Medlibs Twitter Chat: Everything eBooks

This week I will be moderating the medlibs Twitter discussion that will happen Thursday 8/30 at 9pm Eastern for 1 hour.  (I hope I do as well as Nikki!)

Last week, we discussed and shared a link to the book, Rethinking the Reference Collection: Exploring Benchmarks and E-Book Availability.  This week will look at ebooks a little more in depth and their use in general, not just the reference collection.

Some ideas for discussion can be:

  • Findability -What are the best ways for patrons to find stuff? The catalog, A-Z lists, other?
  • Usability – How easy are they for patrons to use?
  • Usage – Are they getting used?  What is appropriate usage stats?
  • Portability and Devices – Where are people using them and on what devices?
  • Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) – Who is doing this and what are your results?
  • Anything else that might be interesting

Anybody can join a medlibs chat, you don’t have to be a librarian, you just have to have an interest in the topic.  For more information on how to join a Twitter chat using hashtags check out this guide created by the usual moderator Nikki Dettmar.

I look forward to see you online this Thursday.  Even if you plan to lurk, please at least tweet us your name and where you are from (on Thursday at 9pm est.) so we can officially welcome you and answer any questions you might have.

ReferencePoint Blog Stops

About a year ago NLM launched ReferencePoint Blog targeting health sciences library staff in the U.S. and abroad.  The postings were intended to:

  • Increase the awareness of NLM products and services available online and onsite.
  • Inform the targeted audiences about health sciences resources outside of NLM.
  • Promote dialogue and learning exchanges between NLM staff and staff at other libraries.

Well according the final post, “blog membership and participation” was lower than anticipated and “lacked dialogue among the viewership.” 

Although the blog is gone, people can still find out about information from the Tech Bull, RMLs, NLM Social Media outlets, and from other libraries’ web and social media.

At first I misread the information about ReferencePointe Blog, I actually thought they were launching a new blog.  It wasn’t until I re-read things did I realize they were ending the blog.  I admit there is a lot that gets by me at times.  But I had no idea that ReferenceBlog existed and I do try to keep on top of that sort of thing.  It is sad that something that looked so promising failed, but I have to wonder what was done to promote it.  I did a very quick unofficial poll in the Twittersphere asking medical librarians if they had ever heard of ReferencePointe Blog.  I figured the librarians on Twitter are usually more in tune with blogs and social media and if something was out there maybe a few librarians might not know but the group as a whole would know about it.  Most of the people who responded to my tweet said they had either never heard of ReferencePointe Blog or just learned about it very recently.  One person who mentioned they knew of it said it was in her feed reader but she felt it unfortunately found its voice.

This brings up several very good points about blogs, social media, and communication. 

  • Market the hell out of your blog, Twitter account, Facebook, etc.  If your many of social media techie librarians did not know about you, then you didn’t reach out in the right ways.  Simply building a site or feed and hoping people will come or comment…those days are l-o-n-g gone.  Regardless if you are making a blog for librarians or Twitter feed for doctors, you are competing against a whole slew of other social media things that are louder and potentially more interesting. 
  • You need a voice.  Whether it is in 140 characters, a look/feeling on Facebook, or longer blog dialog.  Without a specific voice, theme, presence…overall vibe if you will, users won’t identify with you and come back for more.  It can take a while to find your voice, and possibly longer if you have several people who have to work together has one voice.  But without a specific voice or vibe it is difficult for people to follow.
  • Timeliness is EVERYTHING! The half life of a tweet is like 5 minutes.  Obviously blogs have a little longer half life but you really need to keep posts, tweets, Facebook content centered around what is currently going on.  For example in May 2012 PubMed changed Limits to Filters, a good post on a tricky search using Filters would have been great.  Discussing the differences, pros and cons, etc. of search with Limits vs. Filters would be very helpful.
  • Feeback is essential. Commenting, Re-tweeting, and wall posts must be open and easy.  Creating a barrier such as having somebody login to comment, locking your Twitter feed, or preventing wall posts will drastically limit your readership’s interest in communicating and will effect your overall readership.
  • Finally your numbers are only half of the picture.  I would like to think that I am pretty popular blog among the medical library community.  Yet I have only a few comments on my blog.  I have even less well posts on my Facebook page (to be honest I don’t really market my FB page).  I have a reasonable number of RTs, MTs, and @s on Twitter.  But I am no KevinMD.  However I bet his actual comments, RTs, MTs, etc. represent a very small fraction of  his oodles and oodels of readers and followers.  The numbers are only part of the story.  I don’t begrudge anybody for shutting down based on poor numbers but you can’t use the numbers as your entire picture.

