CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

IN BRIEF

REVIEWS

TUTORIAL

VIEWS & POSITIONS

EVENTS DIARY

LETTERS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Issue 2, September 1997

ISSN 1368-1591

Internet guide for rehabilitation professionals & The Internet for physicians

Reed, Kathlyn L and Cunningham, Sandra
Internet guide for rehabilitation professionals
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1997 307p. + 3.5" resource disk
0-397-55463-x
£21.00
<URL:http://www.lrpub.com/books/b6084.htm>

The authors, who are both professors of occupational therapy at American universities, have produced a comprehensive and valuable guide to all aspects of Internet use together with an exhaustive list of resources for the professions allied to medicine. This occupies the second half of the book and is also supplied on disk in the form of an HTML file. The coverage of resources includes concise chapters on equipment and software needs (specifications are given for 'ideal', 'acceptable' and 'minimal' equipment), Internet history, Web error messages, graphics, video and sound, basic Web authoring, and search tools and techniques. The section 'using the Internet' includes telephoning and faxing, business and marketing, finding e-mail addresses, recruiting and job hunting, safety and security. Two interesting chapters feature 'doing rehabilitation on the Internet' (which discusses the issues around professional participation in self-help groups, and possibilities for continuing education and research) and 'dealing with computer- related disorders' (RSI). A bibliography of Internet sources, glossary and self-test quiz are appended.

The perspective is very American, which limits its usefulness as an introductory or 'how to do it' guide. In the resources section I found one British, one Canadian and one Australian site only. Line drawings and PowerPoint graphics are used for illustrations rather than screen dumps. There are a few unaccountable quirks and omissions: the United Kingdom is omitted from Table 1.1 which shows number of host computers in countries on the Internet, and Microsoft Internet Explorer is not mentioned in the chapter on the Web (p.101ff). The chapter on search tools is disappointing; a more extended discussion and tabular comparison of search engine features would have been useful, and no mention is made of intelligent agents and other search tools. A chapter on 'best Internet sites' is included which is distinct from the main resource listing. I learnt a great deal from this book, nonetheless, and at £21.00 it is still an extremely useful guide for anyone in the therapy professions who has already mastered the basics of e-mail and Web use, but needs fairly in-depth coverage of the Internet as a whole.

Smith, Roger P and Edwards, Margaret J A
The Internet for physicians
New York: Springer, 1997 145 pp
0-387-94936-4
£19.00
<URL:http://www.springer.de/catalog/html-files/deutsch/med/toc/0387949364-c.html>

This book is a lucidly written, accessible introduction to the Internet aimed at health professionals with little previous computer experience. Though aimed expressly at physicians, it would be suitable as a primer for non-medical personnel. All major Internet topics are covered, and an interesting discussion of possibilities and potentialities in medical informatics is given in chapter 7. Search engines and search techniques are not covered in any depth. The authors provide a useful bibliography of sources on aspects of medical informatics and a brief glossary. An extended listing of resources by clinical speciality is appended; these are mainly American, but include a number of British sites including the ABC of Medical Computing (BMJ).

For what one gets, the book is expensive at £19.00. While useful and attractively designed, it is in my view unlikely to compete in the British market with Robert Kiley's Medical information on the Internet: a guide for health professionals (Churchill Livingstone, 1996).

Catherine Ebenezer MA (Oxon) STM AKC Dip InfoStudies
Trust Librarian
Lambeth Healthcare (NHS) Trust, UK

Health Care on the Internet

Eric P. Delozier (Editor)
Health Care on the Internet: a journal of methods and applications
Haworth Press. Volume 1 (1), Spring 1997. Four issues per annum
ISSN 1089-4187
$53.20 (individuals); $119.00 (institutions)
<URL:http://www.lib.hmc.psu.edu/hci/hci.htm>

Health Care on the Internet (HCI) is a new journal (in print form) that started publication this year. Its publisher, Haworth Press, publishes several other journals in the medical and information fields. It is targetted at the 'library professional, health care provider, or a concerned general reader', and aims to help 'library and information professionals stay abreast of the consumer health movement'. It is non peer-reviewed but it is selective in what it will accept for publication 'based on content, currency, accuracy, and subject matter'. The editors (and several of the contributors to date) are librarians - people with experience in assessing the utility of information resources and used to taking a critical view of Internet resources. Each issue contains 5-8 original articles and 2 regular columns (one on technical issues and one on alternative medicine) plus book reviews, all well-written. The articles in the first issue were evenly split between resource guides (to asthma resources, consumer health resources and electronic discussion groups) and those dealing with community network initiatives (the development of community networks and the benefits they can offer, an experiment to broaden access to the Internet in a community, and a joint community-academic project to provide consumer health information). The listings of article titles in later issues (available on the journal's Web site) show a similar division, although one issue is entirely given over to cancer information resources. The column on technical issues (HealthTech) deals with one topic per issue. Examples topics are browser software, search engines, viruses, and virus hoaxes. I have some doubts about the inclusion of a general technical column since there is so much information now available in the general computing literature and on the Web itself. Given that HCI's target audience may have had little exposure to more general computing, however, this could be a useful column. HCI seems to have a strong educational role, and therefore pitches its articles at a low level of technical understanding and previous experience.

