HealthMap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization). Through an automated text processing system, the data is aggregated by disease and displayed by location for user-friendly access to the original alert. HealthMap provides a jumping-off point for real-time information on emerging infectious diseases and has particular interest for public health officials and international travelers.
Would this mashup be of interest the epidemiological community or infectious disease specialists in a community hospital? I'll be asking.
Creating a YouTube video or linking to an existing one would be a great way of providing instruction via online evidence based practice to hospital staff.
A library blog or Face book page List of New Items could feature photos of dust jackets to give borrowers an "eyeball" view of new books.
Having briefly used Google Documents in the past, I prefer its office tools due to some familiarity although I'd have to practice creating documents this way much more to make the process frustration-free. Confidentiality and security are strong concernscif these tools were to be used in a hospital library setting. It will be necessary to ask IS staff if web office tools have been adopted by other departments within the hospital system.
Social bookmarking could be a great way to add to share library-recommended web pages with medical and hospital staff on a hospital library blog or a library Intranet page.
After working through the course discovery exercises I ask myself: Is social networking appropriate to library use in my hospital? No. I have serious security concerns. The ad for hair loss cream on the MLA Annual Meeting Event Applications page would turn off most potential "friends".
I want to encourage communication and support among library staff at diverse locations within our hospital system. A private interlibrary wiki would allow library staff who are geographically separated come together and collaborate on library issues while maintaining a necessary level of security.
