Green Dam, Youth Escort

A presentation at ISKO UK 2009 by Zhang Yunliang and an article this weekend in the FT have highlighted some worrying trends in internet filtering and politics. A filtering software called Green Dam/ Youth Escort (which ironically, in my opinion, smacks of salacious content hidden behind a login) will become obligatory and will be installed on all computers sold in China, as of 1st July 2009.  It has already been installed on school computers. While its stated purpose is to protect the innocent people of China from porn and other nasties, experts fear it will used as a method of restricting what they can find on the internet. Read the article. It does an elegant job of summarising tactics by other governments (Burma, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Iran) to censor the internet.

Special Libraries Association (SLA) conference 2009

Just got back from the US where I was holidaying after going to the crazy cycle of lecture sessions, vendors, networking, and more drink and food to swing a cat at which is SLA 2009. Celebrating their centenary and, despite the economic conditions, boasting record numbers of delegates the key themes in Washington DC were unsurprisingly centred around the issues of how our skills are relevant and how we can promote what we do when we are walking dollar signs who even in boom times may have problems putting across our value. Some hand outs are available for those who couldn’t make it as well as twitter posts (tagged as #sla2009) and one of the SLA Europe early career winner Laura Woods has blogged about it  from a first timer perspective (I’m a old hand on my second conference) but here’s my take…

What I enjoyed: I enjoyed making new connections with people as well as meeting people who I met last year including people from the Science and Technology division who looked after me as the sponsoring division last year and with whom I have a lot in common even though I’m not a science librarian (wouldn’t mind moving in that direction though, liked working in a membership library). The all sciences poster session meant that instead of saying er hello how’s your conference you had something to talk about and could discuss someone’s work project which are often innovative. These included getting out there as an academic liaison librarian, making links with faculty who can then refer your services directly to students and also meeting an equivalent in Canada who works for CADTH, the Canadian health technology assessment programme. I was quite excited as no one else had heard of NICE that much and even my conference badge was printed with NIH which is quite different; later on did meet a researcher at NIH, a conference gatecrasher, and were discussing how rich the Wellcome really is. Anyway they have a nifty grey literature search tool (which I’ve yet to test so all feedback welcome). Some other people who might have heard of our horrid culture of clinical and cost effectiveness were my colleagues in big pharma who gave the FDA in their about how they work, they’re shockingly slow and don’t release enough information (excuse my cynicism, I also wouldn’t rule out working for big pharma myself, I’d love to see how they work). I enjoyed going to receptions and hearing about how SLA who are based near Washington are trying to reach out to new and existing members outside of the US. There are rumours of an Australasian conference (it is normally in the US or Canada) and perhaps even a European one (someone asked me if we had somewhere large enough here but in the same breath said that US librarians won’t travel, that old stat that only 1 in 5 people in the US have a passport but perhaps they are the larger ones thus the need for space? ahem yes we have conferences here). I enjoyed chatting to vendors with their freebies and sharp suits (since I may have to renegotiate our journals albeit with no idea of budget yet) and had a great chat with a woman who works for a vendor and had worked for pharma companies and was giving me general advice on trying to push on through the challenges of work politics and trying to persuade people to innovate and move on from what has gone before…when all else were dancing to the proverbial wedding hits at the disco (I’m not old enough I said that this is the only opportunity I have for dancing in public, note to self to continue this).

What I didn’t enjoy: I’m not an early morning person so 7am breakfast meetings are impossible. Many sessions were suffering from lack of money for speakers’ fees/travel expenses and where they would have been panel discussions were now opportunity for one woman moaning (I know I do this perhaps but hopefully this proves the point). Also they finished before the end of their slot of 1 1/2 – 2 hours for the same reason but perhaps could have just been shortened and the day would have had fewer clashes. I was disappointed the secret service agent for the forensic science session couldn’t make it (I did go to the spy museum though so perhaps this made up for it). The international session should have been in the conference venue itself as the shuttle to the fabulous Embassy of Zambia was at rush hour…it was a great though and apart from people too busy stuffing their faces to hear the international information professional award winner Gimena speak about her work at the US Embassy in Rome (she is actually from Paraguay and started her IS work there so offers a different perspective). Speaking of stuffing faces I am now joining the legions of Americans who are feeling the effects of their diets and need to lose a few pounds. Boyfriend and I actually started ordering one meal between two as I couldn’t eat those portions…

