Network News
January/February 2001
Bimonthly Newsletter from the South
Central Region
National Network of Libraries of Medicine
- Contents:
- News From the NN/LM SCR
Office
- What's New in
PubMed
- IGM to Retire
- EXPO 2000: e-University: A
New Frontier
- NLM Hot Topics
- Welcome to New
Staff
- Ariel Document Receipt
through DocView on a Shoestring Budget"
- In Every Issue:
- Regional Training and
Exhibit Calendar
- Employment
Opportunities
News From the
NN/LM SCR Office
--Renee Bougard, Associate Director
Welcome to the NN/LM
SCR's first issue of the electronic version of Network
News! Re Mishra and Karla Bourque have been hard at work
developing the format and policies for our e-newsletter. We
encourage you to provide them with feedback so they may
continue to make it attractive and useful.
One of the RML activities assigned to us by the NLM is
to exhibit at national health professional and consumer
health related meetings held within the five-state region.
During this spring, we will exhibit and/or teach at three
meetings in New Orleans and Dallas. Also, we're exhibiting
at the Texas Library Association meeting in San Antonio,
and speaking and teaching at the Louisiana Library
Association meeting in Lafayette.
There are several timely articles that appear in this
issue. One of the most important is the phasing out of
Internet Grateful
Med. We will keep you abreast of all changes as they
occur.
Note that our Outreach
Coordinator position has been re-advertised. Please
circulate this job ad within your library.
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Contents
What's New in
PubMed
PubMed is undergoing a
number of display format and search option changes in the
next few months. Some recent updates include:
- MEDLINE citations were updated with 2001 MeSH.
- The MEDLINE display format was revised. Several new
fields have been added and other fields have been
discontinued.
- The MEDLINE Unique Identifier (UI) was removed from
all display formats except MEDLINE, XML and ASN.1.
- The PubRef feature in PubMed was discontinued.
- Complementary Medicine was added to the Limits Subset
pull-down menu. You may also limit your retrieval to this
subset using the search field qualifier [sb], for
example, cam [sb] AND asthma. The Complementary Medicine
subset is a joint project between NLM and the National
Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
- The value to search the AIM journal subset has
changed from jsubseta to jsubsetaim.
For more information see the Jan/Feb issue of NLM
Technical Bulletin, specifically the following
articles:
Nahin AM, Knecht L. Changes to PubMed for 2001. NLM
Technical Bulletin. 2001 Jan-Feb; (318):e2. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/jf01/jf01_pubmed_2001.html).
Nahin AM. PubRef to be Removed from PubMed. NLM
Technical Bulletin. 2001 Jan-Feb; (318):e4. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/jf01/jf01_pubref.html).
Nahin AM. Complementary Medicine - New PubMed Subset.
NLM Technical Bulletin. 2001 Jan-Feb;(318):e7.
(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/jf01/jf01_cam.html).
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Contents
IGM to
Retire
--Re Mishra, Network Coordinator
Internet Grateful Med
(IGM) is being phased out during the coming months.
Currently, IGM accesses the old ELHILL system. As of
December 2000, NLM stopped updating ELHILL. This means the
databases accessed only through IGM have not been updated
with MeSH 2001, and no new citations have been added. All
of these databases will be accessible through other
interfaces soon, many through the NLM Gateway (http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov).
Currently, the Gateway searches MEDLINE (PubMed),
OLDMEDLINE, LOCATORplus, AIDS Meetings, HSR
Meetings, HSRProj, MEDLINEplus and DIRLINE. In the
future some of the IGM databases will only be accessible
through the Gateway.
For more information on the phase-out schedule and plan,
see:
Knecht L., Shooshan S. Internet Grateful Med to Be
Retired; Reminder of NLM Gateway Availability. NLM
Technical Bulletin. 2001 Jan-Feb;(318):e3. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/jf01/jf01_igm_phaseout.html).
Back to
Contents
EXPO 2000:
e-University: A New Frontier
--Janna Lawrence, Reference and
Instructional Services Coordinator, University of Texas
Health Sciences Center Library, San Antonio, TX
The University of Texas
Health Science Center Library, in conjunction with UTHSCSA
Information Management & Services (IMS) departments
will sponsor an information management symposium entitled
"EXPO 2001: e-University: A New Frontier" at UTHSCSA on
February 28 - March 1, 2001. A grant from the National
Network of Libraries of Medicine, South Central Region will
partially fund this event.
