DigiCMB

From HealthInfo Island to Second Life Medical Library 2.0

2012-01-11T08:03:00.004+01:00

Today I handed over several HealthInfo Island social media accounts and tools over to Virtual Ability, Inc, in person to Gentle Heron and Eme Capalini.
This includes the HealthInfo Island Blog, but also

the twitter account:
- https://twitter.com/#!/healthinfoislan
The HealthInfo Island Facebook group old-style: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=268820866383&ref=ts

The Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/healthinfoisland?ref=ts
The Linkedin Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2711505&trk=anet_ug_grppro.

HealthInfo Island is now owned by Virtual Ability, Inc

All data, posts, photo's and videos from HealthInfo Island's history will be transferred to this blog: Second Life Medical Library 2.0

Virtual Ability, Inc. is a non-profit corporation based in Colorado, USA. Their mission is to enable people with a wide range of disabilities by providing a supporting environment for them to enter and thrive in online virtual worlds like Second Life^®.

Disability Resources:

Love is more than just a kiss

2011-11-30T12:00:00.001+01:00

Love is more than just a kiss: A neurobiological perspective of love & affection. Neuroscience. #UMCG publication http://atumcg.cmb.med.rug.nl/

atUMCG | Keeping you up to date on new UMCG Publications! Read more at ABOUT!

Keep uptodate with all scientific articles and publications from PubMed, BiomedCentral, Plos, all UMCG Repositories, Phd Thesis for Medicine, Dentistry and all related topics by staff of the Universit...

University of Groningen Library Toolbar : grouped Toolbar 6 in 1

2011-11-23T09:28:00.001+01:00

The Central Medical Library (CMB) of the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) is using Conduit Toolbars for years now with its QuickSearch & CMBStudent Toolbar.

We now have launched in collaboration of the other libraries locations of the University of Groningen Library the overall general Library Toolbar http://bibliotheekrug.ourtoolbar.com/.

More info
It is available for download and install on all Staff computers via the NAL menu.
It is pre-installed on several Student UWPs in many faculties and libraries
It offers the general Library Toolbar, but users can toggle between 5 other Librar Toolbars (Arts Library, Economics, Businesses and Spacial Sciences, FWN, QuickSearchCMB, CMBStudent)

The networked installation is unfortunately messing up the Conduit users stats.

It offers the main features of the Library websites & direct search in licenced databases, plus

Rss news channels on News of the Libraries, the University, new publications
access to Repositories
our LibGuides
Acces to NESTOR, (Blackboard)
the Proxy bookmarklet
and so much more ...

There's an App for that too!

2011-11-03T09:20:00.000+01:00

In the latest issue of the Dutch Journal on Digital Libraries "Digitale Bibliotheek", no. 10 october 2011 some texts of me are published in an article called "Daar is ook een App voor!", about medical libraries, mobile and apps. Unfortunately it is no Open Access journal, so you will have to wait a little for the fulltext. (And of course it is in Dutch)
In a short while, I will put my pre-print version on my personal page at the University of Groningen Webportal.
For now I am putting the used links in here.

Links

“Ipads on Loan” CMB project wiki, http ://ipadscmb .pbworks .com
iPads, Mobile Libraries and Medical apps http://jeahil.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/ipads-mobile-libraries-and-medical-apps/
MedicalApps : a public Netvibes page with the most important Medical Apps Search tools in one place. News on New, Free, Pricedrops, reviewed Medical Apps http ://www .netvibes .com /medicalapps
Medical APPs Search (MAPPS ), http ://www .google .com /cse /home ?cx =004308201683882109473:s 7 kc 4_l -vry
“Ten predictions for the mobile health market” http ://mobihealthnews .com /12751/ten -predictions -for -the -mobile -health -market /10/
Designing for Mobile First, http ://www .svennerberg .com /2011/09/designing -for -mobile -first -by -luke -wroblewski /
TEDxMaastricht - Daniel Kraft - "What's next in healthcare?" http ://www .youtube .com /watch ?v =OhdUivs 72 zE
TEDxMaastricht, http://www.netvibes.com/tedxmaastricht
iTunes U, iTunes voor Universiteiten http ://www .apple .com /education /itunes -u /
“Volume licencing for educational institutions” Apple, http ://www .apple .com /mac /volume -licensing /
Yale medical school switching to iPad curriculum, Harvard medical school creating custom apps, http ://www .imedicalapps .com /2011/08/yale -medical -school -ipad -harvard -medical -apps /
ZweigBibliothek Medizin Münster “iPadAusleihe”, http ://medbib .klinikum .uni -muenster .de /wiki /IPadAusleihe

Open Access Newsletter of the University of Groningen Library

2011-10-24T12:23:00.001+02:00

Open Access Newsletter (in Dutch, sorry) of the University of Groningen Library, The Netherlands.