So in the end, I am sorry to see that a potentially good resource is gone.  I hope that isn’t the end for people thinking of doing something similar.

Medlib Geekery Chats Every Thursday

For the last several Thursdays, people interested in medical librarianship issues have gotten together on Twitter to discuss topics and voice their thoughts and opinions.  It is an interesting bunch of people, not all are medical librarians, but all are interested in various aspects of medical information. 

The discussion is every Thursday at 9pm est.  It is rather informal as people are tweeting and following the discussion over a glass of wine, while getting kids to bed, or making dinner.  But as informal as it is, it is also very interesting.  There was a great discussion about take home points from the MLA meeting, escience and what it really means people, and a free range discussion about iPads, residents, etc.  Nikki Dettmar has written a nice post with word cloud images detailing the last few chats.  She also has a link to the chat transcripts

So if you are interested, I invite you to hop on Twitter tomorrow at 9pm est and follow the hashtag #medlibs.  Can’t make it this Thursday? No worries, we seem to be meeting on Twitter every Thursday. So try next week.

Social Media and MLA

Yesterday I sat in on a conference call about various technology things and MLA. One of the things we discussed was social media.  We have to get involved, we have to create a social media strategy to effectively engage in that area of communication.  Based on a survey, it is clear that the majority of those surveyed still prefer the listserve to communicate.  But, it is also clear that other mediums are gaining in popularity and usage and they shouldn’t be ignored just because they are new.  Talking on the phone was once the preferred method of communication among people, now cell phone companies are investigating data/text only plans (no voice minutes) because people just aren’t talking anymore, they are texting and emailing.  As society adapts to new technology they change their behavior patterns. 

I am not saying using the listserve to stay informed is exactly like the evolution of cell phone use, but we do evolve with technology and we would be seriously remiss if we don’t look at addressing it and coming up with a strategy.

So here is where I ask you, the reader….  “What would you like to see MLA do with social media?”

Keep in mind it has to be pretty self sustaining, easy, and require few man hours.  Why?  There are like 10 people who are employed as MLA staff who are all working on multiple projects to keep the organization going.  Whatever plan, thoughts, ideas, that you have, they need to take into account that perhaps a volunteer(s) (similar to the Medlib-l moderator) might be the one doing the bulk of the day to day stuff.  It also should be something that is cohesive and not disjointed.  A LinkedIn account, Facebook account, and YouTube account all sitting out there separately not referencing to each other or interconnected in either way and duplicating work without a cohesive voice or style, does us no good.

Obviously we need to come up with a strategy, but I would like to see what you think we should be doing with these resources in a way to help structure the strategy so that we are serving the members in the most effective and efficient manner. 

So use this blog post as a brain storming area or a sounding board about your vision, thoughts, concerns, etc. on social medial and MLA.

MLA Twitter Tutorial Now Open

There was a bit of confusion when I last posted about the MLA Twitter Tutorial, people were all excited and started trying to do the tutorial right away even though it wasn’t live yet.  The wait is over, the tutorial is now open.   Go to http://mlatwitter2012.tumblr.com/ and watch the videos, complete the tutorial, tweet, and learn something new while getting a free drink ticket to the MLA Tweet Up.

(One thing to note, most of the videos are on YouTube, so if it is blocked you will have to watch them at home.) 

