Science.Gov Portal To U.S. Science Information

I found out about this via the ALA Federal Library and Armed Forces Library Roundtable ListServ. Science.gov is a portal to various governmental databases and technical information sites. It might make it a little easier to locate governmental authoritative sources.

I looked under the category of Science Education. There are links to sources from the Library of Congress, National Science Foundations, NASA and so many more agencies that have science data.

You can enter a search term or you can use the advanced search to find by keyword, title or to select just the area you want to discover.

Science.gov is a great help in finding data but I do want to mention a concern. I followed a group of links about chemistry clip art from the Food and Drug Administration. Many of the links were dead or long gone.

Not blaming the FDA for this, external websites change all the time. Part of the responsibility is trying to maintain quality links so you do have to go back and see if a source listed in 1999 is still viable in 2009.

Science.gov is a cool resource that can help you locate governmental science related materials. I'll spend a little more time checking it out.

Medpedia Project - Verified Medical Wiki

File this one under "Well if you can't beat 'em join em." The Medpedia Project is a collaboration between four leading medical schools, Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School and the Berkeley School for Public Health.

The project is currently asking for content from health organizations, health professionals and others in the health care industry.

The goal is to provide open source but vetting medical information that would be available to all users around the globe.

According to the web site Medpedia will serve as "a catalog, database and learning tool about health, medicine and the body for doctors, scientists, policymakers, students and citizens that will improve medical literacy worldwide."

As always there are questions and the FAQ does answer some of mine. Unlike Wikipedia the editors will be selected and approved.

From the FAQ's:

Only M.D.s, Ph.D.s in a biomedical field and people with medical credentials will be allowed to contribute to Medpedia. Although only M.D.s can edit pages on Medpedia, anyone with an interest in health, medicine and the body is invited to be a Member of the Medpedia professional networking community.

The editors will not be paid, it is a voluntary participation. The site eventually hopes to support itself via text advertisements.

One of the questions that hasn't been answered in the FAQ's is whether alternative medical practices such as Acupuncture, Naturopathic medicine, Oriental Medicine practices and similar treatment options would be permitted on wiki.


My List of Questions

A question I have is what is to stop a doctor who has an relationship with a pharmaceutical company to write content in favor of a company that might provide a gratuity to support his/her promotion of certain treatment options? What mechanism is in place to find out if the medical editor's hands have been greased with "special consideration?"

Would the medical community rat 'em out or would it be considered free speech? What would be the controls on the type of content a doctor could or could not post? For example, if the information is counter to what the American Medical Association accepts but the doctor has verifiable information would it be posted or blocked?

My other questions involve reading and comprehension accessibility by average users. What about health care literacy issues? Is it going to be accessible for vision and hearing impaired users? Multiple languages? Video, is there going to be video of certain procedures? Captioned video of course.

Forgive me, I'm greedy. But if this is going to be a global information repository it has a lot of work ahead of them. Some of that work has been paved by web sites like WebMD

What will Medpedia bring to the party and why would library folks use this instead of PubMed or go directly to some of the medical school library/resource web site?

I look forward to having another tool to help folks make health care decisions. I hope it is up to the challenge. Time will tell.

Health Information Island - A Trip Via Second Life

This is a silent video on how health information is being displayed in Second Life.



I don't have much to say about this. I get a little misty when I see vapors of the future start to emerge.

L.A. County Library Assistant 1 Employment Opportunity

Ken Lin a librarian and former PCC LT student passed along this job lead from the L.A. County Human Resource department. The County of Los Angeles is seeking a Library Assistant 1 to service patrons at a L.A. County library and at the Department of Health Services.

Sample List of Duties:

Performs general and varied paraprofessional library tasks to assist professional librarians within well-defined standards, in functional areas such as circulation, acquisition, cataloguing and classification, physical upkeep of library and inventory materials.

Registers borrowers and enforces the rules; issues and receives library materials; assists in maintaining library records and preparing reports regarding circulation, registration, book stock, and collection of fines.

Specific Requirements:

Completion of two years in an accredited college, including six units of technical library course work. One year of clerical or technical experience in an organized library will be accepted for each year of college.

A valid California Class C Driver License or the ability to utilize an alternate method of transportation when needed to carry out job-related essential functions.

Salary Information:

For Exam # Y-8326-C at the Department of Health Services the salary range is $2,642.91 - $3,273.27 Monthly with benefits.

For Exam # Q-8326-F at a branch of the County Public Library the salary range is $2,829.00 - $3,599.18 Monthly with benefits.

I've had some access problems with the County HR web site. It seems that there is more than one HR page one web page has the application while the other has the job information.

For a printed description of the two library Assistant positions that are available you can download the .pdf Open Examination List. To download a standard L.A. County job application form visit http://dhr.lacounty.info/Applying_for_a_Job.asp

You can also call for current open competitive job information in Los Angeles County Departments call the toll-free 24-hour Job Information Hotline at (800) 970-LIST (5478).

The Los Angeles County Employment Information Services Office (EISO) is located at 3333 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 100, Los Angeles, CA 90010.

Contagion - Historical Views of Diseases

I was visiting the Educational Technology blog and I was lead to a section of Harvard University's Library's Open Collections program.

Contagion is a look at historical events caused by disease or epidemic conditions. It is also an opportunity to view life and how a society dealt with death, pre-conceived notions of illness and treatment.

I viewed the section about Yellow Fever in Philadelphia. I was able to read digital books written in 1774 as the authors try to convey their thoughts about the "Malignant Fever" that spread through the city.

Not only can you read text but there is a timeline, and for later outbreaks photos and slide shows.

Harvard University Library has other collections that are available for browsing online. The Digital Collections archive has a variety of collections such as Botanical and Cultural Images of Eastern Asia, Daguerreotypes at Harvard (a early form of photography) a Latin America Pamphlet collection and more.

American University of Health Sciences Library Seeks Library Assistant

The American University of Health Sciences Library (in Long Beach, CA) is seeking a full-time (40 hrs/wk) Library Assistant to perform day-to-day functions that support effective library operations.

The Assistant is responsible for managing and processing new books, periodicals, handling the library mail, maintaining the library physical space, ordering library supplies and interacting with library users as necessary.

This position requires knowledge and experience with Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel), and the Internet. Please email Pat Taylor, Librarian or Gregory Johnson, COA at You can also call (562) 988-2278, ext. 13.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Catalog - Free DVDs

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a non-profit medical research organization. As part of its education mission it provides free publications, DVD and other education resources to any who would like copy of those materials.

This is an extract from one of the publications:

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute was founded in 1953 by the aviator industrialist Howard R. Hughes. Its charter reads, in part: “The primary purpose and objective of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute shall be the promotion of human knowledge within the field of the basic sciences (principally the field of medical research and medical education) and the effective application thereof for the benefit of mankind.”

Libraries, school teachers and individuals can request a copy of one of the publications, lessons or DVDs. Some of the items include:

• Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the World is available as a web page, an Adobe pdf file or in Spanish language version.
• Evolution - Constant Change and Common Thread DVD
• The New Virtual Lab - interactive CD that allows you to analyze bacteria, simulate diagnose heritable heart diseases or dissect a leech to explore its sensory system.

To order just fill out the new user form and your mailing address. The materials will be shipped free of charge. Printed materials and DVD/VHS videos will be mailed to your home, school or library.

To learn more about the Institute you can download a copy of their quarterly publication. For those in classroom situations you can order more than one copy, or contact HHMI for more information.

How can they afford to do this? Mr. Hughes left a significant endowment for the institute. A $16.3 Billion dollar endowment.