Harris R & Wathen N. 2007. "If my mother was alive I'd probably have called her.": women's search for health information in rural Canada. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 47(1):67-79.
which concluded with the following suggestions (some of which are pretty obvious but are important to spell out specifically nonetheless).
"...an important, overarching consideration for those designing and delivering health reference services should be the promotion of communitywide awareness of such services."
"...women want and need not only health information per se, but to have it presented, and ideally discussed, in the context of a caring, interactive relationship - one that respects the woman as the expert when it comes to her own needs, concerns, and context."
"For many, 'health' is incorporated in the concept of 'well-being' or 'quality of life,'" and "Any health reference service, therefore, should be interlinked with other subject areas that patrons may view as part of health and well-being, or, as one of the women in [the] study put it, 'the emotional side of health.'"
Health information programs and services should be designed not only to help patrons find high-quality information, but also teach them basic skills for searching, identifying high-quality sources, and knowing what types of information require follow-up action, such as consultation with a healthcare provider."
The basic message was that "It seems naive, if not cynical, to assume that the healthcare needs of women who live in rural communities will be met by simply deepening the supply of Internet-based health information..."
Reading "moving from the ivory tower to the community" by Margo Fryer from the October 2007 "Academic Matters"...
This is an interesting article about UBC's "Learning Exchange" - a facility with free computer resources and Internet access for Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. As I was reading their description of it:
The... patrons are a diverse mix - former resource industry workers whose bodies gave out after years of hard labour, Aboriginal youth wanting to upgrade their education, women with babies needing adult company, immigrants who are participating in our ESL program, substance users trying to stay clean, and homeless people looking for refuge. One any given day, there will be people ... who have been coming there almost every day for years and others who have come for the first time.
...I thought, "My god. They've invented the PUBLIC LIBRARY!"
The Readius! Woah. Just play the video below to see this new product with a thin rollable, bendable screen in action. As I've read in a bunch of different places, this certainly seems like the technology to completely revolutionize the whole e-reading and handheld computing and communication industry. There's all sorts of talk about how the Readius can access not only ebooks but newspapers and other text sources all wirelessly and "seamlessly" but in my opinion, just the availability of a flexible computing surface like this is a huge step in getting more electronic "power" into small portable devices. Pretty cool.
Ok, now I have another book to add to my list of things to read thanks to this entry from "Information Wants to be Free": How healthy is your organization?. Meredith talks about a book that really seems to touch on a subject "near and dear to my heart". She's reading the book, First, Break All the Rules and provides a list of 12 criteria of a healthy comfortable and happy workplace for employees:
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work? 2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? 3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? 4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work? 5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person? 6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development? 7. At work, do my opinions seem to count? 8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important? 9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? 10. Do I have a best friend at work? 11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress? 12. At work, have I had the opportunities to learn and grow?
I am currently working in an environment that pretty much covers each of the 12 points listed, at least as far as I want it too. (Numbers 4 and 10 are a pushing it a little: I don't know if I regularly do something particularly praise-worthy EVERY week, and I don't really need a BEST friend at work when a bunch of good friends will do... lol) And comparing it to previous environments I've been in, this is absolutely heaven. When you have the tools, the support and the team to get this done right, you can't help but want to do the best you can.
I haven't received any of these warnings recently but I have been sent and told about all sorts of warnings not to use certain products or not to do certain things with the barest of anecdotal evidence to support the claims. Here are two firm denials concerning a message being sent around about how the evil Swiffer is apparently killing our poor defenseless household companions: Swiffer WetJet Toxic to Pets? - Netlore Archive and ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center Responds to Swiffer Wet Jet Rumor.