Dr. Hal Berghel, Professor and Chair of the Department
of Computer Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
will deliver the keynote address on February 28. His
presentation, "A 'Futurist' Perspective on e-Healthcare,
Education, and Technology," will be followed by a
reception. Dr. Berghel's research interests include
electronic information management and software development.
He served as co-founder and director of the University of
Arkansas's center for artificial intelligence and expert
systems. Dr. Berghel has also been an IEEE Distinguished
Visitor and has twice been selected as ACM (Association for
Computing Machinery) Lecturer of the Year. A Fellow of the
ACM, Dr. Berghel was awarded the ACM Distinguished Service
Award in 1996. He has published extensively in cyberspace
as well as in a wide variety of scientific and technical
publications.
On March 1 there will be a full day of presentations and
exhibits. Participants will have ample opportunity to
explore five facets of a future e-university: e-access,
e-healthcare, e-learning, e-publishing and e-research and
visit with exhibitors who will display their information
technology products. A few speakers are listed here; a
complete program is available at http://www.uthscsa.edu/expo.
- Terry V. Fotr�, M.D., President and Chief Scientist
at MEDePass, Inc., and Assistant Clinical Professor at
Stanford Medical School and at UC San Francisco School of
Medicine, will speak about the MEDePass effort to
establish an "electronic passport" for physicians,
allowing them to authenticate their identity to others on
the Internet.
- In his presentation, "The Patient-Computer
Relationship?" Steven Wartman, M.D., Ph.D., Executive
Vice President for Academic and Health Affairs and Dean
of the School of Medicine at UTHSCSA, will describe the
unique challenges to the traditional patient-provider
relationship that evolving information technology
provides.
- Darcy Hardy, Ph.D., Director of the UT Telecampus and
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for the
University of Texas System will speak on "Taking the
Distance Out of Education."
- "The Power of Portability: The Impact of Handheld
Devices in Clinical Medicine," will be the topic of
Thomas H. Lee, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Director
of Product Development at ePocrates.
- Judith C.D. Longworth, Ph.D., RNCS, FNP, Assistant
Professor, UTHSCSA Department of Family Nursing Care,
will describe "Developmental Growing Pains: Team Teaching
a Web Course using WebCT."
- "Tele-Rehabilitation in South Texas," presented by
Sandra Hubbard, M.A., OTR, Assistant Professor of
Occupational Therapy at UTHSCSA, will describe how
tele-rehabilitation can improve access to specialized
medical care and equipment in rural areas and discuss
future implications.
There is no registration fee for EXPO, although some
events require advance registration. For more information,
go to: http://www.uthscsa.edu/expo.
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Contents
NLM Hot
Topics
Current Health News Added to
MEDLINEplus
MEDLINEplus
has added a current news section featuring stories on
health-related issues. News items from sources such as the
Associated Press, New York Times Syndicate, and United
Press International are included.
News items will be selected daily and indexed to the
over 430 in-depth health topic pages. For example, someone
interested in diabetes will find a section called Latest
News at the top of the Diabetes page. In addition to
highlighting important news items on the
MEDLINEplus home page, a complete list of news
items from the last 30 days is also available, a feature
that may prove especially useful to librarians.
The news feature enhances MEDLINEplus's
one-stop shopping for all kinds of information: news,
overviews of diagnosis and treatment, and links to ongoing
clinical research studies and recent journal articles.
To read the press release, go to: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/press_releases/medplus1.html.
Joyce Backus from NLM provided a short interview (84
seconds) on MEDLINEplus to The National Institutes
of Health Radio News Service on Monday, February 5, 2001.
This short interview is located at: http://www.radiospace.com/nih1.htm.
MEDLINEplus Now Spell
Checks
MEDLINEplus
now features a spell checker in its search engine. The
checker suggests alternative words if it does not find the
term you typed. For example, if you type the word
"hepatitus" into the search box on the main screen, the
spell checker offers to replace it with "hepatitis." From
the Advanced Search page, you may choose to search with
spell checking or without spell checking. NLM hopes that
this will help users of MEDLINEplus who are
unfamiliar with medical terminology.
