The Washington Post article, A 10-Year Checkup: A Decade Into the E-Health Era, Online Medical Resources Pass a Real-Life Test, looks at searching the Internet to find information on Google, Google Co-op, MedlinePlus, and WebMD. The author mentions that while he did come across dangerous or misinformation, he felt it was easy to avoid. "The Internet has matured to a point where the millions of people seeking medical information can prepare themselves for a serious medical encounter with speed and confidence."

What I found interesting is his use of Google Co-p. He found it while searching Google that it provided suggestions for narrowing his topic and filter results by clicking on such choices as diagnosis, treatment, symptoms, clinical trials, etc. It enabled him to drill down to find information that was a little more in depth than many of the authoritive reputable consumer sites he had found. Hmm perhaps my (Krafty's) thoughts on tagging in Google Co-op health might be worth revisiting after I get a chance to play with it a little more again.

This article fits in with a recent report released from Harris Interactive stating "80% of respondents with Internet access said that they have sought health care information online, compared with 72% in 2005. In addition, 61% of respondents with Internet access said that they sought health care information online "sometimes or often," compared with 58% in 2005, the survey finds. About 25% of respondents who sought health care information online said that they considered the data "very reliable," compared with 37% in 2005."

It appears more and more consumers are looking for more health information and perhaps they are getting better at finding more reliable information. So what does this mean for us as librarians. Personally, I think it means that many of the users that will/are coming to us have already done their preliminary investigations online. So we not only have to find the really tricky stuff that is buried or difficult to find (ala the Invisible Web) but we also have to do a better job of conducting reference interviews. We need to start asking them if they have already looked on the Internet and what sites (if they remember) and what kind of information did they find and what do they want you to find now that they haven't been able to find.