NEWS AND NOTES / NOUVELLES ET NOTES

The 3-day workshop aims to provide learners with a project plan and immediately applicable and pragmatic strategies. Topics covered include conflict management, consensus building, facilitation, team leadership, meeting management, feed-back


Canada's new government supports the Canadian Association of Research Libraries
Ottawa, 14 March 2007 http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/newsroom/index_e.cfm?fuseaction=displayDocument&DocIDCd=CR061800 On behalf of the Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, Royal Galipeau, Member of Parliament (Ottawa-Orléans), announced yesterday new funding of up to $328 600 for the AlouetteCanada Metadata Toolkit, a project of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. This initiative will lead to the development of software and standards to assist organizations in generating metadata for digitized collections. It will foster a level of cohesion and improve functionality within the growing body of digitized content in Canada.

Robarts Research Institute may merge with UWO
Research Money, 2007 Mar 8;21(4) http://www.carl-abrc.ca/publications/elert/elert222-e.html Canada may lose its only independent research institute if preliminary merger talks between the Robarts Research Institute (RRI) and the University of Western Ontario (UWO) bear fruit. A nonprofit organization and registered charity, RRI, which is based in London, Ontario, is struggling with operating costs associated with its ambitious slate of research programs. If it becomes a unit of UWO, it would be eligible for federal funding to support indirect costs of research. RRI has succeeded in attracting national and international research funding. It conducts research in the areas of biotherapeutics, cell biology, clinical trials, imaging, immunology, and vascular biology. The remaining Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) funds ($25 million) go to two digital library projects and focus on the social sciences and humanities (SSH). The projects -the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) ($19.1 million) and the Synergies project ($5.8 million) -will see Canadian researchers gain access to a wide range of scientific journals regardless of location. They represent the largest SSH investment in CFI history and will help disseminate Canadian research internationally.

CFI's last major awards include digital library infrastructure
Agencies join forces to share data The US government is considering a massive plan to store almost all scientific data generated by federal agencies in publicly accessible digital repositories. The aim is for the kind of data access and sharing currently enjoyed by genome researchers via GenBank or astronomers via the National Virtual Observatory, but for the whole of US science. Efforts to ensure open access to scientific publications are gaining support. The latest breakthrough is that all the universities in the Netherlands have now signed the Berlin Declaration. In the declaration (an initiative of the Max Planck Society), a large number of universities throughout Europe and beyond declare to make all their scholarly and scientific articles available in open-access archives. The results of publicly funded research will then be available to all, free of charge, via online databases. At the moment, access to such articles is impeded by the high subscription fees for scientific periodicals. The European Commission intends to experiment with open access in the coming years. SURF was one of the first signatories of the Berlin Declaration.

Changes in MedlinePlus
Since 2002 MedlinePlus has offered two sources of drug information for consumers: the United States Pharmacopeia Drug Information Advice for the Patient (USPDI) and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists MedMaster. On February 1, MedlinePlus will no longer be providing the USP information. ASHP MedMaster and Natural Standard herbal and supplement information will continue to be offered in both English and Spanish.
On 28 March 2007, MedlinePlus will introduce a number of new features to the Health Topic pages. Highlights include the following: (i) Each page will now display a photograph or illustration. A brief summary of each disease or condition will also appear at the top of the page. Composed by experienced medical writers and reviewed by National Library of Medicine staff, the summaries are based largely on National Institutes of Health and other government information. They are written at an easy-to-read level and include links to related topics. As of March 28, summaries will appear on about half of English pages. All English and Spanish Health Topic pages will include a summary in the near future. (ii) Synonyms will appear right under the health topic name. (iii) A new category, labeled Start Here, will link users to overviews and important information for first-time visitors. (iv) A centrally located Last year, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) proposed to consolidate the 83 existing qualifiers (subheadings) in the Medical Subject Headings and create a smaller set. The goal was to make the use of qualifiers easier for the searching public. NLM distributed a background paper within the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, whose members also posted it on a number of widely seen listservs. At the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting in 2006, Dr. Stuart Nelson, Head of Medical Subject Headings, and those in attendance had a lively dialogue on the proposed changes.
Over the intervening months, NLM staff analyzed all comments, suggestions, and feedback. We considered the potential impact on the searching public, Network libraries, and the internal processes at NLM. Ultimately, in part owing to budget constraints and limited resources, NLM has made the decision to retain the qualifiers in their present form. We hope to concentrate our efforts on other ways to improve searching and retrieval for all users. We greatly appreciate the many thoughtful comments received and thank all those who provided input.

