HLABC FORUM

Volume 32 Issue 1Winter 2009

Intellectual Freedom and Health Libraries

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial...............................................................3

President's Message.......................................... 5

Treasurer's Report .............................................6

Website Report ..................................................6

CHLA Report...................................................... 7

Technology: Jing.................................................8

General Meeting: Laura Watts............................10

Intellectual Freedom and Health Libraries..........12

Government-Imposed Barriers........................... 15

Getting to Know You Better................................ 18

Upcoming Events................................................20

The HLABC Forum is published quarterly by the Health Libraries Association of BC, ISSN: 0826-0125Submissions and story ideas are welcomed.Publication is not guaranteed and manuscripts may be edited.For contact information please visit the website:http://www.hlabc.bc.ca/

For HLABC membership information, visit our website at www.hlabc.bc.ca or write to:

Anne Allgaier, Treasurer/MembershipLibrary, Prince George Regional Hospital1475 Edmonton St. Prince George, BC V2M 1S2email Anne.allgaier@northernhealth.ca

Fees are $25.00 (regular) or $15.00 (student, maximum 2 years) and include the Forum.

HLABC 2008-2009 EXECUTIVE

PresidentAna Rosa Blue

Past President Diana Hall

Vice President / President-Elect

Devon Greyson Secretary

Elisheba Muturi Treasurer/Membership

Anne Allgaier Website Committee:

Robyn Ingvallsen, Megan Wiebe,

Doug Salzwedel Listserv Coordinator:

Kathy Hornby

Forum Layout:

Krista ClementGuest Editor:

Niki Baumann

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EDITORIAL:THE ISSUE NOT AT HAND: THE SEARCH FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM AND HEALTH LIBRARIES

Niki Baumann is the Guest Editor of this issue of the HLABC Forum, and a librarian at College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC Library and AskAway.

When the topic of “intellectual freedom in health libraries” was first proposed, I admit to having been a little dubious. I remembered having questioned a librarian acquaintance after my first SLAIS class on intellectual freedom. She happened to be a medical librarian, and I had asked her about book challenges at her library. She had told me that she never received any.

As the guest editor, I thought it would be good to learn a little more about the topic, so, like a good librarian, I went to the library databases to check out the “literature”. There were some great subject headings, and I started combining them.

Surprisingly, even the broadest searches, such as (Intellectual Freedom OR Censorship OR Prohibited Books) AND (Medical Libraries OR Hospital Libraries OR Nursing Libraries OR Dental Libraries OR Pharmaceutical Libraries) came up with one or two old articles.

Was it really possible that Intellectual Freedom was a non-issue for health libraries?

But no – there had been a controversy earlier in 2008 about the POPLINE database. The word “abortion” had briefly been listed as a stopword in this database – but was removed from the stopword list after a swift hue and cry was raised.

I tried a keyword search for popline AND abortion, and quickly discovered several articles on the topic. After looking through the subject headings, I found that only one of these had been labelled with the subject heading: “censorship”. The rest did not have any subject headings related to intellectual freedom.

It seemed that you needed to know what you were looking for in order to find it. How would the lack of intellectual freedom-related subject headings affect librarians’ ability to find relevant articles? It had certainly affected mine. Were there other intellectual freedom issues affecting health libraries that health librarians didn’t know about simply because they couldn’t find any information about them?

But then, was anyone looking for that information? Before I was the guest editor of this issue, I hadn’t done any searching for this topic. As the submission deadline came and went, it became apparent that hardly anyone else in this Association had anything to say on this topic either.

One day in January, I needed to do a quick search in PubMed just as an example. On impulse I typed in the word censorship. Lo and

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behold, over 200 articles came up. And while many of them were about different types of censorship (apparently it’s a term used in statistics and in astronomy), there were plenty of articles on censorship and health information.

Clearly, there was information out there. I decided to go back to the library databases and see if a simple keyword search like the one I’d tried in PubMed would work there too. A search for censorship AND (health OR medicine OR medical) turned up one POPLINE-related article and a few on sex-education books being challenged in public and school libraries. Nothing about publication bias, self-censorship, or any of the other juicy topics that PubMed contained.

It seemed that the health professionals were a lot more interested in intellectual freedom than the librarians, if their respective literature was anything to go by. Furthermore, everyone that I tried to recruit seemed to have a friend who had an opinion on the topic, but no one had much to say for themselves. Or else, people did have opinions, but not the time to write about them.