A new initiative to publish this newsletter 3 times in a year. The first one is focussed on Open Access Week 2011 http://ning.it/mY3Klq

Use the following link to read the content via Google Translate:http://ning.it/oZrkuj

The digital version in pdf is containing just the headlines, click the links to get the online content!

http://www.rug.nl/bibliotheek/informatie/beleid/openaccess/oa-nieuw...

Google Me : Feedflare to search authors in Google

2011-10-21T15:18:00.002+02:00

A small thing, but nice! Today i added a Feedflare unit to the feeds of the atUMCG, our blog that is publishing all the NEW scientific publications of the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) http://atUMCG.cmb.med.rug.nl
Every post now has extra features added like sharing or bookmarking, but also a button called "GOOGLE ME" When clicked it will search for the authors and their publications in Google, with rather nice results I must say.
If you click the Google Me button for the article called "

A tool for the morphological analysis of mixtures of lipids and water in computer simulations."

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Fuhrmans M, Marrink SJ

You would get the following results

Clearly those are helpful hits in finding more information on the publications from these authors!

http://www.google.com/search?q=Fuhrmans%20M%2C%20Marrink%20SJ

"FeedFlare allows publishers to easily build “interactivity” into the content they create, making it simple for subscribers to tag, email or share their content with others. Publishers can include a variety of services including a live display of the number of comments to each post, the ability to email the author directly and show the number of blogs that link to their item. Publishers can choose to include FeedFlare within the feed itself as well as on their blog or site."
A feedflare unit is a xml-file hosted somewhere on the web.
Get more FeedFlares! or “101 FeedFlare Ideas” list.
(The original feedflare was called Search ME)
I find Feedflare easy to use, but am open any other alternative, as it seems they do not develop it further.
I am trying to find out if it is possible to add javascript/ bookmarklet functionality INSIDE these Feedflares, to for instance add Library proxy Button, or a RefGrag-it one... Any help is welcome!

OpenAccess Toolbar & Mobile (web) App Trial

2011-10-17T16:05:00.000+02:00

Here is a short demo video about the OpenAccess Toolbar ánd the Mobile (web) App.
The video is created in one take via Screen.com straight from my laptop browser window.

It still can be useful to have some info very close at hand. Of course it depends on how often you need info about OpenAccess, but with this browser Toolbar, you will have the latest news on OpenAccess right in your browser.
A second strong feature of the Toolbar is the DIRECT SEARCH in major OpenAccess Resources, like the new CORE fulltext search engine, OAIster, DOAJ, PLoS, SpringerOpen (incl BioMedCentral)

OpenAccess Toolbar download: http://openaccess.ourtoolbar.com

Can't or won't install a Toolbar?

Try this page with all DIRECT SEARCH from the OpenAccess Toolbar:
http://search.conduit.com/?ctid=CT3105537 or
Try this Mobile (web) App with all news resources about OpenAccess in it.
http://wbxapp.com/openaccess
(This is a 14-days free trial. Without any input or support this will not be continued!)

If you believe some resource should be added, please let me know!

Related Tools:

Top 25% Journal Lists (with OA indications)
OpenAccess News Aggregator : http://openaccess.cmb.med.rug.nl
About OpenAccess ( in our Public Netvibes)
Toolbox Publishing (in our Public Netvibes)

The Unofficial Guide for Authors (free & OpenAccess publication)

2011-10-11T12:04:00.000+02:00

The Unofficial Guide for Authors

by Tomislav Hengl, Michael Gould, Wouter Gerritsma

Ebook, , PDF

Price:	FREE

direct download

Most scientific journals provide guidelines for authors - how to format references and prepare artwork, how many copies of the paper to submit and to which address. However, most official guidelines say little about how you should design and produce your paper and the chances that it will be accepted. This book provides a comprehensive but focused guide to producing scientific information - from research design to publication. It provides practical tips and answers to some of the most frequently asked questions: Why do we publish in the first place? What is OA publishing and why bother about it? What is the h-index? What is a Journal Impact Factor and does it matter? How can I increase my research production efficiency? Why should I use OS software tools for academic work? How can I produce graphics that will impress? How can I brainstorm good titles? How can I select a suitable journal and where can I find out more about it? How can I get into the reviewers' heads? This is an Open Access publication.

RefGrab-it Bookmarklet for iPad / iPhone?