Each year the discussion on Twitter has grown considerably.   A lot of the pre-conference chatter is about events people would like to attend or questions about the meeting.  During the meeting people tweet interesting points during a presentation, pose questions back and forth among the tweeters, or just tweet in general to communicate.  This kind of discussion is often called the “back channel.”  The tutorial has some great articles for people to learn  about things like the back channel, live tweeting best practices, and a guidebook on Twitter.

A few years ago when Twitter came out, I remember I mentioned I couldn’t think of how Twitter would be used professionally in medical librarianship.  Now I use it daily.  I have a program that is running in the background (just like my email program) that pops a message box up when I get a tweet (again just like my email).  I have used it to answer reference questions, follow speakers/conferences, answer tech questions, and just share information.

It might take a bit of time to figure out your “voice” and know your work flow to see how it naturally fits into the way you communicate.  Take a look at this image of “The Four Stages of ‘Getting’ Twitter” and you can see how it is an evolution as to how it can fit into your life.

Free Drink Ticket to MLA’12 Tweet Up

Want a free drink ticket to the MLA’12 Tweet up?  Well all you have to do is be a MLA member and complete this Twitter tutorial.  If you aren’t going to MLA’12 you still can take the tutorial (just no drink ticket) so you can interact and exchange ideas with people at the meeting through Twitter.

(From MLA Focus)

“MLA members can hit a home run with Twitter by taking part in an online tutorial about the microblogging service Twitter. Join the Twitter tutorial April 13–22 to learn more about Twitter, get tips from experts, and be ready to tweet about MLA ’12. Members who successfully complete the tutorial will receive a free drink ticket for the annual tweet-up, 6:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m., Monday, May 21. Members who will not attend the annual meeting can share ideas and exchange information through Twitter.”

Spear Phishing?

I think by now everyone has heard of the term phishing as the gathering information online on an individual or group of people.  But today I read of a new type of phishing, spear phishing.  Spear phishing is using information for pinpoint attacks. 

It is apparently pretty successful because recent spear phishing attacks have “ensnared” several top U.S. government officials and RSA (you know the company that makes those SecurID tokens) and defense contractor Lockheed Martin (using information from hacked from RSA).  According to a CNNMoney article, the attackers were able to trick people into opening email attachments that appeared to come from trusted sources or colleagues.

While we don’t know exactly how hackers were able to hack the government officials and RSA, we do know that many believe that social media sites, especially LinkedIn, serve as a hacker’s gold mine.  According to the article, at a DefCon security conference where they staged a hacker game, Google and LinkedIn were the most widely used resources.

All it takes is getting the name of one of your coworkers and a well created email to get you to click on a link. 

Everything is on the Internet, while I don’t want to discourage people from connecting to family, friends, colleagues and coworkers, but you may want to use some discretion when connecting.  Obviously on Facebook you want to lock down your site.  On LinkedIn, maybe you might not want to put down everything about your current job.

The Devil is in the Details: Social Media’s Right to Your Content

First let me just say I am not a copyright librarian, law librarian, or anybody who specializes in fair use, perpetual use, distribution, etc.  I am a plain ol’ medical librarian who pretty much knows you can’t use other people’s copyrighted stuff without paying for it or asking permission.  Regarding my own content, that I post out there I am kind of naive.

I am not naive in thinking that whatever I post can be seen by anyone. Oh I am well aware of that.  What I am naive about are the various policies regarding user generated content on multiple social media sites.  We all click through their license and usage agreements and few people sit down a read through the legal jargon to figure out the details.  There is the problem, the devil is in the details.

This issue has come up in the past. I remember an article about about Stefanie Gordon’s famous Space Shuttle picture and Janis Krum’s famous Hudson River plane photo.  Both posted their photos on Twitter using Twitpic, and both photos were used and copied commerically without compensation. Part of the problem could be how they posted their photo.  By using Twitpic both Gordon and Krum lost all exclusive rights to their own photo.  Twitpic has the rights to resell any images loaded by original rights holders (people who post their own photos to share on Twitpic).  Just by loading their picture on Twitpic they gave Twitpic the right to resell the image or distribute it. 