The best sessions were not necessarily about librarianship and the elephant in the room was I felt where people had not as I said justified the need for someone retrospectively suck in their teeth at this or that copyright violation as their role was not clear or respected or positioned at the heart of the business, as long as we are not pioneering and communicating with others and not just related departments like IT but with the members of the board, the CEOs and the ordinary rank and file members of organisations we serve then we will merely be a talking shop for American upbeat but low status relics. Yes the culture is to sell, you, your services, your skills, but often lacking in substance; the shiny bravado, the insistence on a smile at all costs, difficult questions are brushed aside, perhaps this is where a British modesty is needed, if we are failing we need to remedy this and we need to recognise when we have made a mistake and move on.

The Onion newspaper in a session entitled ‘Onion editor calls for end to reading’ had a guy talking about being innovative and daring and basically showing off their archive of headlines stretching back to 1868…there is a free print edition on the streets of DC and talks of one in London. I enjoyed a session on critical thinking which fell into semi-psychological posturing but was good for trying to encourage people to start thinking about framing questions differently from the off, a call for original thinking! I’m not sure words always help, perhaps a bucket of water over the head for the refreshing effect? Had an argument with previous head of SLA (as you do) and feel the emphasis on genetics (we have a gene for creativity and one for every personality type apparently)- isn’t this determinism a product of not wanting to take responsibility for anything like it’s been ordained from birth? Is the argument about whether change is possible (in individual or group behaviour) something we need to worry about at a philosophical level or could we just not have more poster sessions, what works in terms of change and marketing and management?

I couldn’t make the final session but the opening one was from Colin Powell who talking about his career and divided the audience in terms of whether he was an appropriate speaker but was thought provoking and funny. His account of how he googled as fact checker on the phone to a Russian counterpart was priceless and buying computers for all his staff didn’t indeed solve all his problems although they were creative about avoiding using them…he says he can’t join in with all the social networking toys as he’s too famous. Well at least he can see where we all hang out (and it’s not just down to Homeland Security or CCTV): where the geeks is an events calendar for people interested in information architecture, mash ups, useability, tech and much more, I found out about it from a twitter contact.

Habitat is guilty of spamming folk on Tw …

Habitat is guilty of spamming folk on Twitter by advertising a promotion using completely irrelevant hashtags such as #Apple, #iPhone and #Mousavi. It is easy to find out what the top 10 trends are by hashtag (as hashtags act as self-assigned keywords) so it is becoming more popular for folks to exploit them. I’m a little surprised that a furniture retailer would exploit them, though. This seems like a new class of spammer altogether. I shudder at the thought of ‘pork rocket’ style spam messages clogging up twitter someday soon. Although, would they be so bad, as I found myself trawling through some of my 700+ spam messages in Gmail (why is Gmail still in beta, by the way?) snorting with laughter at some of the inane poetry in message titles, the other day. Am I sad?

‘We call it NHS Evidence provided by NICE’

Gillian Leng has spoken! In an HSJ article published yesterday (p. 16-17), Leng discussed NHS Evidence’s similarities with Google-but only as far as how easy it is to use. Of course, NHS Evidence is of superior quality and relevance to the clinician.  A user review following the article suggested that there is still some work to be done in making sure links are functioning. The reviewer asks the question: will “resources that have not been throught the [accreditation] process be dropped over time or not promoted?”

With regards to accredited resources, Leng expects a 30% success rate. A couple of potential flaws of this system are that not all good evidence will be covered by the ‘marque’ system (as not every organisation is gagging to apply) and of course, the one pointed out earlier- what becomes of the second tier evidence? The age old problem of ignoring lesser sources if there is no ‘gold standard’ evidence rears its hoary head again. You just can’t do this. You will leave health care practitioners with myriad information gaps. If there is a role for DUETs, as I believe there is, they must actually seek to answer these unanswered questions rather than omitting uncertainties in order to look authoritative. Will DUETs be accredited also?

Another information tidbit offered up by the article was that ‘Release 2′ of NHS Evidence is scheduled for October. It will include customisation functionality, in the tradition of iGoogle, for the homepage of this resource.

And, might I suggest, some sort of organised, reliable and valid qualitative research into what people make of NHS Evidence? If I may speak plainly, I find the invitation to Conduct a specialised search (along the top menu) unnerving (and I am trained to do this!) and off-putting. Hopefully others’ experiences differ.

