Yesterday I posted about ebooks and what some of the librarians attending the Springer LibraryZone Virtual eBook webinar discussed. Today I saw a post on liblicense from Scott Plutchak comparing the transition and the situation to what librarians experienced when journals transitioned from print to electronic.
Interesting. I have to admit that just never occurred to me. But Scott brought up some excellent points saying just like now with ebooks, librarians were very frustrated and up in arms when journals started becoming much more electronic. Just think, the official version of BMJ isn’t the print any more, it is the online journal. PubMed citations for BMJ journals no longer include page numbers, just the doi. Did anybody see that coming when ejournals started going big?
I wouldn’t say our experiences with ejournals are all rosy now, nor do I think Scott would say that. But they certainly were a lot bumpier back then. (“Back then”…. it almost sounds like I am talking about the days before automobiles and talkie films.) Basically we are farther along in the online process with ejournals than we are with ebooks. In a few years perhaps much of the issues and confusion over content, ILL, access, etc. will have been worked out a little bit.
It is an interesting thought, and I am wondering what other librarians might think about the comparison of print journals to ejournals and print books to ebooks.
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Last week I sat in on the Springer LibraryZone Virtual eBook webinar and it was a very interesting discussion. Many libraries (especially academic) are investigating and collecting e-books in lieu of some printed text. How much they are collecting and the nature by which they to the selection process seems to vary according each library, their type, size, consortia involvement, usage data, etc.
The reasons why and how much they bought all varied but the frustrations, questions, and concerns the faced were very similar and seemed on the minds of every librarian regardless of their library, type, size, consortia involvement, etc. So what were these concerns?
DRM- Digital rights restrictions. It seems that every publisher has different rules and while some things can be put on electronic reserve others cannot. While some things can be shared through ILL or on Blackboard others cannot. This is not only a particular frustration among librarians but also patrons who aren’t as savvy with copyright issues. The patrons get frustrated with DRM restrictions for library materials and they are even more frustrated with the restrictions for e-books they buy themselves. Their view is, “I bought, don’t tell me how I am allowed to use it.” I am not saying this is always the right or wrong thought process, but it is their thoughts and to a certain extent librarians.
Access – How do people find your e-books was a common question among the librarians. The e-books publishers don’t always have decent MARC records (if they have any) that can be easily added to the catalog. So the cataloger must work to add them into the catalog, yet more and more patrons really don’t use the catalog these days. They would rather randomly search the library’s website or Google. Some librarians mentioned universal search engines on their web sites as helpful but few mentioned those as having all the answers for finding e-books. The impression that I got was universal search engines help but aren’t the magic bullet to finding your e-book collection.
Platform confusion – Every publisher’s platform is different and this causes a lot of confusion for finding the book in the platform, accessing it, reading, printing off a chapter, not to mention linking to it within catalogs and Blackboard. People (librarians and patrons) don’t want to think. They want a standard look at feel when selecting an e-book and reading a chapter. They want to print of a paragraph, chapter, or section but some platforms only allow you to see one paragraph at a time on the screen, others disable printing, while others allow the chapter to printed off in PDF. See how confusing this is for a student who goes into one book reads the chapter in PDF then goes to another book on another platform and wants to print out that chapter to read offline. This type of problem of platform variation was seen a lot with e-journals in the beginning. There are still some differences in e-journal sites but many are starting to gradually adopt a similar look and feel these days. One can only hope e-book publishers might do the same.
Package vs. Single Title – There is some frustration and confusion over how publishers bundle (or don’t bundle) their e-books. Some expressed how it is frustrating that if they bought the titles they want/needed ala carte they would be paying a lot more than if they bought them in a bundle. Why is this a problem? There were people who expressed anger at paying for titles in the bundle that they didn’t want. Others expressed frustrations with publishers who allowed their content to be on independent or outside platforms only to yank their books from those platforms later. McGraw Hill has been doing this recently with their textbooks on other reseller platforms such as Ovid and StatRef, interestingly not all of their pulled titles are even available on a McGraw Hill platform, thus leaving the title unavailable online.