Kind of frustrating.  I am by no means a professional photographer and I am never in the right place at the right time to share a picture like the space shuttle bursting through the clouds, but it still kind of irks me that by using Twitpic I lose my excluse rights to the photo.

This is not unique to Twitpic.  Earlier this week Heather Holmes tweeted about Pinterest’s policy about things you would “pin.”  According to PRNewswire article, Unpinned, Pinterest requires people to pin only things they own and Pinterest is granted rights to that material that was pinned. 

Pinterest users can only pin content that they are the sole and exclusive owner of all or that they have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms.

Those terms would be…  grant Pinterest operator Cold Brew Labs a “worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.”

As the article states, most of the people on Pinterest are out of compliance with Pinterest’s policy terms.  Not only do people pin things they don’t own but I am pretty sure that they also don’t have the rights to grant Pinterest that content. Judging from what some people are pinning, they don’t seem to realize they no longer retain exclusive rights to the stuff they do own and pin. 

This got me thinking about my photos and all the stuff I have online and the stuff I would like to retain excluse rights to.  So I did a little digging around within various social media platforms and discovered that Pinterest is not alone.  Pretty much if you are involved in social media, there is at least one platform you belong to that by just posting on it you grant the company rights to your content. 

Companies that if you use, you grant them rights to your content:

Facebook:

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

Google+: (Scroll down to number 11)

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

 LinkedIn: (Section 2B)

You own the information you provide LinkedIn under this Agreement, and may request its deletion at any time, unless you have shared information or content with others and they have not deleted it, or it was copied or stored by other users. Additionally, you grant LinkedIn a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, unlimited, assignable, sublicenseable, fully paid up and royalty-free right to us to copy, prepare derivative works of, improve, distribute, publish, remove, retain, add, process, analyze, use and commercialize, in any way now known or in the future discovered, any information you provide, directly or indirectly to LinkedIn, including, but not limited to, any user generated content, ideas, concepts, techniques or data to the services, you submit to LinkedIn, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or to any third parties. Any information you submit to us is at your own risk of loss as noted in Sections 2 and 3 of this Agreement.

Pinterest:

By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.

Tumblr:

Subscriber shall own all Subscriber Content that Subscriber contributes to the Site, but hereby grants and agrees to grant Tumblr a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable right and license (with the right to sublicense), to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content and to allow others to do so (“Content License”) in order to provide the Services.

 

Twitpic:

You retain all ownership rights to Content uploaded to Twitpic. However, by submitting Content to Twitpic, you hereby grant Twitpic a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and Twitpic’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.

You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service.

WordPress.com: Different from WordPress.org

By submitting Content to Automattic for inclusion on your Website, you grant Automattic a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your blog. If you delete Content, Automattic will use reasonable efforts to remove it from the Website, but you acknowledge that caching or references to the Content may not be made immediately unavailable.

Companies that I am confused about:

Twitter: (Anything public you put out they will distribute to market your persona.)

Our Services are primarily designed to help you share information with the world. Most of the information you provide to us is information you are asking us to make public. This includes not only the messages you Tweet and the metadata provided with Tweets, such as when you Tweeted, but also the lists you create, the people you follow, the Tweets you mark as favorites or Retweet and many other bits of information. Our default is almost always to make the information you provide public but we generally give you settings (http://twitter.com/account/settings) to make the information more private if you want. Your public information is broadly and instantly disseminated. For example, your public Tweets are searchable by many search engines and are immediately delivered via SMS and our APIs (http://dev.twitter.com/pages/api_faq) to a wide range of users and services. You should be careful about all information that will be made public by Twitter, not just your Tweets.

Kind of confused by their terms of service policy about what I post. In one sentence they say I retain my rights but in the other they say by using their service I am granting them the non-exclusive rights to distribute, copy, etc.

You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).

 LiveJournal:

I am not sure. I don’t see anything in their terms of service or their privacy policies about content that users post.

