New Collaborative Online Medical Encyclopedia Launches

The Medpedia Project announced the public launch of the beta version of a technology platform for the worldwide health community. Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School, and other leading global health organizations are contributing in various ways to Medpedia. The goal of The Medpedia Project is to create a new model of the way the world will assemble, maintain, critique, and access medical knowledge. It will, over time, be a repository of up-to-date, unbiased medical information, contributed and maintained by health experts around the world, and freely available to everyone.

è       http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/wndReader.asp?ArticleId=52687

 

I hope you are making your plans to attend APLIC’s 42nd Annual Conference this April. To assist you in making travel arrangements, we’ve added some information about the conference schedule to the conference web page.

A bill banning public access policies like the one recently enacted by the National Institutes of Health was introduced to Congress last week, as reported in Library Journal.

The article takes a look at related issues: changes in Congress and the White House, and the departure of public access advocate Elias Zerhouni from the NIH.

I found this article [Hal Varian on how the Web challenges managers] in the January 2009 McKinsey Quarterly (you need to register to read content) very thought-provoking (maybe just provoking).  Some of the points he made that triggered reactions/emotions from me (in the order they appear in the transcript) are:

 

1. …we’re going to have a totally different concept of what it means to go to work. The work goes to you, and you’re able to deal with your work at any time and any place, using the infrastructure that’s now become available.

2. When we’re all networked, we all have access to the same documents, to the same capabilities, to this common infrastructure, and we can improve the way work—intellectual work, knowledge work—flows through the organization.

3.  Back in the early days of the Web, every document had at the bottom, “Copyright 1997. Do not redistribute.” Now every document has at the bottom, “Copyright 2008. Click here to send to your friends.”

4. …there is typically a revenue-generating component somewhere in the value chain. And most commonly today we’re seeing it on the advertising side.

5. “What is it that’s really scarce in the Internet economy?” And the answer is attention. … “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” So being able to capture someone’s attention at the right time is a very valuable asset.

6. Because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it...skills—of being able to access, understand, and communicate the insights you get from data analysis—are going to be extremely important.

 

 I’d be interested in others’ reactions or opinions of his points.  But I do just want to share this piece, as it brings to the fore the issue of attention (as related to time, especially the “right time”) and understanding.

It’s that time of year again – time to renew your APLIC-I membership for 2009. A printable renewal form can be found at http://www.aplici.org/members/form.htm or a downloadable pdf version can be found at http://www.aplici.org/members/memberform.pdf . We hope you will continue your support of APLIC-I and renew your membership for 2009. Please be aware that the membership year is from January to December. Memberships will be active from the date of receipt of payment through December 2009.

Membership in APLIC-I offers:

• Worldwide networking for the exchange of ideas, information and resources
• Opportunities for continuing education and professional growth
• Access to the very active and responsive APLIC-I listserve—the primary means of communication and community building among members
• Open and collegial exchange of expertise, with a focus on helping members to build and expand their professional skills and knowledge