Friday, 5 October 2007

Blogging assignment 1 - 3 RSS feeds

Having had a week off, I feel that I'm starting from scratch again! I've looked at other peoples blogs to see what information they have included as I didn't find it easy to work out what I needed to add as the link, I've cut and paste the shortcuts to the feeds I wanted from Medworm, but they look different to those from NLH. What am I doing wrong??

I wanted to focus on a specialty in our Trust where I thought the medical staff would be more willing & able to start using RSS feeds. This would be part of the role of the Outreach Librarians here to make contact with different specialties & staff groups and introduce them to the functions and benefits of RSS feeds. This is especially important as we going to reduce print copies of journals to enable us to provide more electronic access across the three sites at Good Hope, Heartlands & Solihull.
I t will, hopefully, soften the blow if we can introduce them to the TOC facility to journals in their field.
I looked at Medworm, which had a comprehensive list of Medical conditions as well as a Publications Directory which also appeared to cover many Ophthalmology journals. I also looked at Medical Feeds, which had a less comprehensive list of feeds in the subject area of Ophthalmology and the TOC had irritating ads within the contents listings.
I didn’t find Technorati any use, I also looked at MedicineNet, but this was also US-based and was aimed at patients rather than staff. I also have used the search facility on Bloglines but don't find that very good either.

I’m attaching the Medworm links from the Publications Directory, to some of the journals that I thought staff here would be most interested in, but there were many others:

British Journal of Ophthalmology
http://www.medworm.com/rss/search.php?qu=British+Journal+of+Ophthalmology&t=British+Journal+of+Ophthalmology&s=Search&f=source

Current opinion in Ophthalmology
http://www.medworm.com/rss/search.php?qu=Current+Opinion+in+Ophthalmology&t=Current+Opinion+in+Ophthalmology&s=Search&f=source

Evidence-based ophthalmology
http://www.medworm.com/rss/search.php?qu=Evidence-Based+Ophthalmology&t=Evidence-Based+Ophthalmology&s=Search&f=source


NLH had two links under the heading Eye Health, which I thought would be useful to the medical staff within Ophthalmology:

Ophthalmic News Feed
http://www.library.nhs.uk/eyes/RSS/CMS.aspx?feed=65

Listed meetings, symposia reports and events from the Royal College of Ophthalmology & Optometrists together with other news items

Eyes & Vision Specialist Library New Content Feed

http://www.library.nhs.uk/eyes/RSS/CMS.aspx?feed=55

This feed did what it said on the tin and linked to new items appearing on the Eyes & Vision Specialist library, including details of articles from Bandolier, NICE & Royal College guidelines, Cochrane reviews and information on upcoming national knowledge weeks on eye topics.

No comments: