I Love Serials (no, no, really, I do)

In today's episode of "It's Tuesday, so this must be Belgium", a journal in search of an identity:

Previous titles/ISSNs:
0023-023X Ophthalmic Surgery, January 1970-August 1995
1082-3069 Ophthalmic Surgery and Lasers, September 1995-December 2002
1542-8877 Ophthalmic Surgery, Lasers & Imaging, January 2003-December 2012

2325-8160 Ophthalmic Surgery, Lasers & Imaging Retina, effective January 2013

I guess I shouldn't complain, they are keeping Catalogers all over the world gainfully employed just cleaning up after them. But still, does this change really make any difference to your readership?

Xmas Lights

This year's decorations for Christmas, Chanukah, Hanukmas, Christnukah, Festivus, what ever you like to call it. May everyone have a Merry Holiday season. I still limit my wishes to three: Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards Men, and a list of all the Naughty Girls within one mile of my house (but 2 out of 3 wouldn't be bad).

Citizenship – A forgotten duty

This morning (11/16/12) on the Today show, I saw 30 new Americans take the Oath of Allegiance. (That’s the oath that makes them American Citizens.) I was struck by the differences between the Oath of Allegiance, the Oath of Enlistment (taken by everyone enlisting in the Armed Services), and the Oath of Office (taken by Commissioned Officers and also civilian Government Employees). (Yes, that’s right; I’ve taken the last two.)

I have the full forms of all three oaths below. Due to length, I’ll put the last two much further down after the meat of the post. You can read them now or later as you prefer.

[Go ahead if you want to, I’ll wait.] 8-) 

Here’s the Oath of Allegiance:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

The actual legal code is at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2012-title8-vol1/xml/CFR-2012-title8-vol1-sec337-1.xml  (There are exceptions for religious reasons)

Here’s what is in that Oath, but isn’t in the Oath of Enlistment or Oath of Office:

… that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;

…that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law;

That first part makes sense. To become a citizen here, you have to ‘un-become’ a citizen somewhere else. It’s that second part that makes me say “Wow! That’s some heavy shit, dude.”

(Yes, I’m 50. Put your own age appropriate exclamation there if you if you want to, that’s mine.)

 New Citizens are required to swear they will fight for this country, if able, or perform some other public service if they can’t bear arms.

I was born here. I have sworn to support & defend the laws of the US. I have picked up arms on behalf of the US. No one ever made me swear that I was willing to do so.

So, what am I getting at? We make people that want to join our country swear to do something that no one has made any citizen swear to. Even the 12% that have borne arms for the country never had to promise to do so. I’m not speaking out either for or against that, I’m just commenting - “Wow! That’s some heavy shit, dude.”

[12.1% of the US Population is a Veteran. By state, the top 5 are Alaska, Mont., Maine, VA, & WY (all over 14%). The bottom 5 are Utah, CA, DC, NJ, & NY. (All under 10% of their populations) NY, the least, is at 7.9% of the population.]

I’m a little late on the Veterans’ Day wishes, but thanks to all who have made that commitment.

Here’s a toast to absent warriors. We’ll reunite again on the Plains of Megiddo. <Pours a little Whiskey on the ground; drinks the rest in one gulp.> (Don’t ask why. I’ll never be able to explain. I haven’t the words for those that don’t understand; I need no words for those that do.)

<Present… Arms!> <two>

 Thank You!

Here’s the Oath of Enlistment taken by everyone enlisting in an armed service of the United States:

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/subtitle-A/part-II/chapter-31

The Oath of Office (for Commissioned officers and civilian Government employees) is slightly different:

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/part-III/subpart-B/chapter-33/

The Age Game

I played the coolest game on FaceBook yesterday. I can't figure out how it hasn't gone viral, but you just never know what'll strike a chord.