2011-10-09T10:34:00.002+02:00

RefGrab-It works with your browser to capture bibliographic information from web pages giving you the option to import that data into your RefWorks account.
Read about how to add the RefGrab-it bookmarklet to your IE or FF browser here.
It appears that this RefGrab-it bookmarklets does not work fully on Safari browsers on iPad/iPhone. It grabs the reference, but when trying to import ..... Nothing happens!!
so, just for the excercise .... Bookmarklets can be very useful. To install these in "normal" browsers is rather simple. They appear as a Boommark in your Bookmark bar and can be activated by single click when needed.
On the iPad it is a bit more complicated, but not difficult.
Here the description on how to install the RefGrab-it bookmarklet in the iPad browser.

Step 0: Open this post on your ipad ....

Step 1: Use "Add Bookmark" (it does not matter from what page) to create a bookmark and ..

Step 2: Call it : RefGrab-IT and click"SAVE"

Step 3: Open Bookmarks & History (click the open book ...)

Step 4: Go to the Bookmarks Bar, and click "EDIT" (upper-right corner)

Step 5: Click the "RefGrab-it"bookmark. Edit Bookmark window will open

Step 6: Now copy the text inside the box below, and simply paste it inside the line BELOW the title of the bookmark. This is normally the url, but this time we will PASTE this little javascript in it.

Step 7 No need to save! Just click anywhere outside the pop-up, the window will close and the Bookmarklet is installed!

Add the RefGrab-it Bookmarklet

javascript:var%20wRWMain1=window.open('','RefWorksBookmark');d=document;i='AddToRWScript';if(d.getElementById(i))RWAddToRW1();else{s=d.createElement('script');s.type='text/javascript';s.src='http://www.refworks.com/refworks/include/addtorw.asp';s.id=i;d.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);}void(0);

You can now test the bookmarklet to get access to the latest UMCG publications "atUMCG"

Click on a title. Then click the RefGrab-it bookmarklet and see what happens ...

Thanks to Chris Bray: http://static.chrisbray.com/bookmarklets

Here is his list of Bookmarklets to use for the iPad/iPhone:

Bookmarklets:

Share on Posterous
Shorten with bit.ly
Add to Google Reader
Bookmark on del.icio.us
Instapaper: Read Later
Share on Facebook
Clip to Evernote
Share on Tumblr
Ping.fm
Translate to English
Digg This
Reddit
Stumble Upon
Site Info
Show Images
Validate HTML

Next in line to create:

Put these bookmarklets on Feedflare units to INCLUDE them in the posts, instead of in the Bookmark bar.

Adding Bookmarklets to your iPad / iPhone browser; i.e. Library Proxy

2011-10-08T17:12:00.011+02:00

Bookmarklets can be very useful. To install these in "normal" browsers is rather simple. They appear as a Boommark in your Bookmark bar and can be activated by single click when needed.
Here is the page about installing the RUG proxy bookmarklet
On the iPad it is a bit more complicated, but not difficult.
Here the description on how to install the RUG proxy bookmarklet in the iPad browser.
(btw, that proxy bookmarklet will check any webpage if you might have access to the fulltext of the journal, article or other digital library licenced resource.)
Step 0: Open this post on your ipad ....
Step 1: Use "Add Bookmark" (it does not matter from what page) to create a bookmark and ..
Step 2: Call it : Library Proxy, and click"SAVE"
Step 3: Open Bookmarks & History (click the open book ...)
Step 4: Go to the Bookmarks Bar, and click "EDIT" (upper-right corner)
Step 5: Click the "Library Proxy"bookmark. Edit Bookmark window will open
Step 6: Now copy the text inside the box below, and simply paste it inside the line BELOW the title of the bookmark. This is normally the url, but this time we will PASTE this little javascript in it.
Step 7 No need to save! Just click anywhere outside the pop-up, the window will close and the Bookmarklet is installed!

Add the RUG proxy Bookmarklet

javascript:void(location.href=%22http://proxy-ub.rug.nl/login?url=%22+location.href)

You can now test the bookmarklet to get access to the latest UMCG publications "atUMCG"
Click on a title. The article will , most of the time, open in PubMed. Now click the Library Proxy Bookmarklet. It will ask you to login once with your proxy account (or with your P- or S-account)
You will not see the normal RUGlinks icon, but you can just click the "Fulltext" link, either on the Publishers icon, or in the LinkOut, More resources. Even if you at first not get the fulltext, you can activate the Library Proxy to gomtomthe right page WITH the fulltext. IF we do not have licenced access, then you will not get it, no matter how often you click the Library Proxy Bookmarklet ;-) IF you by chance get a page telling you the access can only by from WITHIN RUG or UMCG domain, please follow instructions, and hopefully the acccess via proxy will be arranged asap.

Thanks to Chris Bray: http://static.chrisbray.com/bookmarklets
Here is his list of Bookmarklets to use for the iPad/iPhone:

Bookmarklets:

Next in line to create:

RefGrab-it Bookmarklet for Ipad

Put these bookmarklets on Feedflare units to INCLUDE them in the posts, instead of in the Bookmark bar.