Companies that do not get non-exclusive rights to your content simply by using their product:

Flickr:

Flickr’s policy appears to preserve your rights to your content.  It all depends on how you license your content on their site.  Also interesting, Flickr recently went after Pinterest blocking users from pinning copyrighted material on Flickr. Based on their policy and the recent blocking of Pinterest, it appears that Flickr does not get non-exclusive, irrevocable, yada yada use and distribution of your content. 

 WordPress.org: Different from WordPress.com

With WordPress.org you are using their software to publish your material on your own domain.  They have no wording in their policies stating that the use of their software grants them rights to your content. They do however have  your information and they collect non-identifying information for statistics and software development. Personal data they have will only be released under specific circumstances.

 However, you might want to check with your domain host to see if by using them they get non-exclusive rights to your content.

*Note* If you use WordPress.org or another blog and you post it through Facebook then you are granting Facebook permission to have non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use your blog content. Perhaps if you want your blog content featured on Facebook but you want to retain your rights you might just give the link and brief 2 sentence description on your Facebook post.

MySpace: Not many people use it any more but those who do don’t have to worry about MySpace using their content

Myspace does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, “Content”) that you transmit, submit, display or publish (“post”) on, through or in connection with the Myspace Services. After posting your Content on, through or in connection with the Myspace Services, you continue to retain any such rights that you may have in your Content, subject to the limited license herein. By posting any Content on, through or in connection with the Myspace Services, you hereby grant to Myspace a limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on, through or in connection with the Myspace Services, including, without limitation, through the Myspace Services to applications, widgets, websites or mobile, desktop or other services which are linked with your Myspace account (collectively, “Linked Services”), including, without limitation, distributing part or all of the Myspace Services and any Content included therein, in any media formats and through any media channels, except that Content marked “private” will not be distributed by Myspace outside the Myspace Services and Linked Services.

 yfrog: (Service for tweeting out pictures)

The content that you distribute through the ImageShack Network is owned by you, and you give ImageShack permission to display and distribute said content exclusively on the ImageShack Network.

You may revoke this permission at any time by requesting your content to be removed. Such requests will be processed within a maximum period of 24 hours (but usually as short as one hour). You may request deletion and/or mark your content private through our sites’ user interfaces, or by contacting ImageShack directly. After your request is processed, ImageShack will cease distribution of your content within a maximum period of 24 hours (but usually as short as one hour) and will absolve itself of any ownership of said content, implied or otherwise.

ImageShack will not sell or distribute your content to third parties or affiliates without your permission. Third parties may exercise the following options regarding your content:

  • Third parties may hyperlink to the page that displays your content on the ImageShack Network without modification and with proper attribution to you.
  • Third parties may request permission to use your content by contacting you directly.

All requests for permission regarding your content usage directed at ImageShack will be forwarded to you. All uploaded content is copyrighted to its respective owners. ImageShack directs full legal responsibility of said content to their respective owners. All content generated by ImageShack is copyrighted by ImageShack. ImageShack is not responsible for any uploaded content, nor is it in affiliation with any entities that may be represented in the uploaded content.

 

This list isn’t comprehensive, isn’t intended to be legal advice and if I have something wrong please let me know.  If you use another social medial site and want to feature it in the list, please leave a comment and I will integrate it into the list.

I didn’t list every single social media company out there so if you use one and are concerned take a look at their policies.  As I said in the beginning. the devil is in the details. It is almost impossible to participate in social media without some exposure and granting some companies rights non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use your content.  The key is knowing what you can live with.  As I mentioned, I don’t post my entire blog on Facebook.  I do have a few pictures (family, renovations, vacations, etc.) on Facebook, but that isn’t my entire photobook. My entire photo collection lives on Flickr and I upload specific pictures from Flickr to Facebook.  Additionally, I am trying to get in the practice of using yfrog for tweeting out pictures. 

The idea with social media (and everything else) is read the instruction manual (policies) and use with caution and thought.

