Message-Id: <9602201704.AA99253@mail.uni-muenster.de>
From: "Oliver Obst" <obsto@uni-muenster.de>
To: medibib-l
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 18:05:13 +0100
Subject: Medlib Digest 25.1.-19.2. Teil 2 + Silverplatter Experience
Liebe Medibibler,
hiermit melde ich mich (wieder mal) vom Krankenbett zurueck. Vielen
Dank fuer alle Genesungswuensche, die mich erreicht haben - per Email
oder wie auch immer (dabei war es nur eine einfache Grippe, die mich
voellig flachlegte - trotzdem danke!).
Kaum gesund, stellte mich meine Mailbox (und die in ihr harrenden
Mails zum Thema "Silverplatter - Ja oder Nein") vor die Gretchenfrage:
"Wie haeltst du es mit der Werbung?"
Zuerst (da Karneval ist und MEDIBIB-L sich auch sonst dem Humor
verpflichtet fuehlt) eine Charakterisierung des Lebenszyklus vom
Mailinglisten:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
for a little fun in your day read below -- otherwise delete NOW
========================================================================
| Ms Alice E. Hadley, MLS, AHIP | Email : ahadley@uog.edu |
| US Naval Hospital, Guam | Voice : 011-671-344-9250 |
| POBox 20981 | Coordinates: 13.5N , 144.7E |
| Barrigada, Guam 96921 USA | Time : GMT+10 EST+15 |
| Visit the Guam Homepage at http://guam.gov |
========================================================================
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 96 14:32:35 EST
Forwarded from another List. Originally appeared on the
Laugh-of-the-day Website.
THE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS
Every list seems to go through the same cycle:
1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush alot about
how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list,
and brainstorm recruitment strategies).
3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads
develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).
4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of
information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as
well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people
tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and
patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable
asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases
dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader;
people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1
threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to
person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3
tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining
about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves;
everyone gets annoyed).
6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks
an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post;
newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a
few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private
email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend
lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping
off-topic threads off the list).
OR
6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants
stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few
weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key,
but the list lives contentedly ever after).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In welchem Stadium befindet sich nun MEDIBIB-L? Sind wir noch
Evangelisten oder schon Puristen? Oder doch Nonkonformisten oder
gehoeren wir etwa zur Spezies der Medizinbibliothekisten?
Spannende Fragen tun sich hier auf und harren - wie immer ungeduldig
(ASAP!) - der Klaerung!
Und nun zurueck zur Werbung:
Da befindet sich die Liste (bzw. einige Mitglieder) wohl momentan in
einen Zustand zwischen Discomfort und Disorientation. Ich bin selber
hin- und hergerissen. Ich kann es einerseits gut verstehen, wenn man
sehr genau auf den Informationsgehalt jeder Mail achtet. Wenn man per
Modem am Internet haengt, kostet jede Mail Zeit und Geld.
(Andererseits faende ich es sehr schade, wenn sich deswegen nun gar
keiner mehr trauen wuerde, mit einer u.U. 'bloeden' Frage in diese
werte Runde einzudringen.)
Wie sieht es nun mit der "Werbung" aus?
Ich mag es auch ueberhaupt nicht, wenn mir irgendwelche wildfremden
Leute versuchen, etwas Dubioses zu verkaufen. Diese Junk Mails von
Anonymous et al. flattern immmer haeufiger in meine Mailbox. Irgendwo
fuehle mich dann auch ein bisschen missbraucht. Wenn sowas in
MEDIBIB-L gepostet wurde, habe ich das noch staerker empfunden
(Gottseidank gibt es aber wichtigere Dinge).
Wir sollten diese unverschaemte Art von mehr oder weniger anonymer
Werbung auf keinen Fall mit Firmen in einen Topf werfen, die
mit ihren Produkten unsere Arbeit erleichtern, die unsere Tagungen
bereichern und als grosszuegige Goenner bibliothekarischer Projekte
auftreten. Ich will jetzt aus Silverplatter et al. keine Heiligen
machen: es geht halt ums Geld, das sollte jedem klar sein. Aber das
ist ja nichts Schlechtes (auch mir geht's ums Geld... ;-) ).
