Bio-Med Reference

Site statistics

Notice that I have added a small link at the bottom of the page. This is a link to a page which provides you with usage statistics of this website. This includes the number of visitors, their details, the number of views, and various other details. Check it out by clicking on the small globe picture at the bottom of the page.

-Prahlad.

Using RSS feeds

You can feed posts made to one blog onto another using RSS. Now you can see all the posts made on the Biomed blog on Magrath and viceversa. I just thought the sidebar was a better place to put it rather than the post area to differentiate between the posts in the two blogs. Feel free to comment on it and let me know of any changes that are required.

- Prahlad.

Tinkering with the Blog

Hi all,
Just an FYI -- over the next few weeks you may see a handful of odd postings coming over the Bio-Med reference blog. Our new graduate assistant in St. Paul, Prahlad Kilambi, is going to be tinkering with the blog interface to try to accomplish a couple different things. He'll likely be doing some tests in the process. If things pan out, one result might be an ability for us to cross-post items between the Bio-Med and Magrath blogs (since some life science news applies to both staffs).

-Kevin

biomedref blog email notifications -- you've been added

The Bio-Med reference blog is set to go! I have set up everyone who currently works (or recently has worked) at the Bio-Med reference desk to receive email notifications from the blog. For those who weren't at the reference training meeting Wed morning, these notifications simply mean that whenever someone adds an entry to the blog (and then tells the system to "send a notification"), you'll receive an email (like this one) containing the text of the new entry. If you do not want to receive these notifications, just let me know.

If you haven't yet, take a look at the blog at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/staff/biomedref/.

Since the question came up: I have not yet found mention in the blog documentation of an email "digest" capability; I'll keep an eye out for this, though, and will let you all know if I find something. (This would allow you to get all messages posted to the blog in the last 24 hours sent in a single message, rather than trickle in over the course of the day.)

If you've missed the various discussions over the last few weeks about the reasons for setting up this blog, more info is available in the entries currently on the blog site itself. In short, when you have a reference "tidbit" (e.g., info about a resource, update on a problem, alert that a class is coming asking a particular question) to share with the rest of the staff, please enter it as a blog entry. By doing this, we'll develop the blog into a site that we can refer back to it in the future when we have one of those "hey, didn't someone write something about this question in the blog?" moments.

The web site for creating and editing blog entries is bookmarked on the reference machines, and I will post the login info on paper at the desk.

If you have questions about using this system, please get in touch with me. When appropriate I'll post answers here.

-Kevin

Welcome!

Welcome to the Bio-Med reference blog! It is my hope that this reference desk blog will can help us communicate about our reference services at Bio-Med (and at Vet Med -- we'll keep track of proceedings on this blog there as well).

For those who aren't acquainted with what a blog is, and why we might use it, think of a blog as a web-based journal. You can create an entry -- for example, a note that a nursing class has been coming in looking for information on elder care, and we have this list of resources available -- and publish it on the blog. Then the rest of us can visit the blog's web page (which you are looking at) and see that posting, and/or we can arrange to have the new blog entries arrive in any of our email accounts.

Exchanging information via this blog has a couple of advantages I hope we'll take advantage of:

• If we have the blog open at the desk, we can quickly refer to it as needed at the desk, instead of having to open and hunt through our email to find the note we're looking for.
• Since much of the information we exchange is of long-lasting value, the search function of the blog software will likely come very much in handy (again, without trying to hunt something down in Eudora amidst all the other emails).
• You can read or add to the blog at the reference desk, in your office, at home, or even while on vacation in Hawaii! (Though if you do the latter, you can expect to be roundly ridiculed...)
• We may (I have to experiment) be able to share selected blog entries with other library units that have similar reference blogs. Why do this? Well, for example, the entry I wrote several days ago on the St. Paul reference blog about some of our ASM journals being down could have shown up on the Bio-Med blog as well, so that y'all knew what was going on there as well. Lots of other examples of shared interests.

I'd encourage everyone to either:

1. read the blog at the beginning of their reference shift, or
2. get the blog entries emailed to you

Since I hope and suspect most of us will get the entries emailed to us, we'll probably want to avoid writing an entry in the blog, and then going to Eudora and sending the same thing by email ;-)

In either case, you might want to keep the "post an entry" web page open throughout your shift in case you want to post something. The URL for the "post entry" management pages, along with our username/password will be sent out by email to you all, posted at the desk, and bookmarked at the desk (or ask me if you can't find it).

Any reference info or questions (e.g., using indexes, or "why do people keep asking about surface tension? We're tense enough already!") or computer issues that you come across, and think would be of general interest, are fair game for entries. Don't be shy about posting!

Below (that is, my previous post) are some instructions for creating a blog entry, and for getting email notifications. Have fun!

- Kevin

Ground Rules for Security

Because there is nothing preventing someone "off the street" from viewing our blog page -- except for the fact that we won't publicize the URL for the page -- we need to lay a few simple ground rules for using the blog:

• don't mention patrons by name or by obviously identifying information on the blog

• don't give out any computer passwords or other security-sensitive info over the blog
  

Email Notifications from the Blog

If you haven't been added to the email list already, you can choose to have new entries to the blog emailed to you, as they are created. To do this, log in to the blog interface and choose the "notifications" button on the left hand side bar. Type your email address into the indicated field and click "Add to List" and you're set!

If getting emails "from the blog" drives you crazy, you can take yourself off the list as well.

-Kevin

Blog Instructions

Here are some quick, hopefully painless, instructions for creating a blog entry on this blog:

• Log into the blog (URL, username/password for this will be sent by e-mail)

• Click on "New Entry".

• Type a title in the title field (how appropriate...) -- preferably something that will enhance later searching

• Choose a category, if one seems appropriate. You can also assign multiple categories. And, you can create a new category -- though remember the virtues of a well-controlled vocabulary when doing this ;-)

• Enter your message in the "Entry Body" field. Please sign your message here at the end, so others know who wrote it.

• Scroll down the page to the "post status". You should change the post status to publish, as your message won't show on the blog page until you do.

• You can preview (and either Edit or Save on the next screen) or go ahead and Save on this screen. You can always go back and edit later (or delete entirely) if need be.

• After saving, you'll be taken to the entry page again, where you can edit your message. Please note that if you want to enter a second message, you should click the "New Entry" button, not type over your current message, as your current message will be lost.

-Kevin