Content – This is one of the biggest frustrations among librarians and was a recently discussed on liblicense-l and Medlib-l. Just because you bought the textbook doesn’t mean that it is the same in e-book version and vice versa. It can be something as simple as no page numbers on the electronic version (making it difficult for people to cite a reference in their articles). Or it can be as extensive as missing chapters in the printed volume that are only available online via a special subscription service or code intended for individuals (not libraries). If the missing material is in electronic form it means the library may not be able to get the content via ILL, depending on that publisher’s copyright policies. This phenomenon is also happening in reverse, online texts not having all of the content of the printed text. Therefore, a library buys the e-book for for curriculum reasons and the teacher wants to link out to a specific chapter on Blackboard only to learn that chapter is not available electronically, it is only available in print. At least in this scenario libraries can get the printed chapter via ILL. Many feel this is a classic example of buyer beware or bait and switch since very few publishers disclose these caveats when somebody is buying the printed textbook or e-book. There were some librarians on Medlib-l who now refuse to purchase certain publishers based on these questionable editing practices.
There was some discussion about e-books on Kindels, Nooks, iPads, etc. but it appeared that most librarians weren’t currently collecting e-books for specific readers. They still collected e-books based on need and for curriculum reasons. It seems that many still have patrons accessing them on desktops or laptops. So while it seems that many in the publishing world are focused on the various readers, it appears that librarians are focused on content and accessibility, NOT the readers. Which makes things difficult. It kind of reminds me of dating and the old saying, “Men are from Mars and women are from Venus.” Perhaps librarians and their patrons are from Mars and publishers are from Venus, we both focus on different things in our relationship making communication and partnership difficult. Librarians would like to purchase e-books but feel frustrated by backbone issues like accessibility, content, etc. while publishers would like to sell e-books but are focused on exterior issues like readers. It probably makes each group (librarians and publishers) feel like they the other is playing hard to get.
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I ran across this map of the
Social Networking World while looking for something else and I thought I would share it with you. I am not sure what I would use it for other than for fun, conversation, and a possible PowerPoint slide. In other words perfect for a Friday post.
2010 Social Network Map by Flowtown
The map was created by Flowtown as an updated tribute to XKCD’s ‘Map of Online Communities.’ The size of the countries/continents reflect the millions of users, for each service (as shown by the scale at the bottom of the image).
It is kind of fun to look through and laugh over a few things like the YouTube Triangle of Viral Videos or the Death Valley of John Mayer Tweets. One thing I find a little interesting is Google Wave is missing, wouldn’t that be in the Land of Defunct Social Networks, or perhaps should it be the Dried Lake Bed of Google Wave within the Empire of Google? Just thinking aloud.
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According to iMedicalApps.com Kaplan is offering 100 free e-books through the Apple Bookstore for a limited time. There are 19 medically related books available including USMLE books, MCAT, and CCRN books.
Unfortunately this free book detail is only available to iPad and iPhone users (because the deal is only available at the Apple Bookstore) until August 30, 2010.
Check out iMedicalApps.com for more information and some good screen shots of what the books look like on the iPad (they state it is “significantly easier” to read the books on the iPad).
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Twitter is a nice conversation tool for quickly asking questions among friends/colleagues, sharing quick bits of information and news stories, and is also especially popular among conference goers. But what happens when you want to refer back to an old tweet? Is it easy to find? Well if the person used a hashtag (a hashtag is a word with the number sign in front of it, like #mla) then you can search specifically for that hashtag. But that can be complicated after a while because tweets seem to fall off the face of the Twittersphere after a few weeks. Not all search engines are created equal especially when it comes to finding tweets. Forget about regular Google that doesn’t work.
David Lee King compiled a list of Twitter specific search engines that can find old tweets. He was looking for old tweets regarding a question on how people get permission to use things. His search engine list is organized on how well they performed. He discovered Topsy, twazzup, and crowdeye found most recent tweet plus others, while many other Twitter search engines (including Twitter itself) found only the most recent tweet or nothing at all.
David’s list is helpful for those finding old tweets. But while I was researching how to find old tweets, I thought, “You know Google has to have gotten into this mess. After all the dispaly tweets for ‘real time’ searching.” Sure enough Google has a Twitter search, but it is in development and it is hidden.
Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land wrote, All The Old Tweets Are Found: Google Launches Twitter Archive Search describing Google’s Twitter archive service. According to the article it currently works for tweets posted from Feb 2010-Present, but “soon it will be available for all tweets from March 2006, when Twitter was first launched.”