A new paper journal dealing with information resources which are available via the Internet is a curious phenomenon, but the editors make no apology for this apparent contradiction. There are several high quality resource guides available online (e.g. Medical Matrix, CliniWeb, OMNI) which must reduce the need for lengthy articles in print. The resource guide articles in HCI will surely have a very short shelf-life because of the volatility and pace of change of the Internet. They also make unattractive reading - peppered with URLs that interrupt the flow of text, and illustrated with generally poor quality screen dumps that add nothing to the arguments presented. I am sorry too that a more critical approach is not taken; the articles are largely descriptive of individual resources, rather than giving a high-level synthesis of resources in a field, with their comparative strengths, weaknesses and omissions. Those articles which stick more closely to the subtitle, i.e. 'methods and applications', will have a greater general utility, although they deal mostly with community network projects in North America only, reflecting the composition of the editorial board. The articles are informative but again uncritical, offering no evaluation of the projects described.

This journal will prove useful for anyone with an interest in consumer health information or community networking. It should also be scanned by anyone who is interested to see the range of information that their patients may be able to access and projects aiming to enhance this access.

Frank Norman BSc Dip.Lib
Deputy Librarian
National Institute for Medical Research, UK

The Internet for nurses and allied health professionals & Computers in Nursing's Nurses'guide to the Internet

Edwards M J A
The Internet for nurses and allied health professionals (2/e)
New York: Springer; 1997 180 pp, 29 figs
ISBN 0387948880
£?
<URL:http://www.springer.de/catalog/catalog.html>

Nicoll L H, Ouellette T H
Computers in Nursing's Nurses'guide to the Internet
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1997
ISBN 0397553994
£19.95
<URL:http://www.ravenpress.com/nursing.htm >

There may well be, as the Foreword of Margaret Edwards' book points out, something anachronistic about boring old paper based books being produced to explain the cutting edge technology of the Internet, but it doesn't stop writers producing them. The two texts under review here both purport to be introductory texts to the Internet for nurses and health professionals. Both explain the wonders of domains, URLs, the World-Wide Web, e-mail, FTP, telnet, listservs, and Usenet groups. Edwards' is the more basic of the two and is written in a chatty style, assuming little prior knowledge. There is a section on e-mail etiquette. A chapter is dedicated to citing Internet resources and another outlines ways in which the Internet may affect education, personal communications, information gathering, clinical decision making and consumer health information in the future. Although there are a few health related examples most of the text could apply to any reader.

The authors of Computers in Nursing's Nurses' Guide to the Internet present it as the professional nurse's business travel guide to the Internet. The text is serious but readable and seems to assume more computer knowledge than Edwards' book. The glossary of terms is more detailed and charts of common abbreviations, emoticons, and mail-server commands are also included. There are a useful few pages on what can - and cannot - be found on the internet.

Both books contain lists of useful sites which make up over half of their content. Nicoll and Ouellette have a subject index to their directory of sites and an indication of how sites were selected. Also included is a floppy disc containing an HTML file of links listed in the book. Needless to say this did not work as per the instructions given but was useful once accessed. Edwards has an appendix of ten favourite Web sites, illustrated by screen dumps, although whose favourites they are and why is not clear. Interestingly, most of them are not listed at all by Nicoll and Ouellette. Edwards' second appendix is subdivided into four sections; profession specific and health related sites, which are listed by subject, and general lists of online journals and searchable databases. The coverage of listservers and newsgroups is probably better than Nicoll and Ouellette, but no criteria are given for how the selections were made. Edwards includes sources on evidence-based practice, grief and health promotion, subjects not included by Nicoll and Ouellette, and Canadian sources indicate the author's origins. Both lists, as would be expected, have an American bias, though some UK sources are given. This reviewer is not about to say which is the 'better' list but the single alphabetical sequence with subject index is the easier to use. Both books would benefit from bibliographies, or even hints at further reading, and indexes of the whole text.

For the real beginner, Edwards might be useful but I suspect many readers would benefit more from the Nurse's Guide to the Internet.