Here's how you play, someone randomly selects an Age for you and you post in your FB status what you remember of that year in your life. How many of you have FB friends that you went to High School or College with, but you know next to nothing of what has happened to them in the intervening time. This game is a great way to fill in those blanks.

Here's what I wrote:

When I was 30:
I was a Weather Forecaster in the Air Force assigned to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma City, OK. I'd met my wife, Joyce, the previous Summer out dancing at one of the clubs in town. (Country if you don't know) That Fall, we'd moved in together in a rental house just blocks from the base.

At my 30th birthday, we'd just returned from a multi-week trip, driving from OK to Florida to visit my Parents and Sister and then up to Virginia to visit Joyce's Sister, her husband, & kids. It was the second time around for both of us, so there weren't a lot of nerves involved in the respective meet the family. Also, I'd already met Joyce's Sister Louise in Ada, OK & her Dad in Arkansas, so this was just more of the same. On the way back, we spent a few days in Nashville being tourists. We saw the taping of a Statler Brothers' Christmas show and a Crook & Chase show that featured Little Texas.

As work goes, being in Tornado Alley, we'd just received the first working model of NexRad, the first Doppler radar. The prototype had been tested at Tinker and the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, OK. NexRad had dial-up capability to connect to radar antennas at other locations, so we were the first to be able to connect to antennas at Tinker and at Norman to watch storms from both sides. But most interesting to me, I had the best winter weather forecast I ever wrote. In a forecast written 18 hours before the snow started, I had forecasted the start time of snowfall at Tinker to within 1 minute of actual start time. (Since Base Ops had a big window facing the runway, we knew the start times that accurately.)

In all, I think 30 was a good year for me. Life was starting over again with a new wife, new family members, lots of friends, and plenty to do both at work and at play.

Want to play? You can find me on FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/jules.shore Ask me to generate a random age for you and then post your memories as your status. Be sure to tag me so I can see what you wrote.

Want to read more posts. I've shared global posts from friends to my Timeline on FaceBook.

My Weekend: Tales of the Pale Rider

This is the story of my weekend. At the end of my workday Friday, I found out my Brother-in-Law, H, returned home from work to find his wife, D, collapsed in a heap between her bed and her wheelchair. H did all of the usual things to get the situation under control, eventually ending with an ambulance trip to the nearest hospital. On Saturday my wife and I joined them at the UVA Hospital where they had been transfered. I spent Saturday night / Sunday morning at that hospital while H got a chance to go home. It is nothing new for me to assist in D's care. My wife and I have spent a week doing it while H was on an important business trip. But that is not what this story is about. 

My readers, I present a discussion about the end of a relative's life. We will all eventually die. Regardless of your personal plans, I'm very certain of this. This is the story of my weekend. The end of the story isn't here. That's still to be determined. However, there is an important thought here that applies to your life too. Can you identify how my Sister in Law's life has affected yours?

A little history for those new to the story. My Sister in Law, D, is 72 years old. Her medical history includes 2 Strokes, 4 TIA (minor strokes with no long term effects), Coronary bypass and pacemaker, and Spinal Stenosis that was fixed by metal cage in her neck, but can’t be fixed in her lumbar region due to scoliosis (non-standard spinal curvature). Because of the stenosis, she’s on significant pain killers. She’s been basically bed-ridden for the last 2 years. She uses an electric wheelchair in her house, but has been able to transfer herself from bed to chair and back again. Recently, she’s only had an average of 2 good hours a day. (Hours that she is totally alert and aware; able to act and interact.) 

The family has known that D’s time is limited, but whether her strokes or her spinal stenosis would kill her was unknown. Following the collapse, we've discovered a third disease process in the race that is guaranteed to win.

D was bleeding profusely from her bladder. Ultrasound and CT scans discovered a mass in her bladder approximately softball sized. While no biopsy has been performed, it is presumed to be cancerous, since the odds of it being benign are <5 %. 

