MLA CE WEEK 8

This week we are exploring the use of Mashups in Medical Libraries. An introductory article by Allan Cho was quite interesting. Mashups blend several different web applications into one whose sum should be greater than its parts. Healthmap takes global infectious disease data and combines it with Google Maps. It was interesting to see the distribution of outbreaks around the world. I might add this application too our library homepage. The application gives a global perspective but its utility seems limited. The display is very cluttered with the amount of data presented. Additionally, there is no way to separate out and display only one disease at a time and then follow that disease as it spreads over time. What seems to be needed is an approach similar to that used to display weather data. In such an approach specific diseases could be tracked from their point of origin showing their spread over time. One could add additional data such as disease intensity (case severity) etc.

Many of the mashups I looked at seemed irrelevant to Medical Library data. We should know about these so we can assist patrons who are "checking their e-mail in the library". Basically the convenience factor. My mashup won't open can the reference librarian help.

I looked at FREKFLY on the Mashup Awards site (mashupawards.com). This application is supposed to help travelers with data relative to their takeoff and arrival airports: hotels weather photos etc. I was not impressed. Some hotels were listed but no data on price quality etc. Weather data was minimal at best. No data on what to do if you have extra time. The photos were nice (If you like photos of benches at an airport). Basically no quality control just data pulled from different applications and placed randomly on a web page.

I pulled up Gabe's Searchroll on Librarian Blogs. Then I conducted a search through the results looking for privacy. Issue One: The usefulness of this tool really seems to depend on the skill of the person developing the search roll. What are their biases, What sites to they choose to include / exclude, and How knowledgeable are they regarding the existence and quality of potential sites? Issue Two: Display. It is very difficult to determine the content of the sites from the small paragraph that is displayed. You really need to open each site and review its contents to see if what is contained will be use full in fulfilling your information needs.

Overall, Mashups are interesting but seem aimed at social data (what words are being used on Twitter) or they are so crude in the display of the data (just combining large amounts of data with a map) that they are of little use at this time.