NLM announces new Web page: Journals Recently Accepted by NLM for Inclusion in MEDLINE 8 February 2007 http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/lstrc/new_titles.html
The National Library of Medicine announces a new Web page that lists the journals accepted for MEDLINE indexing after Literature Selection Technical Review Committee (LSTRC) meetings. LSTRC meets three times per year (February, June, and October). The debut page has the complete list from the 2006 LSTRC meetings. Results from future meetings will be announced after each meeting with subsequent journals added to the top of the annual list.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pmresources.html
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has recently created a Web page (MEDLINE/PubMed Resources Guide) that links to many of their useful help guides, FAQ sheets, etc. These pages, which were previously difficult to find on the NLM site, include those explaining the differences between MEDLINE and PubMed, title counts for MEDLINE and PubMed, journal lists, information about the Cochrane Collaboration, etc.

http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/nov2006/nlm-20a.htm
A new program launched by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) encourages practitioners to refer their patients to Genetics Home Reference, a free, user-friendly NLM Web site at http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov. Under this program, doctors can request free "Information Rx" pads that enable them to write "prescriptions", pointing patients to the Genetics Home Reference site for information about newborn screening and related genetic disorders. Four of the nation's most respected medical associations -the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American College of Medical Genetics -have teamed with NLM and NICHD on this initiative.

EBSCO announcement -future subscriptions to CINAHL
Any new or renewal order for the CINAHL database placed after 31 December 2007 will only be available for subscription on EBSCOhost. If an order is placed prior to that date, a subscription via other selected vendor platforms will be made available and honored through 31 December 2008. For more information, contact EBSCO Publishing at information@ebscohost.com.

Wiley-Blackwell to launch Archives of Drug Information to increase public access to latest research from pharmaceutical industry
Hoboken, New Jersey, 5 March 2007 http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/press/pressitem.asp?ref=1142 Wiley-Blackwell announced the launch of Archives of Drug Information, a new open-access, freely available peer-reviewed journal, dedicated to publishing the results of drug studies. This journal will help to address requests for transparency voiced by societies, health care practitioners, patients, media, and the government to disclose clinical trial information.
Google enters partnership to support free EHRs http://www.ihealthbeat.org/track/url.cfm?u=50301&rurl=www%2Eihealthbeat%2Eorg%2Findex%2Ecfm%3FAction %3DdspItem%26itemID%3D131810 Practice Fusion, a San Francisco startup, plans to announce on Friday a deal with Google to offer a free Web-based electronic health record (EHR) system to physicians and medical groups, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. EHR systems typically cost physicians at least US$20 000 to install, but Practice Fusion, which also offers practice management tools, is able to offer the service for free by partnering with Google's AdSense network. When a physician uses the EHR system, AdSense will recognize certain keywords and will display ads related to that condition.

Meetings, conferences, and workshops Special Libraries Association (SLA) 2007 Annual Conference
SLA will hold its annual conference in Denver, Colorado, on 3-6 June 2007. For details, check the conference Web site at http://www.sla.org.

First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference
The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) will hold its first international conference on 11-13 July 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The conference will promote and celebrate the quality use of the PKP open source software suite Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Conference Systems (OCS), and the Open Archives Harvester. For details, check the conference Web site at http://pkp.sfu.ca/.

PNC/MLA 2007 Annual Conference
The Pacific Northwest Chapter (PNC) of the Medical Library Association (MLA) will hold its annual conference in Billings, Montana, from 28 September to 2 October 2007. Details are to follow on the conference Web site.

World Congress on the Internet in Medicine
The 12th World Congress on the Internet in Medicine will take place 7-10 October 2007, in Leipzig, Germany. MEDNET is a scientific conference organized under the auspices of the Society for the Internet in Medicine (SIM). For details, check the conference Web site at http://mednet2007.com/content/. The 3-day workshop aims to provide learners with a project plan and immediately applicable and pragmatic strategies. Topics covered include conflict management, consensus building, facilitation, team leadership, meeting management, feedback, and performance management.