So here’s a little of that hard-to-find, hard-to-describe, hard-to-inspire information on intellectual freedom and health libraries. Who knows – maybe it’s having a greater impact on our work than we think.

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MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT Ana Rosa Blue is a Librarian at WorkSafeBC – Corporate Library Services

Hello, everyone! I am writing this at the end of November. By the time you read this, the holiday break will have come and gone, as will the January guest speaker. Amazing how fast time flies when you are having fun!

Your HLABC Executive team has organized dynamic speakers and topics for your enlightenment.

In November, 2008, Dr. Irving Rootman, Executive Director of the Canadian Council on Learning’s Health and Learning Knowledge Centre and an Adjunct Professor in Human and Social Development and Education at the University of Victoria, presented a talk on Health Literacy. His talk and slides will be available on the HLABC website, in the Members-only section, before long.

In January, Laura Watts, National Director for the Canadian Centre for Elder Law, is scheduled to speak on patient care implications of the new Advanced Directives legislation. The presentation will be coupled with the HLABC’s annual New Year’s brunch.

The partnership between HLABC and the British Columbia Library Association means that HLABC has an opportunity to organize and share favourite topics with a larger library community. Please mark your calendars: the BCLA conference will be held April 16-18, 2009 at the Hilton Vancouver Metrotown, Burnaby, BC. Feel free to check out the Conference website: http://www.bcla.bc.ca/Conference2009/default.aspx

The conference theme is: Be curious, think, learn and share: explore the possibilities of learning and teaching. HLABC will be sponsoring sessions on the following topics:

1) Consumer and patient education, 2) Disaster planning – (a full-day pre-conference session), and 3) Open Access – Co-sponsored with the BCLA Information Policy Committee and the BCLA Intellectual Freedom Committee.

The ever-popular Continuing Education day, traditionally held in June, will focus on Evidence Based Librarianship. In addition, HLABC will partner with e-HLbc to bring a training session on the same day. Further details will be forthcoming via the HLABC listserv.

I look forward to seeing you at the BCLA conference in April and at the CE Day in June.

Sincerely,

Ana Rosa

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HLABC TREASURER’S REPORT FEBRUARY 6, 2009Anne Allgaier is Regional Librarian, Northern Health Authority

Memberships

Lifetime Members 7

Regular Members 76

Students 2

______________________________________

Total Membership 85

Current Bank Balance:

Investment Account $ 1,849.54

Chequing Account $ 9,442.87

TOTAL: $11,292.41

Respectfully submitted by:

Anne Allgaier, HLABC Treasurer

WEBSITE COMMITTEE REPORT - NOV 27, 2008Robyn Ingvallsen is a Library Technician at Royal Jubilee HospitalMegan Wiebe is a Clinical Librarian at InspireHealthDoug Salzwedel is an Information Resource Coordinator at Child & Family Research Institute, UBC, and at Canadian Institute for the Relief of Pain and Disability

After a busy autumn of training and travel, the Website Committee is gearing up for an even busier winter and spring. With the welcome addition of Megan Wiebe and Doug Salzwedel to the committee, the time has come for an online review and overhaul of the site.

Megan & Doug have been trained on the site and have their own access, and we can now move forward, with a preliminary plan to meet December 18, followed by an in-depth January meeting. There we will review the current content of the site and further develop a survey for HLABC members to fill out. Included will be questions regarding what you use, what you don’t use, what you think needs changing and what you think may be missing. Some current suggestions include: RSS feeds; Blog listings; and increased downloads from meetings and speakers.

It’s shaping up to be very interesting, and we look forward to all your suggestions.

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http://www.chla-absc.ca/2009/

More information about CHLA membership rates can be found on the Association’s website at http://www.chla-absc.ca/?q=en/node/100.

More information about hospital accreditation can be found at and the changes CHLA is proposing can be found online at http://www.chla-absc.ca/?q=en/node/258

CHLA/ABSC UPDATE: FEBRUARY 3, 2009Shannon Long is the CHLA/ABSC Treasurer and a librarian at Richmond Hospital Library

Mark your calendars and keep an eye on the airlines for seat sales! The CHLA/ABSC annual conference is being held in Winnipeg this year, from May 30 to June 3.

Have a sneak peek at the program at a glance and check out the fabulous CE sessions that are being offered. Register for the conference prior to April 10 in order to get the early bird rate.