German Medical Library Association Annual Conference (AGMB 2011)

2011-10-04T11:40:00.004+02:00

I attended the annual AGMB Conference 19th-21st September 2011 in Cologne.
This German Medical Library Association was founded in 1970 and celebrated last year it's 40th Anniversary in Mainz.

With about 180 registered people for this conference, I can imagine it is one of the biggest meetings of medical librarians in Europe. I wonder if there is any other country with a simular organisation in Europe? Maybe it is good to say that this is not only for German medical librarians, but also for the German-speaking countries like Austria & the Swiss.
My presentation was about Mobile Technology & Semantic Web in Medicine and Health Information.

Mobile Computing and Semantic Web for Medicine and Health Information

View more presentations from Guus van den Brekel

The programm was certainly interesting and I want to list just a few presentations:

On Performance-based allocation of funds: Leistungsorientierte Mittelvergabe - ein Thema für Bibliotheken? ( Folien 1 (Schmiel), Folien 2 (Semmler-Schmetz)
On Innovation Management:
Systematisches Innovationsmanagement [ Abstract ], [ Folien ]
Prof. Ursula Georgy, Fachhochschule Köln
On Innovation Management:
Innovationsmanagement am Beispiel der ETH-Bibliothek [ Abstract ], [ Folien ] Dr. Roland Mumenthaler, ETH-Bibliothek Zürich
On Library Evaluation/Assessment:
Hilfe - meine Bibliothek wird evaluiert! Wie bereite ich mich optimal vor? [ Abstract ], [ Folien ] Ulrich Korwitz, Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Medizin, Köln
On E-Books:
E-Books an Medizinbibliotheken - "Gekommen um zu bleiben": Erfahrungsbericht der Universitätsbibliothek der Medizinischen Universität Wien [ Abstract ], [ Folien ]
Bruno Bauer, Universitätsbibliothek der Medizinischen Hochschule Wien

Presentations

2011-10-03T17:24:00.000+02:00

View DIGICMB : talks, demo's, workshops in a larger map

OpenAccess Week : activities & tools?

2011-09-30T17:45:00.002+02:00

We are thinking of doing something for OpenAccess Week 2011 ...

making Open Acces publications more visible via our new blog atUMCG
Adding OA listing in our Top 25% Journal Lists (JCR Categories)
Putting together an Open Access News Aggregator with info around doing research and publishing.
And, because it takes me just a few minutes to make one ... an OpenAccess Toolbar ;-)

If you could have an Openaccess Toolbar, a tailor-made widget or browser extension, a Wibar or even a mobile version, WHAT would to definitely like to have in it?

Please let me know and I will add the content.

Some examples, (but it's really unlimited: If it's on the web, I can get it in there!)

-Direct search in OAISTER, DOAJ, OPENDOAR, PLoS, Springer Open , ....

- See Twitter News from important OpenAccess Tweeps and Tworgs

- See the Facebook updates

- Updates from prominent OA Blogger

- Updates from OA Publishers

- ....
QuickLinks to .. you name it , movies, pictures, rss feeds, menu's, tickers searchboxes

All info can be shown, read, inside your browser, without you having to leave what you are doing.

http://openaccess.ourtoolbar.com

SpringerOpen

2011-09-13T12:43:00.009+02:00

The University Medical Center Groningen is Supporter Member of BioMed Central, and therefore also of SpringerOpen and Chemistry Central.

In my previous post about "Searching Open Access Publications : identify you affiliation output" I listed the most common platforms and publishers of Open Access where we suspected our staff to publish their articles.

I missed this SpringerOpen and only looked at the Springer Open Choice program.
All articles SpringerOpen by UMCG

SpringerOpen
Search articles: YES,
Search Affiliation: YES (But this does not work, try groningen in Author Affiliation in Advanced search and you get NO hits)
Advanced search/limits: YES
Save / Download records: YES (export to the main reference management tools)
Save (search) as RSS: YES (MyBioMedCentral user works also for SpringerOpen)

To my surprise there is newer material in the SpringerOpen overview. Unfortunately also with some articles NOT directly from the UMCG, but I would go for this feed, and filter out the wrong ones in the syndicated posts on atUMCG blog

Searching Open Access Publications : identify you affiliation output

2011-09-02T17:21:00.002+02:00

In order to increase the visibility of open access scientific and scholarly publications of the University Medical Center Groningen and thereby promoting their increased usage and impact, I am trying to create an automatically updating overview of OA publications of the UMCG, next to the beta WordPress blog that is being constructed to show all UMCG scientific publications
With the masive attention the Open Access "movement" in international publising and media, I expected to this to be an easy task.
But very quickly after trying to identify the resources to find these publications, it became clear that there are some serious difficulties. I won't go into details about the effects of publicing in OA or the impact factors of OA Journals, just making them visible.
Many resources and overviews focus heaviliy on journal titels and sets, instead of the actual publications.
Search opties are often limited, poor and it is not always possible to search for the publications. Search for affiliation details is dffficult or impossible.

