Laika’s MedLibLog in review: 2008

This blog saw the light in February 2008, so it is almost time to celebrate its anniversary.

Maintaining this blog has been an enjoyable and fruitful -albeit time-consuming- experience.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all readers of this blog for their visits, comments and support! I hope that you will continue to find content here that entices you to read and, even better, comment.

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I wish you all the best for 2009!

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Here is a short review of this first year of blogging.

Highlights were:

• A very positive review in a series “Blog Spotlight” authored by Danielle Worster (the Health Informaticist) in the “Library + Information Gazette“.
• Inclusion in the Top_50_health_2.0_blogs list of RNCentral.com (both discussed here)
  
• The invitation to present a slideshow on my blogging experience at the Spoetnik (Library 2.0) Symposium (see post here).
• Nominated for the Best New Medical Weblog (established in 2008) at Medgadget. (see the list)

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An overview of (a selection of) blog posts per subject:*

Searching, Biomedical databases.
PubMed: Past, Present And Future, PART II [1]
PubMed: Past, Present And Future, PART I [10]
Finding assigned MeSH terms and more: PubReminer [16]
BMI bijeenkomst april 2008 [19] [Dutch]
PubMed: Past, Present and Future PART III [39]
New Ovidsp Release Planned August 5th will allow more flexible searching [46]

Evidence Based Searching
The best moment teaching EBM-searching skills [31]
Time to weed the (EBM-)pyramids?! [35]
New Cochrane Handbook: altered search policies [-]
Podcasts: Cochrane Library and MedlinePlus [-]
New cochrane handbook: altered search policies [-]

Evidence Based Medicine, Methodology
Nursing Myths (1): Post-operative Temperative Measurements [2]
The Best Study Design… For Dummies [3]
Huge disappointment: Selenium and Vitamin E fail to Prevent Prostate Cancer.[7]
The (un)usefulness of regular breast exam [9]
FREE online course on evidence-based health care [14]
Thesis Mariska Leeflang: Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy [18]
CC (2) Duodecim: Connecting patients (and doctors) to the best evidence [49]
Podcasts: Cochrane Library and Medlineplus [-]

Clinical practice, Consumer-related Subjects, Addison’s Disease
Changing care (for Addison patients) [11]
The importance of early intervention in an Addisonian Crisis[13]
23andMe: 23notMe, not yet [15]
Anatomy Lesson 2008: Living in Fear [20]
Etiquette-Based Medicine [22]
The OpenECGproject: an admirable Web 2.0 [42]

Science
The Real Sputnik Virus [4]
Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams [6]
#Sciblog – a bird-eye’s view from the camera
Evolution and Medicine. Cancer and adaptive immune responses as evolutions ‘within’.

Web 2.0 tools
Incorrect Google Incoming Links? [5]
Delicious Google Toolbar [9]
Google Reader and other free (learning) tools [17]
Visualize your blog (words) with Wordle [21]
Locate Your Visitors (2) [23]
Forget Hyves. Go Twitter! [24]
Possibly an announcement about possibly related posts [25]
Locate-your-visitors [30]
Technorati Rank & Authority Dropping[38]
Blog Spam and Spam Blogs (1) [44]
WikiMindMap to Organize Wiki Content [50]

Other
For Palin & Obama, Fun & Photo’s [8]
A really delicious blog …[12]
Dutch Grand Round and other blog carnivals.: See the category Grand Round
For Spoetnik Course search for the Category Spoetnik (preliminary Dutch)
For Personal matter search for the category Personal

*([nr] indicates the popularity of the post according to WordPress stats, from 1 [most popular] to 50. Not all posts are shown.

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Laika’s Little Party

It’s time for some reflections on this blog and for a little party. Why?

• This blog has just reached the magic milestone of 10.000 counts (I’m still waiting for Wowter to claim his price). [party + reflections]
• This blog received some nice critiques, comments and listings. [party]
• Wowter has asked appr. 90 dutch library bloggers, including me, to write about our motives for blogging, who whe reach, whether we succeed in building a community, which posts we like most etc. He will present a selection of the carnival at a Dutch congres on Library 2.0 (OCN). [reflections]

So for now I will start with the party (with some wine), the reflections will follow when I’m sober.

This week I received an unexpected email from RNCentral (“the place to learn about nursing online”), anouncing that this blog had made it to the “Top 50 Health 2.0 Blogs list ( see here).

The top 50 health 2.0 list is not based on a kind of “objective” ranking like the Healthcare 100 or MedBlogEN lists, which are a measure of how many people link to your site, find your site by searching or have subscribed to your blogposts: thus an indirect measure of “how popular you are“. In such a list I would not make the top-100.
The RNCental site gives a “subjective” top 50 list of blogs, that appear valuable to the authors. The list is introduced with a very nice definition of health 2.0 blogs, that I can subscribe to:

Health 2.0 embraces the idea of bringing health care into the community of physicians, patients, and those in the health care industry together with technology and the Internet to provide the best possible health care environment. What better way for the various parts of this community to share their thoughts and communicate ideas than through their blogs? From corporate blogs to blogs that are a part of social networks to individual blogs touching on technology or health care policy, these blogs will help bring you into the community, provide information and resources, and may perhaps help you find your voice as well.