MEDIBIB-L ist als Ableger der Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer Medizinisches
Bibliothekswesen (AGMB) sowieso ein kleines bisschen anders als
andere Listen. Die AGMB hatte immer auch viele Mitglieder im
Pharma-Bereich und sich u.a. auch deshalb nie vor einem Kontakt mit
kommerziellen Firmen gescheut. Die Zusammenarbeit war immer zum
Gedeihen aller ausgerichtet, was in den 25 Jahren ihres Bestehens
auch sehr gut funktioniert hat.
Ok, die Firmen duerfen uns also sponsern. Wie ist es nun mit Werbung?
Als Faustregel fuer MEDIBIB-L hatte ich mir vorgenommen:
Werbung ja, aber nur mit "harter" Information.
"Hart" heisst, dass die Information keine Waschmittelwerbung sein
sollte, sondern fuer Bibliothekare (denn das ist die Zielgruppe der
Liste) in der taeglichen Arbeit wichtig sein koennte. Wie z.B.
Ansprechpartner und Telefonnummern benennen, Demos (und Bueffets!)
bei Kongressen ankuendigen. Jede Firma sollte nun in der Lage sein,
selbst entscheiden zu koennen, was erwuenschte "Werbung" ist und was
nicht.
Darueber hinaus moechte ich hiermit allen Firmen anbieten,
zukuenftige Firmen-Mails/Werbung vorab an mir auszutesten. Das ist
zwar kein lean management, sollte auch nicht als "Muss" verstanden
werden, koennte sich aber als hilfreich erweisen. Wie Michael sehe
ich wg. dem geringen Aufkommen keine Probleme.
Ich moechte ihnen allen danken, dass Sie so souveraen auf
diese kleine (aber wichtige) Auseinandersetzung reagiert haben!
Mit freundlichen Gruessen (mit Maturity ins Jahr 2000 !),
Oliver Obst
------------------------------
1 MED-Access
2 Women's Health resource
3 Australian Doctors Address
4 Backmed List
------------------------------
111111111111111111111111
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 08:36:46 -0500
From: Debbie Sibley <dsibley@LIBRARY.UMMED.EDU>
Subject: Health care data on Web
An article in Monday's Worcester, MA newspaper (Telegram and Gazette)
describes a new Website, Med Access (I will quote/paraphrase the article below):
A Lexington company has spent the last two years quietly stockpiling
information and statistics on health care. Beginning Monday (2/5/96),
all of that data will be available free on the Internet.
The point, MedAccess Corp. says, is to give consumers access to enough
informaiton to find the right doctor, hospital or health plan -- a
necessity in an era of insurance driven medical care.
So company President Jaime Taaffe and collaborators Maria Kaldis and Gene
Pettinelli pooled data from state medical boards, the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and the
Environmental Protection Agency.
"We just kept our heads down and kept quiet until we were certain we had
a product that was ready," said Taaffe, the former research director at
Massachusetts General Hospital.
The result is Med Access On-Line.
It contains brief biographies on 600,000 doctors at 6400 hospitals, as
well as information on the country's 800 health maintenance
organizations, 1000 or so preferred provider organizations, and tips on
nutrition and first aid.
There are also maps to get to most hospitals in the country.
While collecting all that data, the company made some interesting
discoveries about the state of the health care industry. With more than
1 million hospital beds costing an average of $250,000 each annually,
hospitlas are generally just 54 percent full, Kaldis said.
"There is no wonder there are so many hospitals shutting down," she
said. "Hotels need 75 percent occupancies just to break even."
And if you want to know more about the environment in your own
neighborhood, MedAccess has cross-referenced EPA reports on toxic spills
with information from the US Census and the CDC to figure out birth and
dealth and epidemiological rates nationwide.
"I can probably tell people a lot more than they want to know about where
they live," Taaffe said. "But people should know."
But MedAccess On-Line has its limits.
Doctor biographies, for example, tell only a physician's hospital
affiliation, medical school and specialties. There are no mentions of
malpractice lawsuits or disciplinary actions.
And some information is out of date. One doctor logged on to find out
about a friend of his from medical school only to find his address was
two years old and two of his board certifications were missing.
"This is all very interesting," said Dr. Timothy McCall, author of the
recent book, "Examining your Doctor."