Become a Blogger for 2012

We need you on the team for 2012!  The Official MLA blog has become a relied upon resource for both meeting attendees and non-attendees to stay current about the meeting.  So apply to be a blogger!  Applications will be accepted today through February 10th via SurveyMonkey.

True to the baseball theme, we have roster spots for various utility bloggers.  Wireless cards are available to 12 people in select categories.  Blog posts typically are 250 – 500 words in length and correspondents post 1-2 times each day (unless otherwise noted) depending on their category requirements. For complete Guidelines for Bloggers go to the blogger page. All correspondents will receive 3 AHIP points for their participation. 

Blog Correspondent Categories

Training Camp
1 post/day about what you’re learning, 1 post must be a description of a CE course you took while at the conference

Hall of Fame Player (10+ years)
2 posts/day from perspective of a long time MLA member. Suggested topics: What has changed? What has stayed the same? What are you excited/disappointed/curious about?

Grounds Crew
1 post/day, posts about things that happen early in the game, er, day; should include the Major’s walk & a Sunrise Seminar review.

Exhibits Scout
1 post/day on things of interest in the exhibit hall

AAA Player
2 posts/day offering the conference perspective of a library science student. Suggested topics: What events did you attend? What questions arose about medical librarianship? What are you excited/disappointed/curious about?

Rookie
2 posts/day offering the conference perspective of a new member or first time conference attendee. Suggested topics: What are you looking forward to? What events did you attend? If you are presenting a poster or paper, what reflections do you have on the process?

Franchise Player
1 post/day on NLM related events and news (NLM update, Friends of NLM reception, related poster or paper sessions.)

Power Hitter
6 posts total on plenary sessions

Welcome/presidential address
McGovern Lecture
MLA Business Meeting
Doe Lecture
Presidential Inaugural & MLA ’12 Invitation
NLM Update

Outfielder
6 posts total on poster sessions.  Suggested topics: What were the most interesting posters from each session? What emerging trends did you observe?

Designated Hitter (3 positions available)
2 posts/day on section activities
Posts on section sponsored programs, papers/projects by section members, business meetings, incoming/outgoing officers, etc.
Membership in Section is preferred.
List of MLA Sections

Pinch Hitter (3 positions available)
2 posts/day on special interest group activities
Posts on SIG sponsored events, papers/projects  related to SIG interests, informal meetings, incoming/outgoing officers, etc.
SIGs are ad hoc groups open to all members of MLA. Active SIG members are preferred, but anyone with an interest in blogging a specific SIG’s activities are invited to apply.
List of MLA Special Interest Groups

Mascot
1 post/day on social events, include Bearded Pigs, receptions and other events. Photography encouraged.

Your idea here
1 post/day from a perspective of your own design.

Please consider contributing to MLA’12 by being a blogger.  Providing great information and coverage of the meeting is a team effort and we need you on the team.

 

Medical Librarians Forum for Apps and Mobile Devices

Last week I wrote a post  about iMedicalApps launching a forum to foster the discussion of medical apps.  Well I am announcing the launch of the Medical Librarian’s Corner, an area within iMedicalApps Forum dedicated to librarians discussing the use of apps, mobile devices, licensing, support, teaching, etc.

The people at iMedicalApps noticed that a medical librarians help play an important part in the “distribution of knoweledge and useful resources” and can provide help to medical professionals dealing with information overload.  So they created a specific corner of the forum (of which I am the moderator) for medical librarians to discuss everything and anything related to apps and mobile devices. 

New to smartphones and apps, or are you an old pro?  The forum will provide a great place for newbies and veterans to discuss and post questions.  So if you are interested, create an account, login and start discussing.  It is my hope that this can be a robust and helpful area for medical librarians.

Since a blank forum is a little bit like the blank page in the typewriter staring back at you, I have already started a discussion thread.  What libraries have the best list of apps and mobile friendly websites?  However, if you have something else that is on your mind, please feel free to post it.  The only way this forum can be of help is if people participate.