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Contents
Welcome to
New Staff
Please join us in
welcoming Gretchen Schweiger to the NN/LM SCR Staff. She
began on February 5, 2001 as the Consumer Health
Coordinator. Gretchen comes to us from the Corpus Christi
Public Library, Janet F. Harte Branch, Corpus Christi, TX,
where she was the Branch Manager. Prior to this position,
she worked at Houston Public Library, Houston, TX in
various positions from Reference Librarian to Acting Branch
Manager, Meyer Branch. You can contact Gretchen at
713-799-7198 or at gschweiger@library.tmc.edu.
(picture of Gretchen)
Back to
Contents
Ariel
Document Receipt through DocView on a Shoestring
Budget
--Beth R. Mikkola, Librarian, Omar B.
Milligan Research Library, Oklahoma Medical Research
Foundation, Oklahoma City, O
During the October 1999
SCC/MLA chapter meeting, there were so many good things
being said about receiving documents via Ariel®, I began to
investigate the possibility of using this service for the
Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Mostly I heard that
receiving documents via Ariel was quicker than via mail,
and that the quality of the documents were at least as good
as mailed photocopies and better than faxed copies. Also
most libraries reported they preferred sending documents
via Ariel.
Ariel is a document transmission system produced by the
Research Library Group (RLG). Ariel software allows scanned
documents to be transmitted via the Internet. More
information about Ariel can be found at: http://www.rlg.org/ariel/
index.html. I first looked at purchasing the Ariel
program in the Receive-only package. However, this software
was expensive and could not be upgraded to include both the
Send and Receive mode.
Next, we experimented with DocView (http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/docview/project.htm)
and DocMorph (http://docmorph.nlm.nih.gov/docmorph).
These are free programs from NLM. DocView is for receiving
documents via the Internet. DocMorph is for converting TIFF
files to PDF.
We installed DocView on a Pentium computer that had at
least 25 MB of free space, a unique IP address and was
available 24 hours a day. We found that we did not need
DocMorph, as the TIFF format was adequate for printing.
(screenshots of DocView).
When an article is received, there is a message on the
computer that asks if you would like to view it. After
notification, we immediately print it for the patron. We
check the article page by page for accuracy and delete the
electronic copy as soon as a good print copy has been made.
If there are problems, we can return the document with a
message to the sender's IP address through the DocView
message function. DocView displays an "outbox" at the
bottom of the screen that indicates whether or not your
message has been sent.
Since we began using it in November 1999, DocView has
worked well for us. We had problems with one test computer
installation when TIFF was chosen as the default message
function, but that can be avoided by another installation
decision. We also have some problems with the message
function occasionally alerting about a "new" document when
there is none. However, if the DocView Program is shut down
and restarted, the message function seems to be reset.
Our biggest problem was extremely slow printing. With
the help of our MIS Department we determined that this was
because our networked printer jobs were being routed
through our mainframe computer to the printer's serial
port. We were using an HP LaserJet 4 printer with memory
upgraded to 24MB. The printer routing path was changed to
go through an NT server, an Ethernet card was purchased and
we had no further problems with printing speed.
The "DocView" computer is used constantly for other
office work without any noticeable change. We have received
up to six articles in a day with no problems. The only
extra expense that was involved in this project was for
upgrading the printer memory and the Ethernet card. Ariel
technical support recommended 8MB as a minimum requirement
for printer memory, so it may not be necessary to get as
much memory as we did.
We are extremely pleased with this addition to our
service. We are now able to provide documents in one to
four days even from NLM at no extra charge. We do need to
carefully review pages of documents received since there
appear to be more problems with scanning an article
properly than with photocopying. However, this is a minor
problem in terms of what we have gained in improved
turnaround time for article delivery. I am grateful to the
NLM for making DocView available for free. Also, I am
grateful for the encouragement and support of other
librarians in Region 5 during this project.
Back to
Contents
Published bimonthly by the
National Network of Libraries of Medicine,
South Central Region
Supported by NLM Contract NO1-LM-6-3523
NN/LM SCR Board Chair
Holly Buchanan
Network News Editor
Ruicha Mishra
Houston Academy of
Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library
1133 M.D. Anderson Blvd
Houston, TX 77030-2809
Phone: 800-338-7657 or 713-799-7880
Fax: 713-790-7030
nnlmscr@library.tmc.edu
http://nnlm.gov/scr/scnn/janfeb01/text.htm
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