today is Virtual Library Legislative Day

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

I’m the chair of the Government Relations & Bylaws committee for the Medical Library Group of Southern California & Arizona and am on a few e-mail lists as a result, keeping me informed of what’s going on in our government related to libraries.  When I see something relevant for medical librarians I direct our Group to take action.  Most of the actions we take are at a grass roots level and are mainly about having our voice heard as librarians.  It’s all good stuff.  If you too want to stay informed in a  non-in-your-face way, consider adding ALA’s District Dispatch blog to your feed reader.

Occasionally I’ll point our Group to take action on a topic more broad than medical libraries.  Today is such a day.  It is Virtual Library Legislative Day.  If you’re a librarian or a library lover (or a librarian lover for that matter), consider participating.  Go to ALA’s Take Action site, type in your zip code, and send your congressional reps a little note to let them know you value libraries.

legislative day logo

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to read: Text mining and ontologies in biomedicine: making sense of raw text

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

http://kathrin.dagstuhl.de/files/Materials/08/08131/08131.SpasicIrena.Other.pdf

Abstract:
The volume of biomedical literature is increasing at such a rate that it is becoming difficult to locate, retrieve and manage the reported information without text mining, which aims to automatically distill information, extract facts, discover implicit links and generate hypotheses relevant to user needs. Ontologies, as conceptual models, provide the necessary framework for semantic representation of textual information. The principal link between text and an ontology is terminology, which maps terms to domain-specific concepts. This paper summarises different approaches in which ontologies have been used for text-mining applications in biomedicine.

Posted in medicine, metadata | 1 Comment

think about the images you’ll use in your presentations

Posted on May 10, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

many of my colleagues are getting ready for the upcoming conference of medical librarians, preparing their posters for display and powerpoint files for paper presentations. many of them will use charts to visually display their ideas, with the hope that a single, effective image will stick with their audience. the best charts are the ones that convey one idea (easy to view) rather than many ideas (confusing for the audience). of course, they’ll also stick with you if they’re hilarious, like these song-related charts at boyshapedbox on flickr.

50 ways

i would like to direct your attention to the clinical cases and images blog’s post on how not to give a presentation. be sure to view the slideshare link there, called “death by powerpoint.”

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found in mentalfloss store

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

med school in a box
med school in a box

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i’m an omnivore without a dilemma

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

the pew internet & american life project quiz says i’m an omnivore. i believe the report. take the quiz yourself to see how you fit into the techno-world.

brief description of an omnivore:

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

only 8% of the american public are omnivores. if you take the quiz and find that you are an omnivore, please leave a comment on this blog. we should friend each other on facebook, follow each other on twitter, or hook up on meebo. (*snicker*)

Posted in social networking | 2 Comments

ala’s e-government services wiki

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

this is mainly a note to myself to explore later, but i don’t want to be greedy.  you may also like to have a look at the american library association’s e-government services wiki.

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