And when you do find publications, it is not always possible to create an RSS, or even download or save records.
In platforms of publishers that offer certain Open Access packages it is not possible to identify or limit your search to specific Open Access publications.

These are the resources so far collected to find our medical publications:

Directory of Open Access Journals

Search articles: YES
Search Affiliation: No(but in the Abstract address seems to be available)
Advanced search/limits: NO (just Boolean operators to combine two terms)
Save / Download records: NO
Save search as RSS: NO (just an RSS for new journals)
Hits on "medical center groningen" (10) or "groningen" (36)

BioMed Central

Search articles: YES
Search Affiliation: YES
Advanced search/limits: YES
Save / Download records: YES
Save search as RSS: NO (just an email alert via MyBiomedCentral)
I created an RSS feed for the UMCG BMC articles via Feedity & Feedburner
Hits on "medical center groningen" (498)
BMC has the most options, tools and web 2.0 functionality.
The Central Medical Library of the UMCG is Supporter Member (institutional overview page). We have to look deeper into how articles are connected to this institutional page, ánd how to improve the search to include all related research institutes (using different/wrong affiliation address), like Center for Life Sciences.

Public Library of Science

Search articles: YES
Search Affiliation: NO ("Groningen" is found only 4 times)
Advanced search/limits: YES (But it's unclear to what fields, no phrase searching)
Save / Download records: NO
Save search as RSS: YES (just an RSS for new journals)
Hits on "groningen"

UMCG Repositories; Master Theses, Dentistry, Mondzorgkunde, SHARE, Student Theses Medicine and other studies, Science Shop of Medicine and Health

Search articles: YES
Search Affiliation: not relevant ("it's just our stuff)
Advanced search/limits: NO
Save / Download records: NO
Save (search) as RSS: YES (every repository has it's own RSS)
See all syndicated publications published on daily basis on the Blog "AtUMCG"

Sherpa/Romeo (Journals Only)

Search articles: NO
Search Affiliation: NO
Advanced search/limits: NO
Save / Download records: NO
Save (search) as RSS: NO

SpringerLink (OpenChoice)

Search articles: YES,
Search Affiliation: NO (But "medical center groningen" as phrase works)
Advanced search/limits: YES (but Open Access material can nor be selected or set as limit, not can I leave out the included BMC publications)
Save / Download records: YES
Save (search) as RSS: YES (but it's not useful: Open Access material can not be selected or set as limit, & I can not leave out the included BMC publications

NARCIS : the gateway to scholarly information in the Netherlands

Search articles: YES,
Search Affiliation: NO (But organisational structure can be entered)
Advanced search/limits: YES (but limits & facetting is not focussed on further identifying Faculties or the UMCG. UMCG repositories are not optimal, and certainly not completely indexed/harvested. The CMB is working on this, together with the University of Groningen Library)
Save / Download records: NO
Save (search) as RSS: YES (but it's not useful since the UMCG repositories are not optimally used.

If anyone knows of other ways of identifying OA publications, or better ways to tackle this, please let me know!
Other Useful links:

AtUMCG : keeping you up-to-date on UMCG Publications (beta)
Open Access & UMCG : overview in construction
Here is a useful overview of OA Journal and Publishers organised by speciality: http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/dean/peer_reviewed.htm
http://www.openaccess.nl (find info about OA in the Netherlands)
Open Access & Medicine : a German overview,
http://open-access.net/de/oa_in_verschiedenen_faechern/medizin/
PubMed Central (publications have to be freely available withing 12 months)

The PubMed Toolbar & other PubMed Tools

2011-08-01T21:17:00.001+02:00

With 1300+ downloads and a max of 320 simultaneous users the PubMed Toolbar for many a useful browser toolbar on a daily basis.

