways I would use an iPad are still just guesses for me.
So I posted the question on the iMedicalApps forum, “How Do Librarians Use iPads.” My hope is that librarians with iPads will answer how they use their iPad in the job and how it is a better tool or solves a need that previous tools (laptops, desktops, smartphones, etc.) didn’t.
Note: I am on jury duty this week. Depending on if I am called or not, there may or may not be more posts for the rest of the week and into next week.
If you aren’t grandfathered into Verizon’s or AT&T’s unlimited data plans and you don’t have Sprint, you just might want to think twice before you ask your favorite iPhone assistant, Siri, to look something up or read that text for you. According to several reports, iPhone 4S users use almost twice as much data as users of the iPhone 4. The culprit it seems is Siri. According to this Forbes article (and others), every time you ask Siri a question or tell Siri to do something it has to send your voice commands to Apple’s servers to understand what you are saying. So even if you are asking it to play a song on your phone that is in your library, Siri has to go out to Apple’s servers to understand your command just to play that song.
So as fun as Siri might be, you might want to limit your use depending your data plan and whether you are on wifi or not.