This is a perfect example of why the general public needs more education in the areas of general science (particularly as it relates to health) and in critical thinking and information skills. The average person would read a message like the Swiffer one and would probably think, "I'm not sure that this is so but I love my pet more than I love using this commercial product so I'll stop using the product just in case." This is not entirely a poor line of thinking and would probably have a good outcome if it stopped there or made them more doubtful of other commercial products. But no. Most people take this message and internalize it, spreading it to all their friends and acquaintances, adding their own personal acceptance of the message to the already emotional weight of the warning. They will also go out and buy some competing product, because if WetJet's no good, they'll have to go out and buy the Clorox ReadyMop Mopping System! Cuz you can't live without some sort of mopping system! What did they do before mopping systems?!? lol
Now I am certainly not an expert in politics, let alone Swiss politics, but as a librarian and a philosopher, I do fancy myself somewhat of an expert on meaningful and informative expressions. We are all (at least the English speaking of us) familiar with the idea of the "black sheep" (definition) as being the one in the family that the rest of them don't want. I suppose that's because real black sheep aren't very valuable because you're only going to get grey or black wool out of them - not very marketable. When someone uses that phrase, no one accuses them of racism, so why should a political poster be seen in that light?
But what about the idea they are trying to communicate - that criminals ought to be kicked out of the country? Ok, I don't think that that's the answer - that's just making it someone else's problem - but does anyone actually argue rationally against that? Not that I've seen. And that if they're too young to be kicked out alone, then their parents will be kicked out with them? That's not exactly what the Nazis did, but even it was, just because a evil person did something, doesn't mean it's pure evil too. Hitler was an artist (bio) but that doesn't make painting evil. (Although I have not seen any of his work so... LOL)
People need to argue against the issue, not the details surrounding the issue. But of course, it's so much easier to find a connection to something scandalous and dismiss the idea as foolish or insane. Like I said before, I don't think simply deporting individuals for committing crime would solve any of the problem. Maybe, in the short term, for Switzerland, it would, but if everyone did that, we'd quickly run out of places to put criminals. That doesn't solve the problem of crime, but rather ignores it. Problems don't go away if you don't look at them. And although parents SHOULD be held more accountable for the actions of their children, especially if parents are to be given final responsibility for their children's upbringing, flat-out "punishing" the entire family for the actions of one person will inevitably result in much hardship for the innocent.
Moral of the story: Don't be any colour of sheep. Especially when thinking.
Recently read Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is a very good book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in more recent sci-fi, less techie sci-fi, political fiction, or environmental fiction. Just don't pay attention to the blurb on the back. It includes this sentence:
As these everyday heroes fight to align the awesome forces of nature with the extraordinary march of modern science, they are unaware that fate is about to put an unusual twist on their work—one that will place them at the heart of an unavoidable storm.
I was all ready for a rip-roaring, action-packed adventure story with science and intrigue. It's a very calm story. Passionate in places, but passion in regards to policital and environmental issues, life changes, parenting, and scientific progress... Don't get me wrong. Good book. Great book. I'm planning on reading the sequel: Fifty Degrees Below.
Now I'm reading A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, a non-fiction title covering some of the most interesting scientific questions of all time.
Let start by saying (again) that I do like Wikipedia. But (and here we go) I don't think people really know how to "use" it. And I don't mean, they don't know how to look up specific articles in it, or modify things in it, etc. I mean, people don't know how to treat it as an information source. The common complaint about it is that it's not "authoritative" like the Encyclopedia Britannica (the usual comparison). And then the retort to that is, "Well the Encyclopedia Britannica makes mistakes too!" I hate that. First of all, let's try to get along people, ok?
Second of all, that dismisses the whole value of both sources, particularly Wikipedia. And it shows a fundamental misunderstanding about what Wikipedia is, or rather, what it does for us. Take as an example, how people usually refer to information they find in Wikipedia. I'm reading along in the 2006-07 Annual Report for the Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre (the Canadian part of the Cochrane Collaboration, an organization successfully high quality, timely, and most importantly as near-certain as possible, health care evidence materials... read the first few pages of the report) and they refer to a description of Cochrane found in Wikipedia by saying "Wikipedia, the popular online community encyclopaedia states..." it. This is the common mistake. Wikipedia did not state it. A user of Wikipedia stated it. You may think, "Well, duh!", but this is an important distinction. Encyclopedia Britannica (the organization) is an entity that has taken on the responsibility for the information put forth in the Encyclopedia Britannica (the information source). Wikipedia has not. They can't. All they've done is provide a forum in which anyone can manipulate text, that happens to be in the form of an encyclopedia. I'm not saying that this makes it less truthly or trustworthy or authoritative, just that when you citing something in Wikipedia, the author isn't Wikipedia. It's "Chrismoore123" or "Thinboy00" or "Noodlenozzle", the user that typed it in. They're responsible. They're the source that you're judging authoritative or not. Individuals created the entries in Encyclopedia Britannica too, but Encyclopedia Britannica (the organization) has taken efforts to make sure those individuals are qualified and us readers trust them on that, or at least hold them responsible for their efforts.