It is a fairly robust search. You can search via hashtag or you can search for multiple keywords or phrase. Search Engine Land also mentions a lot of other ways Google Twitter search can be used for data analysis. Because it is in experiment mode, I haven’t found a very good way of getting to Google Twitter search other than through this link Search Engine Land provides (which is a search for Obama on Twitter). But if you can change the search term and get results. Now if you go to the link you will see highlighted in yellow that “The experiment you’re trying to access is no longer available. Go to experiments overview.” I am not quite sure what that exactly means, because when I search #medlib I get results as recent as August 16, 2010. So it appears to be working and it works MUCH better than this Google Custom Twitter Search which is what you will find if you type Google Twitter search in the Google search box. If you use the Custom Twitter Search with the term #medlib you get the Twitter conversations mixed in with other things mentioning medlibs.
So if you are looking for old tweets I would use either experimental Google Twitter search (but it might not be really current) or I would use David’s three he recommends.
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For those librarians dealing with this really hot summer, what better way to beat the heat than to watch a movie this weekend. Yeah you could go see Eat Pray Love, but why not rent a movie and stay at home (crank the a/c). You don’t have to pay extra for your favorite foods, nobody (but you or your significant other) will be talking during the movie, and if you have to go to the bathroom you can hit pause.
If that is up your alley for fun this weekend then have I got a list for you. The Huffington Postcreated a list of 11 films that “give librarians the center stage.” There is something for everyone; the sarcastic GenX librarian in Party Girl, adventure themed movies like National Treasure and The Mummy, thrillers like Foul Play and Peeping Tom, and classics like the Desk Set.
Have a good weekend
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The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is developing a new site called PubMed Health. According to MidContinental Region News, “PubMedHealth will focus on consumer-level, evidence-based health information.” PubMed Health is under development at the National Library of Medicine’s National Center for Biotechnology Information and is being introduced in phases, starting with consumer drug information provided by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. According to the Sheridan Libraries blog post, ”The drug information will be integrated with several other NCBI databases, ultimately providing a linked resource for finding information about diseases and conditions, treatments, and other related data.”
I know what you are thinking, “What does this mean for MedlinePlus?” Personally, I have no clue. But according to the MidContinental Region News, “PubMed Health does not replace MedlinePlus (http://medlineplus.gov/), NLM’s premier health Web site for patients and their families and friends. ”
Ok so MedlinePlus isn’t going away, that still doesn’t answer a lot of other questions, like how will PubMed Health integrate with other NCBI resources? I have been looking for more information on PubMed Health but there just isn’t a lot out there on it. Apparently, an NLM Technical Bulletin article about PubMed Health will be published once the site is ready to be launched. (I think it would be nice if they were a little more proactive and write something up sooner rather than when the site is ready for launch because a quick search on some drugs in Google is already yielding some PubMed Health results, like progesterone, amlodipine, and methadone.)
I just worry about possible confusion with this new resource. If it is for consumers then calling it something very similar to an already established consumer database is going to be confusing IMHO. I will post more about PubMed Health when I learn more and if anybody has any information on it that they would like to share, please comment.
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Take The Onion and the Chronicle of Higher Education and mash them up and you get CronkNews. Once you understand that, it isn’t surprising then to see the article, Librarians Abandon Dewey Decimal System in Favor of Netflix Categories. It makes for a quick fun read just before the weekend.
It also gets me thinking how the Netflix Category Classification System would work in the medical libraries. 
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According to a poston iMedicalApps, the premium version of Epocrates is free for medical students if they download it BEFORE August 31, 2010. There are some caveats to it, students must have an iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, or Blackberry. And to those who are using Androids or PalmPre’s, “No soup for you!” You are out of luck because there isn’t a premium version available to those phones.
The premium version of Epocrates is normally $159. Medical students must register by creating an Epocrates account and then selecting the medical school.
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Whether it is due to persoan choices or institutional restrictions, there is a large group of physicians who use a Blackberry. Unfortunately there is not a lot of medical software for the Blackberry.
The National Library of Medicine just released WISER (Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders) for the Blackberry. WISER for BlackBerry can be downloaded from the WISER Web site and includes “quick online access to WISER’s full database of chemical, biological and radiological substances” as well as “easy access to WISER help identify capability and full suite of tools.”
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