exhibits hall opens tonight

Posted on May 17, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

stay tuned tomorrow for updates about exciting products or other developments, as described by the vendors here at the medical library association conference.

i thought i should mention, before i started blogging about the things i’ll be seeing in the exhibits hall, that by writing about a particular product i am in no way endorsing it, suggesting you buy it, or telling you that i’ve bought it. think of me as a shopping guide with no personal agenda. okay? now that we’ve cleared that up, get ready for posts beginning tomorrow about the latest and greatest in the world of academic medical products, publications, and the like. oh yes, there may also be photos.

Posted in exhibits hall, MLA 2008, publishers | 2 Comments

gopubmed

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

playing around with gopubmed for the first time (i know, i know!) today. i put in my favorite search term, “gastroesophageal reflux,” and waited to see what happened. a lot of resulting information was displayed, looking not like any search result screen i’ve ever seen. on the screen are the top authors on the topic, top journals, publications on the topic over time, author collaboration network and a world map. it’s metadata heaven! the best part for me is the mesh root paths, showing all the trees in which my search term shows up, and at what level. if i were just beginning a search and wasn’t sure i had exactly the right keyword, the root paths would be enormously helpful. i’m going to keep playing with this and see where it leads.

does anybody consistently use gopubmed.org instead of www.pubmed.gov? leave a comment if so and tell me why.

Posted in library, medicine, metadata | Comments Off on gopubmed

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.”

Posted in images, metadata, MLA 2008, titter | Comments Off on think about the images you’ll use in your presentations

found in mentalfloss store

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Marie Kennedy

med school in a box
med school in a box

Posted in medicine, titter | Comments Off on found in mentalfloss store