Because of D’s various medical conditions, the usual surgery to remove the bladder is not being suggested at all. Instead, doctors are investigating the probability of successful endoscopic surgery to investigate whether the tumor can be cut from the bladder wall and removed. If the surgery is too risky or the tumor cannot be removed from the bladder wall, the two other choices are to allow the bladder to clot closed and either drain the kidneys via external tubes (in the back) or do nothing to drain the kidneys. The later will result in death within 6 weeks by potassium overload of the cardiac system (Yes, the pacemaker would be turned off to allow this to happen naturally.) 

We know D’s wishes. Her husband, H, has both Legal and Medical Power of Attorney and D long ago filed Do Not Resuscitate orders. The adult children understand this and have prepared the grandchildren as best the children are able to understand.

That is the story to date. Tomorrow there will be a conversation between the various involved doctors and the family. The wishes of the family are for D to be as comfortable as possible in the time she has left.

Did you discover the moral of the story? Yes, Readers, your end is just down the road too. None of us know the end of our days. 10 minutes after I've posted this, a meteorite from the Orionid Meteor Showers could have crashed thru my roof and killed me. Worse, it could have left me alive but unable to communicate my wishes. So, DO IT NOW!!! Wait, did you hear me??? DO IT NOW! Make sure your loved ones know your thoughts about the end of life. 

How hard do you want them (us?) to fight? Are you ready for the journey to end? What still needs to be done? Why are you waiting? The Rider of the Pale Horse is on the road. Is he on the way to your house?

Letter to the Editor - Journal of Hospital Librarians​hip

Dear Editor,

 

I've just finished reading Christine Marton's series of articles on the Online Presence of Medical Library Web Pages (1-3). I am a Librarian at a nationally recognized medical library, however regulations don't allow me to identify which one. Since clever readers will be able to identify me eventually, I must state here that this is my opinion and does not reflect the views of my employer. My place of employment is not one of the Libraries discussed in any of these articles, so this isn't just 'sour grapes'. In fact, my Library isn't even attached to a Hospital.

 

According to Ms. Marton's bio page at the University of Toronto (http://www.ischool.utoronto.ca/faculty/christine-marton ) primary interest is "the online health information behaviour of specific population demographics, primarily women and cancer patients."

 

Reading these complaints against the top 10 facilities in the United States, it is obvious that her interest is not Medical Libraries in the US. I contend her initial hypothesis is entirely wrong. The whole study was designed around finding links to the Medical Libraries at these locations for public health information. Why does she suppose that Hospital based Medical Libraries are bastions of Public Health Information? The United States has a variety of Medical Libraries and even those attached to major Hospitals may not undertake Dissemination of Public Health Information as one of their missions.

 

The National Library of Medicine ( http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hsrph.html ) provides a link to http://phpartners.org/ for Public Health Information. PhPartners identifies itself as "A collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations and health sciences libraries."  The FAQs do not list any Hospital Libraries as partners. They also list their goals as:

• Organize and deliver public health resources so they are easier to find and use.
• Identify and develop collaborative projects to meet the information needs of the public health workforce.
• Increase the visibility of the partnership with librarians and the public health workforce.
• Increase the information literacy of the public health workforce.
• Strengthen the collaboration among the Partners.

I don't see Hospitals listed in the goals nor Libraries. I see "Increase the visibility of the partnership with librarians" which I paraphrase as 'let Librarians know we exist'. I don't see that anyone is pushing the theory that Hospital Libraries are supposed to be a source of Public Health Information except Ms. Marton. I see a lot of support for Government sites providing Public Health information. In Ms. Marton's article, she repeatly mentions the number of sites linking to the best known and best reviewed government source -- MEDLINEplus.