A three-day Bioinformatics for Health Librarians course is planned for June 7-9 in Toronto. The workshop is targeted towards reference, instruction or liaison librarians in the biomedical sciences, and is intended to provide a foundation to support reference, and instruction relating to bioinformatics information resources. Course content will include an overview of basic biological concepts underpinning bioinformatics. Through extensive hands-on practice and exercises, it will focus on searching several core information resources including NCBI and other sources. Registration fees are VERY reasonable. Learn, earn 18 CE credits and have a mini-holiday in Toronto. What could be better? Stay tuned for more details.

Are you considering joining CHLA for the first time or have you allowed your membership to lapse for 5 or more years? CHLA offers a 25% discount for new and returning members, and also has a fabulous student rate of $40 for a calendar year.

The National Network of Libraries for Health, now called the Canadian Virtual Health Library (CVHL) network, has received some funding from Canada Health Infoway to help them move the project on to the next phase. Anyone interested in more information or to learn how they can support the NNLH / CVHL can check out http://chla-absc.ca/nnlh/.

The CHLA executive and Jean Maragno are continuing to work with Accreditation Canada (formerly CCHSA) to ensure that libraries, librarians and up to date information resources are included in the latest hospital standards.

NEW and noteworthy, especially for our colleagues at SLAIS and the Langara College Library Technician program! CHLA has created a new annual student paper competition sponsored by Login Canada. This year’s submission deadline has already passed but keep the award in mind for next year, especially if you have regular contact with super keen health sciences library students. The BC Decker Research Paper prize is also available those already writing about their research projects.

The CHLA/ABSC executive board meets again on February 26 and 27 in Vancouver.

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TECHNOLOGY: JINGNiki Baumann is a librarian at College of Physicians and Surgeons Library, and a virtual reference librarian for AskAway (post-secondary version)

We’ve all encountered that situation where we’re trying to describe the location of a link to someone, and they just can’t see it. Maybe their computer screen is a different resolution, or the link is buried in a very busy page, or maybe they’re not even on the webpage that you think they are. Whatever the reason, they just can’t find that link.

Eventually, you manage to communicate with the person, and they inevitably say, “wow, it was right there in front of my face, and I completely missed it!”

Well, if a picture says a thousand words, think how much a video could say. Jing is an open-source programme that allows you to make on-the-fly videos of anything on your screen, instantly upload them to a free screencast.com account, and then send the link to the person who’s lost.

Jing videos can be up to 5 minutes long. With space enough in the free screencast.com account for approximately 200 videos, you can also create reusable videos that can be linked from your library website or blog, explaining how to access library resources. If you prefer, you can save the video to your desktop.

In addition to making videos, Jing can make screenshots. PC/Windows users will be impressed with the resolution of the image, compared to those lo-res “print screen” captures. For both Windows and Mac users, the advantage Jing screenshots provide is the ease with which you can upload them to the screencast.com account and share them with others.

So what’s the catch? Firstly, 5 minutes isn’t enough time to give a full tutorial on how to search a database, or do any other complex bibliographic instruction. Secondly, I downloaded Jing two weeks ago and it has already required me to download updates twice. Hopefully the rate of updates will slow down in future.

So far, I have created Jing videos showing how to navigate to a particular database, how to login to an electronic resource, and how to use a link resolver. I also intend to create videos showing how to access an electronic article using the citation information. I’m sure that you can think of even more uses for Jing!

Having used Jing already, here are some tips:

1. When your video starts recording, you have to click once on the area being recorded – otherwise mouseovers will not work

2. Unlike Camtasia, there is no enhancement of the cursor when you’re recording – I like to mouseover links several times or circle the cursor around the link I plan to click, so that the user’s eye will be drawn to the correct link

3. Assume that your viewer doesn’t have access to speakers or

For more information about Jing, and to download the software, go to: http://www.jingproject.com

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headphones – if you choose to record sound, ensure that the video makes sense without it

4. If you don’t record sound, mute your mic before you start so as to avoid distracting background noise

5. If your video requires logging in, check whether your password will be displayed or bulletted when you login.

I recommend taking a screenshot of the login page, and saving it online or on your desktop. Then, open three tabs: the main library website, the screenshot of the login page, and the database, already logged in. You can do what the chefs on TV do – show the login page, and then go to the database that you’ve already logged into. This also works if you’re accessing the database from a site that doesn’t require authentication, but you know that some users will have to login.