Google Squared Smackdown

Google Squared tries to add value to your searches by structuring the concepts. It sounds like somebody wants a slice of the Wolfram Alpha and Cyc pie.

Here is a sample search on ‘heart disease’ that I ran today. It shows the results in a chart with different attributes in squares.

It is odd that it has columns entitled Mesh and Medlineplus, and populates these with alpha-numeric codes rather than controlled vocabulary. I looked up a code in MeshBrowser and it appears that this is the unique ID but I have never used it in several years of searching.  Perhaps there are databases out there that will know that D001145 means Arrhythmia?  PubMed sure doesn’t.

A post on ReadWriteWeb also suggests that Google Squared has some progress to make before it really adds any value. They tried a search on “dog breeds” and these did not appear in any way sorted, nor could you sort by the attribute columns such as height or weight. It was neat that there was a medical concern column (for dominant health problems found in each breed) though.

Adding your own choice of column requires a little guesswork. Regarding the “heart disease” example, I typed in Prognosis, Diagnosis, Differential, Mortality and Age. This varied the values of course, but many squares stated ‘no value found’. Where Mortality and Heart attack intersected, the box stated that “30% of heart attacks are fatal” and cited a website called wrongdiagnosis.com. Hmm, that doesn’t exactly give me confidence, but I’d expect you to remind me that this probably isn’t a tool geared towards healthcare professionals.

Oh Canada: ISP censorship and internet slippage

Thank you to Planet Code 4 Lib for an update on Canadian mobile internet, broadband and ISP censorship by featuring a link to the minutes of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications session from 26 May.  It is no surprise to me that mobile companies are overpricing their wireless internet services so that only businesses can afford this service.  A wireless spectrum auction last year attempted to improve competition but there is still lots of work to be done. Most mobiles available in Canada come locked to a multi-year contract and there is hell to pay if your chosen phone is a brick (I was given a dirt-encrusted secondhand phone as a replacement, twice, joy! Thank you Rogers).

Once upon a time, Canada was a broadband leader. “In the late 1990s, we became the first country in the world to ensure that every school from coast to coast to coast was connected to the Internet.” But that was over ten years ago, and oh how times have changed.  Broadband is costlier in Canada, at about $45 CDN per month, compared to about $30 per month in the UK. We are 28th for price and speed, out of 30 OECD countries.

What galls me most is the not often discussed issue of censorship by internet service providers.  “Telus [a large Canadian ISP] blocked access to a union that was supporting a website during a labour dispute. In the process, it blocked more than 600 other websites.” But Telus is not unique. Rogers (Telus’s main competitor at the moment) degrades the connection to BitTorrent, which is apparently not just used for file-sharing but also for distributing indie films and such.  Bell Canada (a lesser ISP) does the same, but nobody really gives two hoots about Bell. Especially since their customer service, circa 2003, is complete rubbish. I went to pick up a phone that wasn’t working after having dropped it off for repair and months of using a loaner phone that was even worse to see it sitting in a laundry basket of abandoned phones and was told ‘We should have called you months ago to come get it.’ Needless to say, I left it on the counter in complete disgust.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that Canadian mobile companies force the recipient of the call to pay (as well as the caller). Which sucks the joy out of receiving a call from an old friend or relative, doesn’t it?

In the UK I have an unlocked, pay-as-you-go phone and probably top up £10 every 2 or 3 months.  I can never go back!

Late breaking news- the CILIP Gazette is …

Late breaking news- the CILIP Gazette is available online and available to all (no login necessary) via the CILIP website. That’s not all-it is searchable and clippable as well. I’ve tried clipping which also emails it to you or to another interested soul and it was quite nifty. So far there are the two most recent issues online (22 May and 5 June), but stay tuned for more new and archived content.

If I sound slightly breathless it is because I have come out of an editorial meeting astounded at the amount of work that goes into the Gazette and the monthly Update magazine. Every issue of Update is 50 pages of advert-free (except the back cover) unique content produced on a tight budget with a minimum of staff. Gazette is almost a one-woman show led by Debby Raven who produces a fortnightly copy. The Gazette urgently needs input from all Special Interest Groups. Economical training courses need to be shouted about so please send ideas to her.