 

I believe the top 10 Hospitals in America are those that provide the best service to their patients. They are almost all heavily involved in the training of upcoming medical professionals. Their Libraries, accordingly, are directed at the Medical Professionals especially Medical School Students. Ms. Marton's articles point out very well how well linked some of these Libraries are to the departments they support. She doesn't seem to notice that the separate websites of those Libraries often tell you their primary goals or function. For example, Ms. Marton identifies Johns Hopkins' Welch Medical Library web site - http://welch.jhmi.edu/welchone/. For some reason I don't understand, she doesn't mention the giant banner on that page that reads: "Welch Medical Library  Serving the faculty, students & staff of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions".  That's a pretty obvious mission statement and it doesn't include the words Patients or Public.

 

The Mayo Clinic Library site's About page ( http://www.mayo.edu/library/about ) does mention patients. "Mayo Clinic Libraries is dedicated to meeting the information needs of Mayo Clinic employees, students, and patients." However further down the page they tell us that their system is really split into multiple libraries; a system for researchers & students and a separate set of patient & consumer resources. "Although Mayo Clinic maintains a private library system, visiting students and health care professionals are most welcome to use the traditional and electronic collections on-site. Specialized libraries serving hospitalized patients and their families, consumer health libraries, and special collections and archives related to the history of medicine and the history of Mayo Clinic are also available."

 

Third ranked Mass General's Library site - http://www.massgeneral.org/services/libraries.aspx - is the first one that specifically states its goal is to support patients. While Ms. Marton decries the Library's placement on the third level of links, she doesn't seem to mind that all of the departments, Oncology, Gynecology, Neurology, etc, are also on the third level. The third navigation level is the first one to offer any webpage links. The first two levels show organization of the web pages into discreet sections. In talking about this third ranked major hospital, Ms. Marton missed the mark by the widest margin. Mass General doesn't have a Medical Library in the sense of a Library that caters to Medical Professionals. That Library is the Boston Medical Library - https://www.countway.harvard.edu/bml/index.htm. They jointly support the Medical Schools of Harvard, Boston U, Tufts, & U Mass. Mass General Hospital has three libraries to serve patient's needs; two are for entertainment and one for public health information. Doctors would contact BML for their information needs.

 

In summary, Ms. Marton is applying a public health principal that simply doesn't exist in this instance. The Medical Libraries associated with these top three hospitals, and I'll warrant the top ten too, don't exist for public health information. Since that isn't their goals, the Medical Library isn't a major portal on their institution website. Of course  Ms. Marton's searches for Hospital Medical Library on the Public web site of these Hospitals didn't find the Public Health Information she wanted. She was looking in the wrong place. The Medical Libraries that don't provide patient support are on the Intranet, not Internet.

 

By the same token, you're not going to find links to the Staff Library at my institution on our Public Website. It isn't for the public. From the Intranet, I can find all of the resources.

 

Ms. Marton, you are looking in the wrong place for the information you seek. To decry the Hospital Libraries for not meeting your goals when you aren't a patron of any of those Libraries is the worst form of prejudice. You are judging these Libraries by your standards, not by their goals. When they are meeting their goals, which don't include you, you say they aren't doing their job. I'm sorry, but those Libraries need to be judged on their stated goals and not yours.

 

Regards,

J.

 

J. Shore

Systems Librarian

7shore@gmail.com

@7shores on Twitter

 

1. Christine Marton (2012): Invisible: The Online Presence of Medical Library Web Pages on Hospital Web Sites, Journal of Hospital Librarianship, 12:1, 14-24. 
2. Christine Marton (2012): The Online Presence of Hospital Medical Librarians on Hospital Web Sites, Journal of Hospital Librarianship, 12:2, 171-180. 
3. Christine Marton (2012): The Online Presence of Information Services at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Journal of Hospital Librarianship, 12:4, 342-350.

Pipsqueak passing out candy

I entered my picture of Pipsqueak passing out candy in a Petsmart contest. Please vote via FaceBook at
http://apps.facebook.com/monstercute/showentry?entryurl=%2Fcontests%2Fshowentry%2F1325018&ref=nf

Thanks.