Here is a short summary of a little survey run via the Toolbar and on the NLM Toolbars Blog. See the Slides
Below that are some other tools to use PubMed inside your browser.
EXTRA 1: be sure to check this article on 3rd Party PubMed Tools:
Lu Z. PubMed and beyond: a survey of web tools for searching biomedical literature. Database. 2011 Jan;2011. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/database/baq036
EXTRA 2: Alternative PubMed Interfaces, a blog post in the "almost 23 Things for Medical Librarians"

PubMed Toolbar Survey : short results overview of a Conduit Toolbar

View more presentations from Guus van den Brekel

In the "ALT PUBMED" Menu of the Pubmed Toolbar even more nice tools are to be discovered in the section PUBMED TOOLS.
Added Today:

If you have a Conduit Toolbar, you can Add PubMed related buttons, menu's and even complete widgets to it (Currently, NLM PillBox and QuickSearch NLM Searches, more to come soon!)
Chrome Extensions to be added to the fastest growing new Browser from Google. Now available:Radiopaedia, a nice citation generator for Pubmed. Just add PMID, DOI or ISBN.
a large list of Add-Ons using Pubmed and related from Mozilla for:

Firefox, SeaMoneky, Thunderbird, Mobile and SunBird

A classic post by David Rothman about "How to: Add PubMed to the search bar of Firefox 2.0 or IE7" (or higher)
•You can now add Pubmed to your Google Toolbar as a Button (only IE & FF) or other Pubmed Buttons and more...
•See all Widgetbox widgets for Pubmed to add and embed to practical all platforms
•Have a look at all Pubmed and NLM widgets from Netvibes to share and embed in iGoogle, Apple Desktop, Windows Live, Vista etc.
•And last but not least, use the Search Plugins to add Pubmed search to your Browser Search Box.

See the PubMed Tools Section at the Alt PubMed Menu Button.
Do you have anything to add? Please drop me a line in email or Twitter (@digicmb)

Toolbar Search Conduit also available in Web page format

2011-06-23T10:51:00.000+02:00

An option for people who can not (or not allowed to )install toolbars: go to the web page of the search box via: search.conduit.com/?ctid=CT142118
Replace the CT number for your Toolbar number!
To be found in the About section. Under MORE you will find ALL the installed custom search engines for direct search.

Good News from Conduit! Search boxes, widgets, Apps & Extensions back online in 2 weeks!

2011-06-20T16:00:00.002+02:00

Today -after extensive contact with Conduit Support via Skype- I got the confirmation and promise that the search service that powers the search boxes, widgets, gadgets and browser extensions, will be restored with the coming new version, to be released within up to two weeks.
I am very happy to hear they took my request very seriously and decided - as a token of appreciation and because I have been a loyal publisher for years- to support this service again!

In one of my previous posts you can read what the extent of the problem is for me :
Small changes, big impact? Conduits growth & problems for me http://digicmb.blogspot.com/2011/06/small-changes-big-impact-conduits.html

As token of appreciation back, I will change all boxes with a direct reference back to Conduit, like in this one:

More exciting news to come from Conduit ... as I was told that a new version of the Custom HTML for Mobile should be released very soon.
Now I am not sure if this will make these above mentioned boxes work inside these mobile apps, OR that they will make it possible for Toolbar owners to get their custom gadgets available IN the mobile app. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Social Media Counts by Gary Hayes

2011-06-19T17:15:00.000+02:00

Click for App Store Page

http://www.personalizemedia.com/garys-social-media-count/
Living statistics (Jan 2011 update)

Small changes, big impact? Conduits growth & problems for me

2011-06-17T00:09:00.002+02:00

Something changed last week. I don't know exactly when.
I don't know what.
I don't know why.
But in one blow, all my work of the last 5 years on tailor-made html searchboxes seems to be completely switched off, made useless.
It seems Conduit changed something in it's backoffice searchengine servers, changing the search syntax, but - as stated before I do not know anything about it. Of course I know they changed their default basic search engine into Bing, instead of Google. But I have not read anything about changes into search syntax .
Here is an simple exeample of how they look like (and how they were working uptill somewhere last week)

ALL created widgets in eco.netvibes.com (34)and widgetbox.com (>50) using custom search engines from created Conduit toolbars either just show a Bing powered search result page, or a Google powered search result page.
These widgets have been installed -in some cases- thousands of times, like this PubMed Searchbox (3663 times installed since Februari 17 2008)
Many Public Netvibes Pages are showing these widgets, including our own CMB UMCG Library.
Several so-called Apps are available in the Conduit Marketplace to be added to users own Toolbar, or to create their own selection of Apps in a Conduit Toolbar. With adding html searchboxes we were abled to offer seperate search Apps offering tailor-made collections of licenced library scientific databases.
We are using these widgets to create tailor-made htnl searchboxes to publish on our hospital network and intranet-pages where the installation of toolbars was not allowed.
The Conduit Toolbars function also for me as a centralized storage, maintenance & distribution system for search strings from free & licenced scientific resources/databases focussed on medicine.
When a search syntax from a provider or medical search engine changed, I only had to update that into the right Conduit toolbar, and all derived widgets, searchboxes on all webpages, blogs, Netvibes pages, Intranet pages, Toolbars are updated automatically ....

They all just stopped working correctly, somewhere last week.....

Weird thing is that some search boxes still return Google-powered search wíth -and I always liked that very much- the clickable listing of all installed search engines of THAT toolbar. Here is an example of the Webicina widget search results today.

