Sunday, May 7, 2000	4:30pm – 5:30pm
PH/HA member coordinator: Laurie Isenberg
Tracking the gray literature: Capturing the elusive dragon, Tracking the non-commercially, published literature and making it available. Abstracts	Public Health/Health Administration, Collection Development, Research, Technical Services

Wednesday, May 10, 2000	9:00am – 10:30am
PH/HA member coordinator: Neil Rambo
Outreach to public health professionals; Demystifying the dragon of population-based Service.	Public Health/Health Administration, Nursing and Allied Health Resources, Outreach SIG

Tuesday, May 9, 2000	12:30pm – 2:00pm
Public Health/Health Administration Business Meeting

Tuesday, May 9	2:30pm – 4:30pm
Life-long learning: Information competencies for the health practitioner.	Medical Informatics, Medical School Libraries, Public Health/Health Administration

Tracking the grey literature: capturing the elusive dragon.

How do conventional and fugitive search methods compare across different electronic databases?
Diane Helmer, Mary Doug Wright, & Arminee Kazanjina
BC Office of Health Technology Assessment

Background: While conventional searches uncover literature published in standard indexed journals, fugitive searches can reveal important grey literature which is often elusive. How much elusive grey literature is uncovered through the fugitive search?

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine, for selected fields in health research, how much literature can be uncovered through a fugitive search versus through conventional databases. This study also examines the overlap between conventional and fugitive search results, delineating the most effective search methods.

Methods: A prospective analysis of the literature identified by electronic and fugitive searches was conducted on four projects which reflect the types of studies undertaken by BC Office of Health Technology Assessment. Consistent conventional search strategies and fugitive search strategies were designed and applied to each project.

Conclusion: Preliminary results revealed that MEDLINE produced the highest recall of the total amount of items retrieved for the health services research on depression and hospitalization (59.2%), followed by the fugitive literature (25.7%). These numbers are in stark contrast to those from the acupuncture for detoxification study which was aiming to gather as many randomized controlled trials as possible. The acupuncture fugitive search yielded the highest recall of literature (46.4%) of the total amount of items retrieved, followed by Medline (21.0%) with smaller percentages recorded for other databases. There was overlap in document identification between conventional and fugitive searching techniques (20% overlap for the depression study and 50% for the acupuncture study); however, several fugitive search techniques resulted in unique material not identified with conventional search techniques. Personal communication and a search of specialized databases (e.g. in-house catalogs, web catalogs) were the most effective method of identifying unique material for the depression study, while personal communication and reference lists identified the highest number of unique items for the acupuncture study.

Better read than dead: breathing new life into state morbidity data via the Internet.
Kathryn Kerdolff
Lousiana State University Health Sciences Center Library

Purpose: The intent of this project is to increase access to state health publications, specifically state morbidity data. By indexing the printed Louisiana Morbidity Report, and launching an internet accessible, searchable citation database to the publication, we have created a model for other states.

Brief Description: Public health publications issued by state agencies contain unique primary data that potentially benefits all health care personnel. However, accessing the data included in these publications can be problematic. State health publications have limited distribution and sporadic publishing histories. Title changes are frequent and locating a complete run of the publication is difficult. No state morbidity publication is indexed by any of the major published indexing sources such as MEDLINE or CINAHL. Only two state morbidity publications have been found accessible via the internet, and only one of these was searchable. Despite their problems, these publications offer more complete local information than reported in the United States Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report. Unfortunately, state reports are often overlooked because of their inaccessibility.

Results/Outcome: A web-searchable database has been launched as a model. Indexing individual state publications for web-searchable sites and linking multiple state sites are future goals that will significantly increase accessibility to this gray literature. Internet searchability and indexing using the controlled Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) vocabulary standardizes indexing and would yield greater compatibility of search terms among state databases.

Evaluation Method: Access to state morbidity data will be monitored by the linking feature on the internet. Each state is encouraged to provide either full-text or citation indexing to their morbidity publications. A location for the complete run of the publication will also be linked to the database.

The grey literature report: acquiring, organizing, and making accessible fugitive literature in health policy and public health.
Marie Tomlinson-Ascher
The New York Academy of Medicine

Purpose: This paper will describe the Grey Literature Report, a new quarterly web-based newsletter which announces new acquisitions of fugitive publications in public health and health policy at The New York Academy of Medicine. The paper will describe the process of acquisition, organization, and announcement of grey literature publications.

Setting/Participants/Resources: [masked] is a research institution whose staff focuses on urban health, public health, and health policy. The Library is one of the largest medical collections in the United States. The Library's collection is developed based largely on the needs of Academy staff.

Brief Description: Academy staff and other public health professionals in the area have expressed a need for increased access to grey literature in health policy and public health. A vast amount of material is published in these fields, a large portion of which is technical reports, occasional papers, government documents, and other forms of grey literature. Much of this material is also now published in various places on the web. The author of this paper identifies organizations producing such material and tracks their publications in order to continually acquire new relevant documents for the [masked] collection. When the publications are received, they receive special cataloging treatment, are added to [masked] collection, and are listed on the Grey Literature Report.

Results/Outcome: The first Grey Literature Report was published in August, 1999, at [masked]. Future enhancements should include search capabilities, subscription, and collaboration with or inclusion in other databases such as HealthSTAR.

Evaluation Method: The Grey Literature Report has been well received by [masked] and librarians. Announcement will be made on MEDLIB-L with the publication of the second issue in November. Collected statistics will monitor use, visitors will be asked to sign a guestbook, and subscribers will be asked to complete a satisfaction questionnaire.

Set your sites on MSDS providers
Hongjie Wang
Lyman Maynard Stowe Library, University of Connecticut Health Center

MSDSs (Material Safety Data Sheet) abound in the Internet. A cursory Web Search will generate hundreds of MSDS Web homepages. Before setting out to find MSDSs on the Internet, medical librarians need to assess these MSDS online providers to determine which one to use for comprehensive coverage and ease of search.

First study of its kind, this paper is a sequence to the one conducted three years ago. It compares and updates MSDS providers information on the Web. The method to the study employs four criteria. First, only generic databases are included. Second, databases that have an Internet link but are not publicly available are excluded. Third, only Internet providers with the most comprehensive coverage of MSDSs are covered, and lastly, the most popular database was included despite the small number of MSDSs it

The first section overviews the MSDS history, development and progress. In addition to the definition, function, and purpose of MSDS, this section covers recommended format for MSDS, various types of databases, and criteria for a good MSDS. The second section outlines the research project and the test results. A description of the test procedure is followed by an analysis of the findings. The third section discusses the findings and suggests the need for future study. These three sections, upon explicating the current status of MSDS Internet providers, aim to alert MSDS users to the quality issues of searching MSDS on-line and suggest ways to use them effectively.

Hope to see you all there.