Maurice W. Wakeham MA, Dip.Lib., ALA
Deputy University Librarian
Anglia Polytechnic University, UK

Medicine on the Net & Internet Medicine

Medicine on the Net
COR Healthcare Resources
<URL:http://www.mednet-i.com/sample-issue.htm>

Internet Medicine
Lippincott Raven
<URL:http://www.lrpub.com/imed/>

Introduction

It is an often quoted irony that the Internet, which may be capable of delivery the Holy Grail of the truly digital library, has also caused an explosion in print publishing.

The popular end of Internet-related magazine publishing is particularly overcrowded and several glossy titles vie for pole position (.net, WIRED, Internet World, etc.). Subject-specific periodicals are less common, but in health and medicine there are two newsletters which are aimed at the health professional.

Medicine on the Net is published monthly by COR Healthcare Resources (California, USA). COR publish a range of very focused periodicals, abstracting journals, directories and yearbooks on various topics, especially networking and quality issues in health care.

Internet Medicine is published monthly by Lippincott Raven (Philadelphia, USA). Lippincott are a major publisher, and produce a wide range of health and medical titles, including books, journals, newsletters, and electronic media.

Style and content

Both publications are written in identical styles: deliberately informal, 'newsy' in tone, and aimed more at the coffee table than the current periodicals rack in the Library.

Each issue of Medicine on the Net (MOTN) contains a mixture of longer feature articles, news about Web services and regular items such as an editorial, a question and answer session with a real user, and a Web site of the month.

The feature articles are thought-provoking and deal with major topics of concern. For example, the May 1997 issue discussed the inequality of access to health information on the Internet, while previous issues have offered comparisons of medical search services and discussion of the implication of free MEDLINE on the Web.

MOTN's reviews of sites are short but informative, and they cover more than just the Web: other formats such as e-mail resources are often covered. A recent innovation lists sources in a particular subject area (May 1997 had a guide to 'Statistics in the Internet').

Internet Medicine (IM) is subtitled 'A critical guide' but appears to be covering the same ground as MOTN. Each issue contains short articles, advice on looking for particular types of information (April 1997 advised on job hunting), a Web-related 'Question of the Month' (e.g. should medical practices have a Web site?), and the ubiquitous news and comment about new resources (there are no reviews but many resources are described briefly).

In general, the articles in IM are short and to the point; the April 1997 issue dismissed cancer information on the Web in one and a half pages! IM also contains some interesting general information (the April 1997 issue lists a collection of resources for cheap air travel) and a list of relevant conferences.

Although the content of these two publications is superficially similar, it appears that MOTN is aimed not at the beginner, but firmly at the established Internet user who would like not just to be guided to relevant sites but also to keep abreast of the major issues. In contrast, IM contains many articles which seem to be written for newer users, and each issue is filled with URL's of places to visit.

Production

COR have put far more thought and effort into the design and production of MOTN than Lippincott have given to IM.

MOTN is printed on gloss paper, and is attractively designed and well illustrated in full colour. Recent issues have started to attract some advertising, but this is not too intrusive. Different sections are well defined and there is a detailed contents page.

IM is less smart by comparison, being minimally illustrated in black and white, and with very little colour. Clearly the publishers are hoping that substance will triumph over style, as very little effort has been expended to attract the eye. There are other design faults in addition, for example, most of the articles are split into chunks and distributed over numerous pages, resulting in endless instructions to the reader to 'go to page 10'. A series of punched holes tells us that IM is designed to be placed in a binder of some sort, but I could find no mention of where to order a suitable container.

Supporting resources

Both publications direct the reader to a Web site.

MOTN readers are invited to visit MedNet Interactive, an 'online companion' to the print publication. There is very little of the printed content reproduced online, however, and the main reason for visiting the Web service is to browse the resource reviews from past issues

MedNet Interactive:
<URL:http://www.mednet-i.com/>

Lippincott-Raven have set up a similar service for IM, which also features a discussion forum (although this was extremely quiet at the time this review was written):

Internet Medicine:
<URL:http://www.lrpub.com/imed/>

Comparing the two web sites, MedNet Interactive's link listing is organised by topic, while IM's is organised by issue.

Price

Medicine on the Net costs $99 per annum for non-US subscribers.

Internet Medicine costs $114 (individual) per annum for non-US subscibers or $134 (institution) per annum for non-US subscibers. Free sample issues are available on request.

Verdict

For superior content at a lower price, I would recommend SIM Quarterly readers wishing to subscribe to this sort of publication to choose Medicine on the Net.

Sue Welsh
OMNI Project Manager
Nottingham University, UK

Society for the Internet in Medicine

Comments to: simq@cybertas.demon.co.uk

Copyright © 1997 Society for the Internet in Medicine. All rights reserved.
Date: September 29, 1997
Document URL: http://www.cybertas.demon.co.uk/simq/issue2/reviews.html