Here is another example of the NLM Search Solutions widget:

Currently every result page either in Bing- or Google-powered is missing the connection to the specific custom search engine in that specific toolbar. There must be a way to focus that again. If anybody has a clue how to do that, please give me call (Skype: digicmb) or email

Conduit Support is looking into this, but I am afraid that -even in the best-case scenario- I have to change all html boxes manually.
I hope they realize how serious this situation is for me, our library, and all these users that have installed those hundreds of Apps everywhere...
To be continued ....

Mobile Devices - Mobile Library : Presentation from Oliver Obst

2011-06-07T08:34:00.000+02:00

Mobile Geräte - Mobile Bibliothek

View more webinars from obsto

Dr Who and Libraries : 11 Resources Libraries need to use more ...

2011-05-18T16:39:00.002+02:00

Truly amazing and funny video of a presentation by Phil Bradley making the link between all past and present Dr. Who doctors and librarians at CILIPWALES. Here's a brief summary of the resources he mentioned.
But, really, you have to watch to video!

Home Startpages (Netvibes, get one for you and go Public for the library, http://www.netvibes.com/philbradley http://www.netvibes.com/cmb
Bookmarking sites ( Delicious, Diigo etc.)
Podcasting
Weblogs
Guiding resources (Trailfire, Jogtheweb, PearlTrees, Livebinders, ...)
Messaging and Chat
Wiki's
"One trick ponies"

Social Networking ( Facebook, Linkedin, CILIP Communities, Quora, Yahoo Answers)
QR Codes (and linking to : Videos, New arrivals, Treasure Hunt, Contact details etc
Twitter

Put Your Feet Up! #PYFU

2011-04-30T09:55:00.000+02:00

Just for fun ...

Scribd & Scientology : accepting ads or not?

2011-04-28T11:16:00.002+02:00

I am using Scribd to publish and share documents about our library services, my activities and some tools.
For our Ipad on Loan project I uploaded a manual to get access to our hospital network and applications from the "outside". It is called WOA (Werkplek Op Afstand | Workplace Off-campus). It's a citrix-solutions and gives our medical staff -even when not IN the hospital, but on-call from home- access to detailed, live stats of critital patients very quickly and smoothly.

How To Access your UMCG WOA on the iPad

I am pretty content with the Scribd service, and the usage stats are positive as well. ( >1000 views within 2 months).
But last week I received a complaint about an ad, visible next to the main page of this document. The ad is from the Scientology.org and ever since this was showing, we are having a discussion inside the library if this is acceptable ... to show library related info next to this questionable organisation.
Do we want to confront our readers/users with these kind of ads?
Should we trust our users to be clever enough to look passed this, or should we not even go this way?
Do we tell our users they can "manage" their own ads showing on webpages via the Google "Ads Preferences Manager"?

I am temped to keep using Scribd because of its unique free features, the nice embedding. Maybe we can get an API subscription and embed it in our corporate/library portal, but then we need to make sure those ads are gone.

Mobile App Building made easy? Conduit Mobile takes it a step further

2011-04-21T08:46:00.003+02:00

I am trying this new Mobile App Builder from Conduit. It claims to create Apps for the big 5 platforms: Android, iPhone, Nokia, Windows 7, Blackberry
http://mobile.conduit.com/

You can create one in minutes with help of the clever wizard that will analyse your website for rss feeds and your social media presence in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

There is a promising "custom" part to hopefully make it possible to show and use previously created Conduit Apps via the Toolbars, and embed html widgets. I am going to test that.

Also interesting is the "Slice" function, a kind of Web-scraping tool that magically takes the selected html from any selected web-pages. It will be nice to try out what the limits are here.

Short video at http://www.conduit.com/Home/AboutUs/media-coverage/Conduit-Mobile--Build-Native-Apps-From-The-Web-Qui.aspx

Create Mobile Apps | Conduit Mobile

mobile.conduit.com

DigiCMB

From HealthInfo Island to Second Life Medical Library 2.0

Love is more than just a kiss

University of Groningen Library Toolbar : grouped Toolbar 6 in 1

There's an App for that too!

Open Access Newsletter of the University of Groningen Library

Searching Open Access Publications : identify you affiliation output

OpenAccess Toolbar & Mobile (web) App Trial

OpenAccess Week : activities & tools?

Google Me : Feedflare to search authors in Google

A tool for the morphological analysis of mixtures of lipids and water in computer simulations."

OpenAccess Toolbar & Mobile (web) App Trial

The Unofficial Guide for Authors (free & OpenAccess publication)

The Unofficial Guide for Authors

RefGrab-it Bookmarklet for iPad / iPhone?