"The more information that gets out there the merrier," McCall said, "but
I wouldn't want people to think this is a substitute for really being
critical of their doctor's performance."
MedAccess On-Line, while supported partly through advertising, is the
public service side of the private company founded by Taaffe, Kaldis, and
Pettinelli. The other half of the firm is a commercial Internet service,
which handles health plan enrollments for other corporations for a fee.
The internet address for MedAccess On-Line is http://www.medaccess.com
Enjoy!
Debbie Sibley
University of Massachusetts Medical Center
Worcester MA
phone: 508-856-2435
fax : 508-856-5899
e-mail: dsibley@library.ummed.edu
------------------------------
222222222222222222
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 16:42:27 -0500
From: Anne G Foster <annef+@PITT.EDU>
Subject: Women's Health resource
In response to the interest in women's health sites recently expressed on
medlib-l, I'd like to point out a World Wide Web site here at the
University of Pittsburgh that contains women's health resources intended
to be useful to public health workers worldwide. Much of the information
is useful to patients as well. The URL is
http://www.pitt.edu/HOME/GHNet/GHWomen.html
This Women's Health Web page is being developed by the Global Health
Network, a non-profit alliance of health and telecommunications
professionals, in cooperation with information professionals from the
University's Health Sciences Library System. It is one of the specialized
pages linked to the Global Health Network
(http://www.pitt.edu/HOME/GHNet/GHNet.html) home page which functions as a
gateway to worldwide public health resources, contacts, and disease
monitoring programs. Another Web site related to women's health
and linked to the Global Health Network is Population and Reproductive Health
(http://www.pitt.edu/HOME/GHNet/poprepro.htm), available in English,
Spanish and Japanese.
Anne Foster, M.L.S.
Special Projects Librarian
Health Sciences Library System
University of Pittsburgh
annef+@pitt.edu
33333333333333333
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 10:31:00 PST
From: Sandra Henderson <SHENDERS@NLA.GOV.AU>
Subject: Australian contacts
This might be worth noting for the future, if you're in an institution where
you might occasionally get asked for contact details for Aust doctors. A
new site here has email addresses for quite a number of Australian doctors,
arranged by medical specialty. The site is http://www.midcoast.com.au/cms
I'm sure it will be expanded as more medicos get email access. The site
also gives name of institution, where appropriate, to which the Dr is
attached.
Hope this proves useful to some of you
44444444444444444444
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 18:02:58 -0600
From: Jan Mixter <JMIXTER@WPO.IT.LUC.EDU>
Subject: BACKMED ADDRESS -Reply
*Subject: ANNOUNCING NEW BACKMED LIST
RE: BACK Issues and Duplicate Exchange SERVice - Medical
In response to numerous suggestions and requests by Backserv
subscribers, and due to the heavy use and response to Backserv, it has
been decided to split the list in two - one for messages which deal
primarily with
MEDICAL materials (both serials and books), and one for all other types
of materials. Therefore, we are announcing the creation of the BackMed
List, effective next Monday, July 24, 1995.
All messages which are PRIMARILY MEDICAL in nature be sent to the
BackMed list and not to Backserv.
Messages about any other types of materials should continue to be sent
to the Backserv list. It will now be possible to subscribe to either the
BackMed or Backserv list, or to both. And remember that you may still
post messages to both lists, even if you are not subscribed to them. The
BackMed Welcome and Scope message will outline the policies and
procedures for the list.
To subscribe to the BackMed list, send a message to:
listserv@sun.readmore.com (with no subject line) and text that reads:
subscribe backmed firstname lastname
To send a message to BackMed, send it to:
backmed@sun.readmore.com
BackMed is a service of Readmore and is part of the Backserv project.
Together with the archives of the Backserv list, the archives of BackMed
will be publicly available on the Readmore webserver at:
http://www.readmore.com (in the Electronic Services section)
Archives will be kept for 8 weeks.
The list administrators are Amira Aaron (aaron@readmore.com;
617-860-7224) and Marilyn Geller (mgeller@readmore.com;
617-484-7379).
Or leave a message for us at 1-800-221-3306. Please contact us with
questions or suggestions. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank
you.
Jan Mixter
MEDLIB-L List Coordinator
Loyola University of Chicago. Medical Center Library
jmixter@luc.edu