I’m thrilled that I’m (literally) placed next to David Rothman in the “Health and Technology”-section. Although, to be honest, I see myself as a true beginner in this web 2.0 world and I learn a lot of established web 2.0 experts like David Rothman, KraftyLibrarian, Berci of Science Roll, MD Anderson on Emerging Technologies Librarian, Dean Giustini (UBC Academic Search), Sachet62 on Twitter, symtym from symtym.com, David Bradley from Sciencebase and Dutch colleagues like Wowter (with a dutch and an english blog), Dymphie (Dee’tjes) and many many more. On my blog I try to integrate what I learn elsewhere (articles, posts, twitter messages) with my own knowledge and interest.

The resultant is a rather diverse mixture of subjects in the field of (medical) librarianship, medicine, health (including consumers), evidence based medicine and web 2.0 tools.

Although such a broad mixture might not be appealing to everyone, it is appreciated by some, as is apparent from a recent blog-review in the “Library + Information Gazette“, 22 August 2008: p5 (UK). The Gazette is only available in print edition and I wouldn’t have known about it if Anne Welsh of “First Person Narrative” had not mentioned it at her blog (see post: “mainstreaming blogs as information sources”). Anne:

“This review is the first in a series “Blog Spotlight” authored by Danielle Worster (the Health Informaticist). It’s aim is to help separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to blogs in LIS and health informatics.

Any blog that claims to be about information, research, Web 2.0 or health informatics is considered. Each blog discussed is described in terms of its audience, currency, informativeness, authoritativeness / credibility, readability and design, with a brief overview and summary. It’s a nice format, and starts well in this issue with UBC Academic Search , ResearchBuzz and Laika’s MedLibLog.”

With Anne I find it regretful that the gazette is not available online. I surely would like to follow this series.

Luckily I found Keith Nockels (Browsing) willing to make a scan of the Gazette’s review and send it to me.

The Gazette review sketched my blog with very flattering sentences (“colourful, engaging and relevant”, “easy to read and digest”) as well as apt descriptions, which made me grin: “while it does stray to discuss….. Although she writes copious amounts, it is as easy to skim as to read it all…. crammed full of visuals.”

And about Dean’s UBC Academic Blog:

“Very informative: has an uncanny ability to pick up on crucial issue”. …. the blogger’s energy comes through in his shorter sentences….. essential reading.” All true! Dean’s blog is a must in the librarian web 2.0 world!

Apart from these official listings and reviews I got some comments or links that were also heartwarming.

For instance Keith Nockels (a UK Librarian with a nice blog (“Browsing”), apparently familiar with at least a few Dutch words) refers so nicely in his blogpost “More about changes to Ovid”:

“I have since found a posting on Laikas MedLibLog about this, and Laika has obviously looked at this properly! So, I can now report that you (….)
Laikas posting is here (in English and ook in Nederlands) and is gratefully acknowledged. She talks about other things besides, so please read her posting for more!”

And Dr. Shock announcement of the dutch grand round number 1:

Laika Spoetnik presents The Best Study Design… For Dummies (in English).
She writes in English and Dutch so you have no excuse for not reading this excellent post. She clearly explains Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT’s) and the levels of evidence. She uses an example which is easy to follow: Does beta carotene prevent lung cancer.

At Medliblog (the official website of the BMI, Dutch Biomedical Information) Annie (writing about Evidence Based Dietetics refers to the same post, saying:

….handige bijlages met een checklist voor het lezen van wetenschappelijke artikelen en een statistische begrippenlijst, dat laatste blijft toch altijd wel moeilijke stof voor dummies of alfa’s.
Voor die categorie heeft Laika een zeer begrijpelijke blog (zowel Engels- als Nederlandstalig) geschreven, waarvoor mijn dank. Zo’n presentatie zou ik ook wel willen bijwonen.

meaning:

For that category (dummies or alpha people not understanding checklists and studytypes) Laika has written a very comprehensible blogpost (in English and Dutch), for which I would like to thank her. I would have loved to attend such a presentation. (I gave to historians about “how doctors search”).

These comments strengthen me to continue blogging. This is why I blog: that (some) people like to read what I write and learn from some of the posts.

Well that is probably enough shameless self-glorification for now. I do realize that beginners get mild critiques, but as you get more well known the expectations will grow along and the critiques as well.

Next time, at request of Wowter, I will reflect more on the 5W’s of this blog: why, when, who, what, where?