Enhancing web search in the medical domain via query clarification

The majority of Internet users search for medical information online; however, many do not have an adequate medical vocabulary. Users might have difficulties finding the most authoritative and useful information because they are unfamiliar with the appropriate medical expressions describing their condition; consequently, they are unable to adequately satisfy their information need. We investigate the utility of bridging the gap between layperson and expert vocabularies; our approach adds the most appropriate expert expression to queries submitted by users, a task we call query clarification. We evaluated the impact of query clarification. Using three different synonym mappings and conducting two task-based retrieval studies, users were asked to answer medically-related questions using interleaved results from a major search engine. Our results show that the proposed system was preferred by users and helped them answer medical concerns correctly more often, with up to a 7 % increase in correct answers over an unmodified query. Finally, we introduce a supervised classifier to select the most appropriate synonym mapping for each query, which further increased the fraction of correct answers (12 %).     

Clinical medical librarianship: a review of the literature

The history and evolution of clinical medical librarianship are analyzed and traditional and modified approaches, including LATCH, are reviewed. Cost and evaluation methods are outlined, indicating benefits and disadvantages of clinical medical librarian (CML) programs. The future of CMLs is explored.     

Politics and publishing in a democratic society: Technical breakthroughs and research agendas

Publishing flourishes best in a democratic society. Technological changes alter the relationship of forces so that opportunities for publishing expand. A broader range of information channels, for example, increases choice and makes authoritarian rule more difficult. Publishing also enhances democracy when decisions are made on the basis of merit rather than top-down legislation. Research should reflect awareness of the interaction of publishing and politics. Such areas as the relationship between public and private sectors, the impact of internationalization, non-U.S. ownership of information, mergers and acquisitions, and conflict between the First Amendment and copyright law, are examples of areas in which democratic outcomes are critical. Decision making in publishing would benefit from heightened awareness of the political consequences of publishers’ activities. Irving Louis Horowithz is the author ofCommunicating Ideas: The Politics of Publishing Mary E. Curtis has written widely on subjects of concern to professional publishing.     

Planning a new medical library: a personal perspective and review of the literature*

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The Map of Medicine: a review of evidence for its impact on healthcare

Objectives: Map of Medicine is an evidence‐based online clinical knowledge resource. Procured at significant cost by healthcare providers in the UK, Sweden and Denmark, it is important to establish the beneficial impact that investment has had on healthcare practise and, ultimately, on patient outcomes. The objective of this study is to review the evidence for the impact of the Map of Medicine on clinical practice. Methods: A systematic review of peer‐reviewed and grey literature was conducted. Nine healthcare databases, Google Scholar and Google were searched for articles containing the terms ‘map of medicine’. Results: The search identified 133 articles. Eleven of the articles identified met the inclusion criteria. The main finding of the study is the paucity of evidence available on the impact of the Map of Medicine and the variable quality of that which does exist. There are some encouraging early indications for the Map of Medicine as a tool within service redesign, leading to an increase in appropriate referrals to secondary care, decreased patient waiting times and considerable cost savings. Conclusion: Further research with study designs that can generate high quality evidence for the impact of Map of Medicine is essential in order to support policy decisions.     

Hands-on instruction across the miles: Using a web tutorial to teach the literature review research process

A Web tutorial was developed by the author to approximate the experience of guided hands-on library instruction for distance learners The presentation of the literature review process as a linked series of problems to solve, suggested a systems thinking approach A diagram to provide both a conceptual overview of the library research process and a navigational tool for the tutorial was designed The author presents the development of the idea for the tutorial, describes its contents, and discusses its use with students     

Breaking down information barriers: a guide to international research of medical resources on the World Wide Web

The purpose of this paper is to facilitate international research of medical resources on the World Wide Web. International research consists of overcoming a unique set of obstacles and challenges that are not involved when undertaking research tasks using only U.S.-based information. Utilizing the World Wide Web can help us to overcome most of the restraints we would have to face when we perform research outside of our local geography. Currently, there are a number of Internet Web sites that may assist us in breaking down the barriers to undertaking international research.     

Training at the postgraduate level for medical librarians: a review.

Postgraduate education for medical librarians is approachable from several perspectives, including internships, certificate programs, and continuing education programs. The diverse population of medical library personnel calls for a varied yet coordinated system of postgraduate education involving the Medical Library Association, regional medical libraries, library schools, and the National Library of Medical, in addition to active participation by all librarians in the health sciences field. Basic philosophies for each of the major types of programs are discussed and recommendations for future training of health sciences librarians are provided.     