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PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE; POWERS OF ATTORNEY & ADVANCE CARE PLANNINGLaura Watts, LLB, National Director, Canadian Centre for Elder Law Studies

GENERAL MEETING OF THE HEALTH LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION OF B.C. JANUARY 17TH, 2009Anne Allgaier is a Regional Librarian for Northern Health AuthorityAna Rosa Blue is a Librarian at WorkSafeBC – Corporate Library Services

Laura Watts’ presentation was on a timely topic – advance planning for financial and health care decisions when an individual is no longer capable of making decisions for him or herself. The Adult Guardianship and Planning Statutes Amendment Act, passed in the BC legislature in 2007, will change the way BC residents make decisions about financial and health care should they become incapacitated and unable to make decisions for themselves.

The topic addressed by Laura is important for several reasons – top of the list being that many people admitted to hospital often receive treatment that is futile. Such treatments may prolong life without any hope that the condition for which the person was admitted will ever improve. Such cases raise difficult ethical issues and most of us may already be familiar with them as they have often been reported in the media. Avoiding such difficult cases is the goal of completing a Representation Agreement, an Advanced Directive, or a Power of Attorney. These documents instruct health care professionals, friends, and family members of one’s preferences in case one should become incapable of communicating these wishes oneself.

As the National Director of the Canadian Centre for Elder Law, Staff Lawyer at the British Columbia Law Institute and a legislative drafter, Laura is very well acquainted with the issues surrounding an adult’s incapacity for financial and health care decision-making, and though this is not exactly an entertaining subject, Laura succeeded in providing the members gathered at the HLABC’s January 17th meeting with an engaging and informative presentation.

Laura explained how the Adult Guardianship and Planning Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 will facilitate improved advanced planning for health care and financial decisions in case of incompetence of an individual. It is expected that by June 2009, documents will be available from the Attorney General that we will be able to use to facilitate such advanced planning. (These documents are actually the regulations that go with the Adult Guardianship Act, and are still awaiting formal approval.)

There is much confusion about the legal status of documents such as Living Wills, Powers of Attorney, and Advanced Directives. Laura defined and differentiated between some terminologies, such as the Law of Consent, i.e. who decides? She explained that a Power of Attorney becomes null and void if the principal becomes incapacitated and that a Power of Attorney is for financial decisions

To view these documents, visit the Attorney General website at: http://www.ag.gov.bc.ca/legislation/current_Consultations.htm

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only. In case of incapacity, what is needed is an Enduring Power of Attorney. The latter includes something called the ‘Springing Clause’. A Power of Attorney with a Spring Clause remains inactive until such time as the principal becomes incapacitated. The [regular] Power of Attorney can have what is called a “Limited Clause”, that is to say, it is valid only under specific circumstances and can limit the actions of the “Attorney”. Laura warned the audience not to sign a blank Power of Attorney. She also pointed out that “Levels of Care” forms required by some BC facilities are not legal and should not be signed upon admission to hospital.

One of the problems with completing advance planning documents is where to access them at a time of crisis? Laura recommends to put these documents in the fridge, preferably in a Tupperware container or a Ziploc bag and well-labelled. The other important thing to remember is to let your friends and family know where these documents are so that they can be located quickly in a crisis.

Laura also discussed Living Wills and Advanced Directives. But, she voiced a concern about Advance Directives, providing a vivid example of one at work. A capable adult can write down in a specific way, formalized with instructions to not put oneself on a breathing machine (a common request), but the condition may require a breathing machine only for a day or two. However, if a health provider has an Advance Directive in their possession, they will follow the specific instructions, and be forced to ignore the specific medical situation confronting them. Laura said that it was always a good idea to communicate your wishes. In order to improve communication about these issues, one can also complete a Representation Agreement. Representation Agreements simply appoint someone (friend or family member) to make health care decisions in times of crisis and can override an Advance Directive.

The Adult Amendments to Bill 29 will bring about changes to Guardianship laws. One of the things that will change is the list of Substitute Decision Makers, broadening the list of individuals who can be called upon to make health care decisions for another person.

Completing Power of Attorney documents for financial planning and a Representation Agreement or Advance Directive is one of the nicest things we can do for those we love dearly. It relieves them of the burden of making these decisions should you become incapacitated. It also makes it easier for your physician to care for you in the way you wish, avoiding any potential ethical conflicts.

To find more information about the new act, representation agreements, discussion papers about these issues, and documents that can be used, visit the BC Attorney General website at http://www.ag.gov.bc.ca/legislation/links.htm. Libraries are the ideal public access site for information about these matters. Educating the public is crucial and what better place to get the most up to date information than a hospital or public library?

