RE: Health Information Needs

["Mcsean, Tony (ELS)" <T.Mcsean@elsevier.com>]

My main point is that for people outside the research community with a
sudden and urgent need to acc.  It is the key factor in connecting them
with relevant, quality information in a form they can assimilate at a time
when they may be under severe emotional stress.  Mediation by a
professional librarian, face to face or via patient-oriented web sites, is
by far their best chance of being connected to the right research whatever
publishing model is in place.  And I'm not primarily thinking of, say, the
physics prof who gets unwelcome news at an annual health check, but of
regular people who've never needed to understand the distinction between
textbooks and bound research journals.  It's why libraries and librarians
are important.

Tony McSean
Director of Library Relations
Elsevier

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Kent Mulliner
Sent: 28 July 2005 23:12
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Health Information Needs

I find that myself in disagreement with Richard Feinman and Tony McSean as
to the necessity of mediation.  As a librarian, I thought of the
profession as gate openers, not gate keepers--especially with the
expansion of electronic resources, and a reason why I championed the "big
deal."  While many may need or prefer mediation is not disputed, rather
why does everyone need to be mediated?  I earlier referred to substantial
efforts to lead prostate cancer patients to original research (especially
as the fundamental treament protocol relies on an informed decision by the
patient--and health care providers in this area strongly tend to recommend
their particular modalities--a bias that access to actual research affords
an alternative).

To me, mediation is like sitting on the beach and introducing people to the
ocean by offering them a tablespoon of sea water.  In opposition to Fineman,
I especially think that the primary justification for NIH support of open
access is the public's right to know.  We paid for the research and have a
right to know what was found.  Other than from an intellectual perspective,
I see no comparable basis for insisting that research results be shared only
with other researchers.

Kent Mulliner        Phone: 740-742-2650
Rutland, OH 45775-9675
mulliner@ohio.edu


Quoting Richard Feinman <RFeinman@downstate.edu>:

   [snip]

> I think that the major argument for OA, made in this listserv before, 
> is that researchers need access -- and need to be accessed.  Patients 
> will benefit from increased communication between scientists but it 
> seems claiming that patients need it directly is not really up front.  
> It has always seemed to me that it was a political tactic and since it 
> can be effectively answered as below, it doesn't seem like a good tactic.
> 
> Feinman Department of Biochemistry SUNY Downstate Medical Center 
> ______________________________
> 
> "Mcsean, Tony (ELS)" <T.Mcsean@elsevier.com> Sent by: 
> owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> 07/26/05 05:57 PM
> 
> [snip]
> 
> What we need to recognise as publishers and librarians is that 
> whatever a lay person's medical information needs, to satisfy them 
> effectively and in a reasonable time they are going to need the 
> intervention of an information professional of some sort to make sense 
> of what's out there and to sort the science from the pyramidology.  
> This in turn plugs them into on-site access (and it is a rare and grim 
> medical librarian who turns someone away in these circumstances 
> whatever the Library Rules might say) and to the highly effective ILL 
> network. In my view OA in all its forms is peripheral to this process 
> and that the real every day supporting work is done by those who work 
> in patient self-help groups and in specifically patient-oriented 
> information services such as the UK's Help For Health and its giant
> offspring NHS Direct Online.
> 
> Tony McSean Director of Library Relations Elsevier