There are opportunities to review books, write letters (anything informationy is welcome) or articles for Update- please contact Elspeth Hyams and the team to find out more. Critical friends welcome!

Today’s issue of the Gazette features an interview of Andrew Motion and an 8-page preview of Umbrella 2009. It looks like it will be a great conference and unfortunately I will be missing out (training budget cuts, etc).  However, if you are a new professional and want to attend Umbrella for free, please send 300 words explaining how it will benefit you to the Career Development Group before 5pm, 12 June.  They will also pay £100 towards your travel expenses.

Complementary therapy and disenfranchisement

Stephen Ginn, a psychiatrist with the wonderfully named Frontier Psychiatrist blog (Avalanches ooh!), went to a meeting at Kings College debating the thesis that complementary (and/or complimentary even I suppose) medicine causes more harm than good. Simon Singh was apparently heckled several times and things got a bit heated. Why do alt peeps feel so threatened. Is is cult mentality? Or merely the suggestion of denying their feelings? The comment that if conventional medicine can’t offer time, personalised approaches, an appreciation of social context or uncertainty then perhaps that explains why alternatives look so attractive and perhaps anger results in being made to feel trapped between a rock and a hard place. I hate going to see my GP (feel patronised and hate being messed around with like an object, open your mouth, sit down, say whatever you like I’m going to say what’s wrong with you anyway ahem) but still I don’t want a smiley witchdoctor instead. I agree that with growing choice and the feeling that health is a consumer issue like everything else conventional medicine has to buck up. For example my GP’s practice has a late night they didn’t tell me about, you can’t book online, they assume you don’t work, I don’t in fact care about continuity of care I just want a competent practitioner every time etc…I think it would help if people were taught about health in terms of the other threat to medical care which is self medication. It might just open up a debate about priorities. I fear that most people think that it’s enough to feel better instead of knowing whether they are better, the hopeful and fighting cancer patient is the popular example. Or else living with uncertainty is worse than knowing within themselves, an intuitive, gut feeling, feelings being the moment, the mental calm that is the opposite of life’s uncertainties, chance, spontaneously arising and resolving illness, random events and unpredictability.

First PC with Google Android coming soon

Interesting. The FT reports that: “Acer, the world’s third biggest PC maker, on Tuesday said it would start producing the world’s first mainstream notebook computer using Google’s Android operating system before the end of September.” Everyone’s doing everything. Search engines make operating systems, and manufacturers of operating systems make search engines. And everyone makes browsers. I guess it’s a reflection of the gradual breaking down of barriers between hardware and software, online and offline, your local C: drive and the World Wide Web, the cloud and terra firma. But are these companies who try and do everything not just sowing the seeds of their own destruction? Can you really do everything well? Are they only viable because of their ability to dominate the market and buy up/elbow out any new contenders? Answers on a postcard please to…

Seeing the light for the pollen trees

Just saw Lloyd’s Pharmacy advert for the hayfever device so I’m like eh what is it? I have hayfever and would like to know about anything I can add to my regimen of generic antihistamines, nasal spray and eye drops although I am going to be more sceptical than most especially as it now involves a therapy, something I associate with something a sticking plaster, a comforter as opposed to a treatment…but anyway it’s two pronged battery operated device which uses light therapy and you insert into your nose a few times a day to give general relief to nasocongestive symptoms.

So how does it work? Off to the blogs and first the usual people saying well it works for me so why do I need evidence (oh dear) but then more interestingly the argument that the trial supporting the sale of these devices (Lloyds is not alone in marketing them) employs a sham sham comparison (it is based on red light therapy and the sham light was internally disconnected thus making the one with the light a rudolf the reindeer giveaway). Go to pubmed and the newest study I found with a very simple search was a phase II study that did find benefit but with caveats that mechanism of action was unclear, that compliance was not followed and reading the abstract alone it is clear that the outcomes are fuzzy: severity rating scales and other subjective measures. I am not totally confident that I could rate my symptoms and that the advice that seems to counter reality works best: staying away from pollen really is the best way to avoid symptoms. If you want something to make yourself feel better, and much of the effect of this deivce seems to be part of the powerful placebo effect especially favoured by erm acupuncturists ahem for example, then buy some massive wrap around sunglasses. Less pollen will get into your eyes and at least if your eyes are red and sore then no one need know!