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INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM AND HEALTH LIBRARIES: THREE ARTICLE SUMMARIESNiki Baumann is a librarian at College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC Library, and a virtual reference librarian at AskAway (post-secondary version)

Full text of all of the original articles is freely available online. Articles were found in PubMed.

Kempner J. The Chilling Effect: How Do Researchers React to Controversy? PLoS Med. 2008 Nov; 5(11): e222.

In 2003, ten NIH grants, eight of which were for research related to sexual behaviour, were challenged by members of the U.S. Congress. This challenge grew to include 250 grants when the wrong list was sent to the NIH Director. Although every grant was found to be “scientifically sound”, and funding was in all cases continued, the author of this study sought to determine if the controversy had affected the behaviour of the researchers whose funding had been threatened.

After collecting 30 interviews and 82 surveys, Kempner determined that many of the researchers had changed their behaviour due to the controversy. The most common response (51%) was to remove “red flag” words from their grant proposals. For instance, one researcher described changing the words “sex workers” to “women at risk”. According to the researchers, NIH project officers often recommended this type of rewording strategy.

This strategy appears relatively benign – the research was still being conducted – it was just harder to find. More sinister was the reported 24% of researchers who described changing their studies, or dropping them completely. For instance, some began studying the behaviour of mainstream rather than marginalised populations. Others put their controversial studies on a back burner.

Less prevalent responses included looking for alternate sources of funding, finding new jobs, emigrating, or leaving academia. However, Kempner found that about 10% of researchers became even more determined to carry out their controversial research, although some also reported self-censoring “red flag” words.

Kempner acknowledges that this information may contain a sampling bias, as interviewees and survey respondents may have represented the researchers who had the strongest opinions about the effect this controversy had on their research.

What does this information mean for health librarians? It reminds us to keep current with the buzzwords under which researchers may hide their controversial research. When searching for information on a controversial topic, it may be worth trying keyword searches as well as MeSH to see if some of these “politically corrected” articles have also gotten past the NLM indexers.

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Lexchin J, Light DW. Commercial Influence and the Content of Medical Journals. BMJ. 2006 June; 332(7555): 1444.

Lexchin and Light describe some of the potential commercial sources of bias that may affect publication of articles on pharmaceuticals and the pharmaceutical industry.

Journal editors may have conflicts of interest that may affect the selection of articles and the process of editing the articles. Lexchin and Light cite two studies on the existence of conflict of interest policies in medical and science journals. In both cases, less than half of the journals had or planned to implement conflict of interest policies. One of the studies went on to show that several of the existing policies did not cover all potential types of conflict of interest.

Authors of the articles published in journals may also have undisclosed conflicts of interest. Lexchin and Light cite a study wherein it was found that “8%...of [sampled] original articles …in four major journals failed to declare conflicts”. Upon reading the executive summary of the original article, I determined that this meant that 8% of the articles did not disclose an actual conflict of interest (i.e. it did not mean that the 8% simply failed to provide a conflict of interest statement).

Another potential source of bias was article publication in journal supplements. Lexchin and Light explain that drug companies fund the publication of supplements. Publishing greater numbers of articles in a supplement results in greater revenue for the publisher. The authors suggest that this may result in the publication of articles that were not of sufficent quality to be published in the non-supplement issues of the journal.

Many journals provide reprints (i.e. copies) of their articles for a fee. An article containing results that might induce consumers to buy a pharmaceutical product would generate more revenue, as the pharmaceutical company may purchase many reprints of the article. Editors might choose to publish such an article rather than an article with less lucrative contents, if the journal is short of funds.

Medical associations also obtain funds by publishing advertisements in their journals. Lexchin and Light cite a study of five associations that obtained between 2-31% of their gross funding from journal advertisements. This gives the associations a strong inducement to preferentially publish articles meeting the approval of their advertisers. The authors describe a case in which the Annals of Internal Medicine published an article that was critical of the drug industry. The journal subsequently “lost an estimated $1-1.5 million in advertising revenue”.

The authors list several recommendations for action. These fall under several categories:

Disclosure: Journals should disclose their sources of income. Editors and authors should disclose conflicts of interest.

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Prevention: Minimising conflicts of interest would presumably minimise bias.

Investigation: An independent body should study potential sources of bias described above, and determine the extent to which they actually influence article publication.

This article created a compelling case for the need for further investigation into the influence of commercial interests on the publication of medical and scientific studies. Lexchin and Light make use of several studies and cases, but more evidence, preferably with larger sample sizes and greater evidence for causality, is sorely needed. When such evidence is available, it may be easier to prevail upon journals, editors, and authors to implement the disclosure and prevention suggested by the authors.