One interesting difference is how time plays into judging the authority of these two sources. In Encyclopedia Britannica, we assume that the newer the information is, the better, the more accurate it is. Although in Wikipedia we do this to some extent too, it should also be seen that in a community where anyone and everyone can change anything and everything, the older the content is, that is the longer it's stayed around without anyone changing it, the better (or at least, most agreed upon) it probably is as well.
My favourite is the first one that says that these are "26 things which differenciate humans from logic machines" and that it's "a partially upsetting, partially comforting list… i.e. it's ok to have human faults!" The very first sentence in the post describe these biases as things "that our minds commonly do to distort our own view of reality". It's ok to have a distorted view of reality? You're proud of it? Yes, there's very little we can do to avoid all errors and biases at all times, but isn't it a good idea to be aware of some of the ways we make those mistakes? Shouldn't we try to make fewer? Human limitations are not something to revel in, nor should they make us feel ashamed. They are to be seen as challenges, things to be accepted as natural and sometimes unavoidable but ultimately areas for improvement.
Am I right? Or did I commit one of those biases listed? Please tell me... I'll try to do better next time, I promise. LOL
LibSite: A Recommendation Service for Library-related Websites http://libsite.org/ Reviews of interesting and important web resources for librarians; feel free to add your own recommendations.
NPR Podcasts Directory http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php This 2007 Webby and People's Voice award-winner includes over 450 podcasts from member radio stations on a wide range of topics - Car Talk, Speaking of Pets, The 90-Second Naturalist, Sports with Frank DeFord, GeekSpeak, and more. Browse by topic, title, or provider.
Reading Stack at Flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/readingstack/ Here's a fun meme to spread: take a photo of the pile of books you're hoping to get around to reading. Then, once you've finished one from the stack, post a comment on it.
Now, of course, I have to get someone to recommend my sites on libsite.org, check out all these podcasts, and build and photograph a pile of books to read. This is "Internet" thing is NOT helping me finish my To Do list. It just adds to it! I can't wait until the fad dies down. LOL
This news item makes me think of the whole "no sex ed is the best sex ed" theory -- people thinking that if we give kids information about sex they'll go out and have more of it... That's like saying that despite all the signs out there that point to a particular minefield nearby, the best way to keep people out of it is not to mention it. That way no one is tempted to go and play in it! Oh, and screw anyone that accidentally goes there or doesn't recognize the dangers of a minefield! LOL
Of course the article doesn't mention any of this. It's your standard, "things are getting better but there's more work to be done" political statement...
This news item talks about a study done to see if providing individuals with a primer on health risks and interventions would help them understand those risks and interventions. (See Steven Woloshin et al. "The Effectiveness of a Primer to Help People Understand Risk: Two Randomized Trials in Distinct Populations" Ann Intern Med, Feb 2007; 146: 256 - 265.) Not bad but it's on a pretty high level... it would have been better to test particular methods of teaching within the primer than testing the effectiveness of the primer as a whole. What they basically proved was giving people info about something helped most of them learn a little more about something. And although they say there's never been any study like this, I highly doubt that. There's certainly work on effectiveness of teaching materials and methods in the education literature. Maybe there's never been anything done specifically in the area of learning about health risks assessment but surely this can be generalized.
and provides a list of 12 criteria of a healthy comfortable and happy workplace for employees:
by 
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by Bill Bryson, a non-fiction title covering some of the most interesting scientific questions of all time.