Finding and Using Health and Medical Information on the Internet

Citation

Buchanan, J. (2002), "Finding and Using Health and Medical Information on the Internet", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 61-62. https://doi.org/10.1108/prog.2002.36.1.61.12

Two of the authors are medical librarians and the other is a Web master. All have been involved with the development of OMNI and BIOME. This background inevitably leads to a comprehensive, if not encyclopaedic, book on the subject of medical information on the Internet. Among several books, which I have come across on this subject, the present book is unusual both for its thoroughness and for its breadth. The drawback might be that it could be daunting for the student.

Although there are references in the text to “those readers new to the Internet”, the book does seem to assume a reasonably sophisticated experience of medical information and computer literacy already and for this reason might be of greater value to the more Net‐savvy who want to improve their skills. Also the amount of information packed in makes the content inevitably somewhat dense, despite the rather elegant style of writing. Having said this, I wish that it had been available when I started trying to find my way around the Internet.

The book is arranged in three sections: “Internet Quick Tour”; “Finding Information on the Internet” and “Communication”. The first section includes descriptions of useful Web sites, with tables or relevant URLs. I know that such lists are available in various places, but this is particularly well annotated and ranges widely from general reference materials to how to find a job. There are useful sections on the evaluation of sites and how to support evidence‐based health care.

The second section describes a selection of search engines, Web directories and information gateways, giving very detailed notes on searching. The description, for example, of PubMed features is contained in a table over five pages long. Apart from the impressive thoroughness of this, it made me feel dreadfully inadequate. Should I have known all of this? Can I understand all of it? This section also includes bibliographic databases and electronic journals. There is a useful section on how to search the Internet strategically, including interesting warnings about the limits of search engines and the like.

The final section, on communication, covers e‐mail, how to customise your browser and bookmarks. There is a final chapter on creating your own Web site, which once again made me feel inadequate by claiming that “writing simple HTML documents is easy”. For me the relationship between “simple” and “HTML” is somewhat oxymoronic. There was no mention of such useful software as Dreamweaver, which rather surprised me. Perhaps, given the complexity of creating and maintaining a Web site and the fact that the rest of the book is about the consumer rather than the creator of Web sites, this section might have been better left out. The reader interested in Web creation would surely be better advised to get a book on that subject and there is not enough space to do it justice here.

Finally, the book is rounded off with an alphabetical list of links with URLs. In short, this is an excellent book for the information professional, perhaps less useful for the real beginners, particularly as there are other, simpler and less daunting texts available. The people I would really like to see use this book are doctors. Will they come across it, do you think?