Hall R, de Antueno, Webber A. Publication Bias in the Medical Literature: a Review by a Canadian Research Ethics Board. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia. 2007; 54(5): 380-8.

The authors investigated the 190 protocols that met the criteria for review of the Capital District Health Authority Research Ethics Board between 1995-1996. 84 of the protocols resulted in publication.

Trials in phases 3 or 4 were more likely to be published than trials in phases 1 or 2. Furthermore, studies that had positive results for the main focus of the study were more likely to be published than studies that did not.

The type of sponsor of the trial also influenced the likelihood of publication. Studies sponsored by federal granting agencies were significantly more likely to be published than those sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. However, studies by pharmaceutical companies were more likely to be published than those sponsored by the local health authority.

Of the 84 published studies, 71 reported statistically significant findings. Data on time to publication was only available for 53 of the trials – for those, time to publication did not vary between studies with statistically significant findings and those with statistically non-significant findings. However, only 15% of the published trials contained statistically non-significant results. It was not clear whether this resulted from lack of pursuit of publication or rejection by journals, but either way, this result was evidence for the existence of publication bias.

The authors used the PubMed database to search for published articles for each of the 190 trials (except for those studies that were known not to have been completed). They acknowledge that the results of the study may have been affected if the trials were published in journals not indexed by Medline.

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GOVERNMENT-IMPOSED BARRIERS TO ACCESSING INFORMATION ON CONTROVERSIAL HEALTH TOPICS: THE POPLINE KERFUFFLE AND WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM ITDevon Greyson is an Information Specialist at UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research

What Went Down?

You may have read about it back in April. I saw it first on Rachel Walden's Women's Health News blog, but word spread like wildfire across library blogs, women's health blogs, and listservs such as CANMEDLIB and WMST-L.

What was sparking all this interest? POPLINE, "the world's largest database on reproductive health, containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues," made abortion - and all abortion related terms - search stopwords. A librarian who noticed that a search for “abortion” was turning up zero hits inquired about the glitch and was apparently told that “We recently made all abortion terms stop words. As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.”

POPLINE is funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and maintained at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs' INFO Project. USAID has come under fire from women's health advocates in the past for policies such as its Mexico City Policy prohibiting any international NGOs that receive USAID funding from performing or “promoting” abortion.

In an article in Wired Magazine, ALA president Loriene Roy stated her concerns over the Mexico City Policy unduly influencing information resources developed with U.S. federal funding:

"Any federal policy or rule that requires or encourages information providers to block access to scientific information because of partisan or religious bias is censorship," she said. "Such policies promote idealogy [sic] over science and only serve to deny researchers, students and individuals on all sides of the issue access to accurate scientific information."

While we library-folk can use various tricks, such as using the subject heading hyperlinks embedded in the records, to try to circumvent the stopword problem, this solution was neither completely effective nor accessible to non-expert searchers of this internationally used, public database.

One email turned into another email, turned into a listserv post, turned into a large Internet outcry over this new policy of blocking access to information about an essential women's health issue. Outraged librarians and other activists flooded POPLINE with comments. Not two whole days after the outcry began, Michael J.

Wired Magazine article:http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/

2008/04/administrators.html

USAID:http://www.info.usaid.gov/

INFO Project:http://www.infoforhealth.org/

Mexico City Policy:http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/glo

bal_health/pop/restrictions.html

POPLINE Database:http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-

wpd/popweb/

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Klag, MD, MPH, Dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released a "Statement Regarding POPLINE Database," in which he said he was just informed about the blocking of searches for abortion in POPLINE and "could not disagree more strongly with this decision." Klag explained:

“USAID, which funds POPLINE, found two items in the database related to abortion that did not fit POPLINE criteria. The agency then made an inquiry to POPLINE administrators. Following this inquiry, the POPLINE administrators at the Center for Communication Programs made the decision to restrict abortion as a search term.”

While this statement confirmed that the change was directly the result of USAID's intervention in the database administration, it raised as many questions as it answers. What were those two items? How exactly was this “inquiry” made that the challenge of two items in the collection would trigger the blocking of any search on abortion or a related term?

What Went Right?

While we are left with unanswered questions about the specifics of the POPLINE debacle, it's reasonably easy to identify what went wrong: politically motivated government policy interfered with access to health information. However, what went right is a different question all together, and perhaps a useful and instructive one for us to consider.