A study of medical and health queries to web search engines

This paper reports findings from an analysis of medical or health queries to different web search engines. We report results: (i). comparing samples of 10000 web queries taken randomly from 1.2 million query logs from the AlltheWeb.com and Excite.com commercial web search engines in 2001 for medical or health queries, (ii). comparing the 2001 findings from Excite and AlltheWeb.com users with results from a previous analysis of medical and health related queries from the Excite Web search engine for 1997 and 1999, and (iii). medical or health advice-seeking queries beginning with the word 'should'. Findings suggest: (i). a small percentage of web queries are medical or health related, (ii). the top five categories of medical or health queries were: general health, weight issues, reproductive health and puberty, pregnancy/obstetrics, and human relationships, and (iii). over time, the medical and health queries may have declined as a proportion of all web queries, as the use of specialized medical/health websites and e-commerce-related queries has increased. Findings provide insights into medical and health-related web querying and suggests some implications for the use of the general web search engines when seeking medical/health information.     

Charging for library and information services in medical libraries: a review of the literature and a survey of current practice*

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Addressing challenges with systematic review teams through effective communication: a case report

Background:Every step in the systematic review process has challenges, ranging from resistance by review teams to adherence to standard methodology to low-energy commitment to full participation. These challenges can derail the project and result in significant delays, duplication of work, and failure to complete the review. Communication during the systematic review process is key to ensuring it runs smoothly and is identified as a core competency for librarians involved in systematic reviews.Case Presentation:This case report presents effective communication approaches that our librarians employ to address challenges encountered while working with systematic review teams. The communication strategies we describe engage teams through information, questions, and action items and lead to productive collaborations with publishable systematic reviews.Conclusions:Effective communication with review teams keeps systematic review projects moving forward. The techniques covered in this case study strive to minimize misunderstandings, educate collaborators, and, in our experience, have led to multiple successful collaborations and publications. Librarians working in the systematic review space will recognize these challenges and can adapt these techniques to their own environments.     

Non-english web search: an evaluation of indexing and searching the Greek web

The study reports on a longitudinal and comparative evaluation of Greek language searching on the web. Ten engines, five global (A9, AltaVista, Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo!) and five Greek (Anazitisi, Ano-Kato, Phantis. Trinity, and Visto), were evaluated using (a) navigational queries in 2004 and 2006; and (b) by measuring the freshness of the search engine indices in 2005 and 2006. Homepage finding queries for known Greek organizations were created and searched. Queries included the name of the organization in its Greek and non-Greek, English or transliterated equivalent forms. The organizations represented ten categories: government departments, universities, colleges, travel agencies, museums, media (TV, radio, newspapers), transportation, and banks. The freshness of the indices was evaluated by examining the status of the returned URLs (live versus dead) from the navigational queries, and by identifying if the engines have indexed 32480 active (live) Greek domain URLs. Effectiveness measures included (a) qualitative assessment of how engines handle the Greek language; (b) precision at 10 documents (P@10); (c) mean reciprocal rank (MRR); (d) Navigational Query Discounted Cumulative Gain (NQ-DCG), a new heuristic evaluation measure; (e) response time; (f) the ratio of the dead URL links returned, (g) the presence or absence of URLs and the decay observed over the period of the study. The results report on which of the global and Greek search engines perform best; and if the performance achieved is good enough from a user’s perspective.     

Implementation of Web 2.0 services in academic, medical and research libraries: a scoping review

Background: Academic, medical and research libraries frequently implement Web 2.0 services for users. Several reports notwithstanding, characteristics and effectiveness of services are unclear. Objectives: To find out: the Web 2.0 services implemented by medical, academic and research libraries; study designs, measures and types of data used in included articles to evaluate effectiveness; whether the identified body of literature is amenable to a systematic review of results. Methods: Scoping review mapping the literature on the topic. Searches were performed in 19 databases. Inclusion criteria: research articles in English, Italian, German, French and Spanish (publication date ≥2006) about Web 2.0 services for final users implemented by academic, medical and research libraries. Reviewers’ agreement was measured by Cohen’s kappa. From a data set of 6461 articles, 255 (4%) were coded and analysed. Results: Conferencing/chat/instant messaging, blogging, podcasts, social networking, wikis and aggregators were frequently examined. Services were mainly targeted at general academic users of English‐speaking countries. Conclusions: Data prohibit a reliable estimate of the relative frequency of implemented Web 2.0 services. Case studies were the prevalent design. Most articles evaluated different outcomes using diverse assessment methodologies. A systematic review is recommended to assess the effectiveness of such services.     

中华医学会系列杂志网站的调查和评估

通过分析中华医学会系列杂志编辑部的网站调查表和读者调查表 ,以及运用链接人气值计算软件 (LinkPopularityCheck 2 .5 )来评估中华医学会系列杂志网络化的现状。结果显示 ,中华医学会系列杂志网络化还处于起步阶段 ,交互性、内容和美工是亟待提高的 3个方面。结果还显示 ,多数编辑部负责人对期刊上网满怀信心 ,期刊网络化势在必行。同时提出把传统问卷调查和客观量化指标结合起来对生物期刊网站进行综合评价