Bookmarklets:

Adding Bookmarklets to your iPad / iPhone browser; i.e. Library Proxy

Bookmarklets:

German Medical Library Association Annual Conference (AGMB 2011)

Presentations

OpenAccess Week : activities & tools?

SpringerOpen

Searching Open Access Publications : identify you affiliation output

The PubMed Toolbar & other PubMed Tools

Toolbar Search Conduit also available in Web page format

Good News from Conduit! Search boxes, widgets, Apps & Extensions back online in 2 weeks!

Social Media Counts by Gary Hayes

Small changes, big impact? Conduits growth & problems for me

Mobile Devices - Mobile Library : Presentation from Oliver Obst

Dr Who and Libraries : 11 Resources Libraries need to use more ...

Put Your Feet Up! #PYFU

Scribd & Scientology : accepting ads or not?

Mobile App Building made easy? Conduit Mobile takes it a step further

I am trying this new Mobile App Builder from Conduit. It claims to create Apps for the big 5 platforms: Android, iPhone, Nokia, Windows 7, Blackberry
http://mobile.conduit.com/

You can create one in minutes with help of the clever wizard that will analyse your website for rss feeds and your social media presence in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

There is a promising "custom" part to hopefully make it possible to show and use previously created Conduit Apps via the Toolbars, and embed html widgets. I am going to test that.

Also interesting is the "Slice" function, a kind of Web-scraping tool that magically takes the selected html from any selected web-pages. It will be nice to try out what the limits are here.

Short video at http://www.conduit.com/Home/AboutUs/media-coverage/Conduit-Mobile--Build-Native-Apps-From-The-Web-Qui.aspx

Here the current status of the Medical Apps Daily App ...
http://mob.conduit.com/medicalapps

Here the current status of the Medical Apps Daily App ...
http://mob.conduit.com/medicalapps

DigiCMB

From HealthInfo Island to Second Life Medical Library 2.0

Love is more than just a kiss

University of Groningen Library Toolbar : grouped Toolbar 6 in 1

There's an App for that too!

Open Access Newsletter of the University of Groningen Library

Searching Open Access Publications : identify you affiliation output

OpenAccess Toolbar & Mobile (web) App Trial

OpenAccess Week : activities & tools?

Google Me : Feedflare to search authors in Google

A tool for the morphological analysis of mixtures of lipids and water in computer simulations."

OpenAccess Toolbar & Mobile (web) App Trial

The Unofficial Guide for Authors (free & OpenAccess publication)

The Unofficial Guide for Authors

RefGrab-it Bookmarklet for iPad / iPhone?

Bookmarklets:

Adding Bookmarklets to your iPad / iPhone browser; i.e. Library Proxy

Bookmarklets:

German Medical Library Association Annual Conference (AGMB 2011)

Presentations

OpenAccess Week : activities & tools?

SpringerOpen

Searching Open Access Publications : identify you affiliation output

The PubMed Toolbar & other PubMed Tools

Toolbar Search Conduit also available in Web page format

Good News from Conduit! Search boxes, widgets, Apps & Extensions back online in 2 weeks!

Social Media Counts by Gary Hayes

Small changes, big impact? Conduits growth & problems for me

Mobile Devices - Mobile Library : Presentation from Oliver Obst

Dr Who and Libraries : 11 Resources Libraries need to use more ...

Put Your Feet Up! #PYFU

Scribd & Scientology : accepting ads or not?

Mobile App Building made easy? Conduit Mobile takes it a step further

I am trying this new Mobile App Builder from Conduit. It claims to create Apps for the big 5 platforms: Android, iPhone, Nokia, Windows 7, Blackberryhttp://mobile.conduit.com/

You can create one in minutes with help of the clever wizard that will analyse your website for rss feeds and your social media presence in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

There is a promising "custom" part to hopefully make it possible to show and use previously created Conduit Apps via the Toolbars, and embed html widgets. I am going to test that.

Also interesting is the "Slice" function, a kind of Web-scraping tool that magically takes the selected html from any selected web-pages. It will be nice to try out what the limits are here.

Short video at http://www.conduit.com/Home/AboutUs/media-coverage/Conduit-Mobile--Build-Native-Apps-From-The-Web-Qui.aspx

Here the current status of the Medical Apps Daily App ...http://mob.conduit.com/medicalapps

Here the current status of the Medical Apps Daily App ...http://mob.conduit.com/medicalapps

I am trying this new Mobile App Builder from Conduit. It claims to create Apps for the big 5 platforms: Android, iPhone, Nokia, Windows 7, Blackberry
http://mobile.conduit.com/

Here the current status of the Medical Apps Daily App ...
http://mob.conduit.com/medicalapps

Here the current status of the Medical Apps Daily App ...
http://mob.conduit.com/medicalapps