In the POPLINE case, a librarian noticed that abortion was no longer a searchable term in the database and sent out an email about it. The email was passed along on various health librarian and feminist listservs and public outcry was raised. Who-knows-how-many of us emailed the POPLINE admins and blogged it with outrage, and within two days the dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health issued a public statement assuring the world that this would be rectified and investigated.

Wow. Keen librarian eyes + electronic communication and information sharing + immediate online organizing and protest + responsive administrator = restoration of information resource. In this case, at least. Not in all.

Not in the case of the Canadian Health Network (CHN), which was shut down after months of protest by health librarians, a petition, multiple high-profile newspaper articles, and various other media attention. What were the essential differences we can identify in these two situations, and that can we do in the future to make our information resources more like POPLINE and less like the CHN? Here are some thoughts:

- US vs. Canada: The US is generally more political & inflammatory, and Canadian librarians will be aware of and act upon a US-based issue, although the opposite is not generally the case.

Statement Regarding POPLINE Database:

http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2008/popline.org

Some blogs and lists which spread the word:

Rachel Walden’s Women’s Health News Blog:

http://womenshealthnews.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/why-is-a-government-funded-reproductive-health-database-blocking-users-from-searching-for-abortion-articles/

Librarian Activist Blog: http://www.librarianactivist.org/200

8/04/03/government-funded-database-censors-the-word-abortion/

RH Reality Check Blog:http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog

/2008/04/03/your-search-for-abortion-yields-nothing

CANMEDLIB Listserv:http://www.chla-

absc.ca/?q=en/node/53WMST-L Listserv:http://userpages.umbc.edu/~koren

man/wmst/wmst-l_index.html

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- Hierarchy vs. Diffusion: POPLINE is housed at/maintained by a single institution with important people who could be embarrassed at the top of the chain of command, while the CHN, as I understand it, was purposively built on a distributed model.

- Specific interest vs. general resource: It's hard to argue than another resource could easily replace POPLINE, as there aren't really other reproductive health focused databases like it (are there?), and - however their scope or quality may vary - there are other websites that aim to be broad consumer health resources. It may also be significant that POPLINE is not really for everyday use of the general public, but more for scholars and health professionals.

- Interdisciplinary appeal: The scope of POPLINE, while specifically focused, had broad interdisciplinary appeal. While reproductive rights info access was indirectly damaged by CHN removal, POPLINE is obviously related to reproductive rights, and thus feminists signed on the campaign en masse.

While we are still struggling to understand exactly what the causes and effects of both the CHN shutdown and the POPLINE debacle, we need also to look to the future. The challenge facing those of us who are concerned with access to health information is to figure out how future projects can be built in a way that helps any threat to information access play out in a POPLINE manner, not a CHN one.

Note: This article draws heavily on blog posts I wrote on the topic last spring. For original posts, see Social Justice Librarian.

Social Justice Librarian:http://sjlibrarian.wordpress.com/20

08/06/27/further-thoughts-on-the-popline-debacle-what-went-right/

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GETTING TO KNOW YOU BETTERLinda Howard is a librarian at Fraser Health Library Services

Doug Salzwedel is the librarian at UBC for the Canadian Institute for the Relief of Pain and Disability and the Child & Family Research Institute. He is also serving on the HLABC’s web site committee. Linda Howard recently interviewed Doug for the Forum.

Tell me about your current position. Who are your users? How do you typically spend a day?

I’m a UBC employee, but split my time 60/40 between the Canadian Institute for the Relief of Pain and Disability (CIRPD) and Child & Family Research Institute (CFRI). At CIRPD, I’m working on a disability prevention and management web portal project with varied stakeholders and a Web 2.0/social networks project focused on improving sleep health which will be targeted at hospital staff, clinicians and the general public.

At CFRI, I provide database training and literature search strategy development and appraisal for residents, fellows and researchers carrying systematic reviews and other research projects. Since I essentially have two jobs with a surprising amount of overlap between them, I wouldn’t say that I ever have a typical day, which keeps things interesting!

What attracted you to library science as a career option? What do you like best about librarianship? What do you like least?

Like many librarians, I placed a high value on working in a helping profession. I was particularly drawn to the notion that providing access to information can be a remarkable means of reducing inequality among people from all walks of life. What do I like best? I’m always on a learning curve! I love being in a profession that is finding ways to adapt to changes in technology and society without losing the core values and strengths associated with librarianship. I least like the struggle that some health libraries face in terms of being recognized as valuable contributors to clinical practice and to clinical research support, but I think that this is a challenge that we are capable of overcoming as a profession.

