See also: Academic Librarian PSA and Harper Library PSA

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Tue, Aug 26, 2008 — 10:00 AM
The Future of Libraries
Traditional libraries have been caught between declining budgets and the explosive growth of online research. We talk with experts in the field about how the institutions are evolving to meet the changing needs of patrons.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
• Al Escoffier, city librarian for the Burlingame Public Library
• Jane Light, director of the San Jose Library
• Jim Rettig, president of the American Library Association
• Martin Gomez, president of the Urban Libraries Council

Embedded player:

[Direct link to mp3 file]

(Yes, I remember what T. Scott said about discussing the future of libraries.)

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Also available for download here.

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Medical librarian Anne Ludvik takes a proactive approach to helping busy staff nurses solve patient care problems and get up-to-date health information at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center.

“It’s difficult for nurses to get to the physical library, so we work to bring digital resources to them,” Ludvik says.

[Read the rest]

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Please join us in congratulating in Loretta Merlo, Head of Circulation, on her award-winning video display screen promotion celebrating the contributions and importance of health sciences information professionals. The promotion highlighted Mark Funk, Head of Resource Management-Collections, who is currently the President of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and other Weill Cornell librarians. A record number of libraries submitted entries for the National Medical Librarians Month (NMLM) Creative Promotions Award which were judged for creativity and innovation in library marketing. View our second place winning video.

You’ll want to view the video above at full-screen size in order to see all the detail.

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Who needs libraries?
Produced by: Richard Paul
As more and more information is available on-line, as Amazon rolls out new software that allows anyone to find any passage in any book, an important question becomes: Who needs libraries anymore? Why does anyone need four walls filled with paper between covers? Surprisingly, they still do and in this program Producer Richard Paul explores why; looking at how university libraries, school libraries and public libraries have adapted to the new information world. This program airs as part of our ongoing series on education and technology, and is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education.

You can listen online (streaming RealMedia audio) for free here.

Streaming Tip: If, like me, you loathe Real Player and don’t want it installed on your computer, I recommend downloading and installing Real Alternative. I’ve been using this for years now with absolutely no complaints.

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…Curious Expeditions has attempted to gather together the world’s most beautiful libraries for you…We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Read the whole thing and see the photos here.

[via]
Thanks to Mike for pointing this out!

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Is anyone else a little uncomfortable with the use of the word “idiot” in referring to patrons? I mean…if the whole video continued the joke (following Alan Moron around as he makes foolish-but-instructional mistakes) it might work. Because the joke is so brief, the video just seems to suggest (to me, anyway) that a person who confused by the library’s labeling system or who is simply unfamiliar with how the library does things must be an idiot.

What do you think?

On 7/21/2007, a Harris Poll was released which stated that in the last two years, the percentage of people who “have used the Internet to search for health-related information” has gone from 53% to 71%. This was based on a telephone poll of 1,010 adults between 7/10/07 and 7/16/07. The Harris report refers to these people as “cyberchondriacs.”

The media seems to love this story. BusinessWeek, ars technica and a ton of others have offered articles on it.

I think the study matters and merits coverage, but I object to the term “cyberchondriac.”

Managed care has resulted in physicians not being able to spend as much time educating patients at the same time patients are taking more responsibility for their healthcare decisions. The healthcare consumer who decides to do some research using the most powerful research tool the world has ever seen isn’t a hypochondriac. That consumer is taking responsibility for her healthcare and becoming informed.

Let us say that a patient is told that she had a kind of hypothyroidism. That patient goes to the bookstore and buys a book published under the name of Mayo (or Johns Hopkins or some other very reputable authority) on thyroid disorders. The patient reads the book and makes notes on questions she wants to ask her doctor when she goes in for her next office visit. This isn’t hypochondriasis. This is the sort of patient clinicians should treasure. A patient who self-educates and asks informed questions saves the time of clinicians.

Now let’s imagine that the same patient skips the book and instead searches Medline Plus for information about hypothyroidism, printing some pages out and making notes on questions she wants to ask her doctor when she goes in for her next office visit. This isn’t hypochondria either. This is the exact same behavior in a patient that clinicians should celebrate and encourage.

Hypochondriasis is a very real disorder. The hypochondriac doesn’t need an Internet connection to experience its awful symptoms.

If clinicians want to complain about patients who look up health information online with no regard to the authority of the information or the information provider, that’s fine. Those clinicians would do well to volunteer and donate to help improve outreach and information literacy programs in medical libraries. When the clinician encounters a patient who habitually looks for health information from poor sources, the clinician should refer the patient to the nearest medical library or at least point the patient towards Medline Plus.

I won’t be using the word “cyberchondriac” to describe people who seek health information online.

I won’t use it to describe hypochondriacs who look for health information online, either. It has a glib feel to it that doesn’t sit well with me when describing someone dealing with a disorder as awful as hypochondriasis.

[/soapbox]

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Congratulations, Rachel!

Perhaps this is something that many who blog on healthcare topics should think about pursuing.