Tell me a little about where you grew up.I got to experience a variety of settings while our family moved back

and forth between B.C. and Alberta a few times. I was born in Edmonton and saw my first NHL game there, so I haven’t managed to migrate to the Canucks yet, even after all these years. In B.C., I’ve lived in Terrace, Prince George, Victoria and Vancouver. When I was 8, we lived in the NWT for a year. It was the first time in my life that I became aware of issues such as racism and extreme poverty. I’ve now been back in Vancouver for about 8 months, after spending the past several years in Ontario and Québec.

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Tell me about your educational, academic background. Where did you go to library school?

I have a BA (Psychology) from Alberta, a BA (Applied Geography) from Ryerson, and my MLIS is from Western Ontario. I was living right across the street from the Faculty of Information Studies in Toronto at the time that I reluctantly chose to leave Toronto to take advantage of the co-op option offered by Western. It was the right decision, as I was fortunate enough to be hired by Jessie McGowan for an 8 month co-op stint at the Ottawa Hospital. After graduation, I spent 2.5 years in the Information Management Division of the Chief Information Officer Branch at Treasury Board in Ottawa before moving (for the long haul, I hope!) back into health sciences librarianship when I joined the University of Ottawa’s Institute of Population Health.

The theme of this issue of Forum is intellectual freedom. What role do you think health librarians can play in promoting intellectual freedom?

We all know that knowledge is power. As librarians, we are uniquely positioned to recognize and support the right of all human beings to have their privacy respected and to have the freedom to access and read the materials of their own choosing. As health librarians, we can do this by ensuring our collections reflect the widest possible spectrum of published thought informed by evidence and by ensuring that those collections are available to our clients. We can also continue to support open access publishing initiatives and the concept of the Right to Know, as expressed by organizations such as IFLA.

What would your ideal library look like? What services would it have?

The short answer would be “any library which meets and exceeds the needs and expectations of its users”. My ideal library would have both physical and virtual components to be accessible to patrons 24/7 and would take advantage of the latest Web 2.0 tools and technologies to remain relevant and user-friendly. As with architecture, the form and function would draw on lessons from the past while benefitting from advances in technology to provide a warm, welcoming, open experience. I particularly like the model provided by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

What do you think the future of librarianship will be? I think that we will have to stay ahead of the curve by acquiring new

skills and by continually asking ourselves how we can adapt our abilities and knowledge to best position the profession to benefit from and contribute to the technological advances which impact information retrieval, access, storage and management. It’s very heartening to see a younger generation

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of health librarians embracing these changes.

What books are you currently reading? What are the titles and authors of some of your favourite books?

I tend to be more drawn to non-fiction than fiction, but I’m currently reading Vincent Lam’s Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. As a guilty pleasure, I like science fiction, so I recently bought books 1 and 2 of A Time Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke.

What do you like to do for fun off duty? I love to travel and am trying to save for that ‘next big trip’ as I’m

feeling the two year itch after going to Italy in 2007. I enjoy biking, hiking, working out, hunting down great coffee, cinema, and trying new restaurants (Dine Out Vancouver was not kind to my Visa bill!). I’m still looking for that elusive Vancouver pub that reminds me of the ones I’ve experienced in the UK and Ireland (and even Ottawa), but I do have a fondness for the Alibi Room and the Irish Heather in Gastown.

If you won a million dollars in the lottery, how would you spend it? How would it change your life?

A million dollars doesn’t go far in Vancouver! I’d likely buy my mum the house she’s always wanted and share some of the winnings with friends. For myself, I’d take some time off to travel, probably to Chile and Argentina, but who knows?

Its been a pleasure getting to know you a little better, Doug. Thank you for the opportunity.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Mar 25 DC - 103d ASIL Annual Meeting American Society of International Law (ASIL)

April 16-18 Lower Mainland - British Columbia Library Association

May 23-27 Halifax NS - CALL/ACBD Annual General Meeting

Jun 14-17 DC - 100th SLA Annual Conference & INFO EXPO, Special Libraries Association

May 15 - 20 Hawaii - MLA 2009 Annual Meeting and Exhibition May 30 – Jun 3 Winnipeg MB - CHLA/ABSC

Jul 9 -15 Chicago IL - ALA Annual Conference

Jul 25 DC - 102d AALL Annual Meeting American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)

Aug 23 - 27 Milan - World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly

Oct 17-20 Seattle - PNC/MLA Annual Meeting