BIOME Evaluated Internet Resources in the Health and Life Sciences

1. BIOMEEvaluated Internet Resources in the Health and Life Sciences Health and Life Sciences Online

2. Overview • Development of BIOME • Concerns about quality • BIOME subject scope • Searching and browsing BIOME • Practical Session

3. eLib, OMNI and the RDN • Electronic Libraries programme (eLib) began in 1994 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/ • Development of a number of “subject gateways” – OMNI, SOSIG, EEVL • 1998 – call for proposals to extend the work of the subject gateways • Led to the development of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) http://www.rdn.ac.uk/

4. RDN Hubs The RDN comprises a number of subject ‘Hubs’ • BIOME – health and life sciences • SOSIG – social sciences, law and business • EEVL – engineering, maths and computing • HUMBUL – humanities • PSIgate – physical sciences • ALTIS – sports, tourism and leisure • GEsource – geography and environment • Artifact – creative arts and industries

5. Quality • Many concerns about the quality of information on the Internet • Transitory nature • Ease of self publishing • Lack of peer review or editorial processes

6. Quality • Concerns associated with the use of popular search tools • Output lacks context • Large numbers of hits • No quality control • Easy to manipulate – word spamming

7. BIOME • BIOME was launched 2000 • Free access to a collection of hand selected, evaluated, quality Internet resources in the health and life sciences • Aimed primarily at the UK HE and FE communities, but attracts users from other communities including the NHS

8. BIOME Partners • University of Nottingham (core team) • National History Museum • Reading University • Oxford University • Royal Free Hospital • Royal Veterinary College • Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons • Royal College of Nursing • Royal College of Midwives • Chartered Society of Physiotherapy • University of the West of England, Bristol

9. BIOME Subject Scope BIOME comprises six subject gateways • OMNI – Health and Medicine • NMAP – Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health • BioResearch – Biological Sciences • AgriFor – Agriculture, Food and Forestry • VetGate – Animal Health • Natural Selection – the Natural World

10. Searching BIOME • Can be done at the BIOME level or at the individual gateway level • Searching the title, description, and keywords • Simple search – includes “phrase searching” and Boolean searching (using AND, OR) • Advanced search – can limit by resource type, gateway, and choose how the results are displayed

11. Searching BIOME – refining your search • If you retrieve too many results make your search more specific - search for heroin rather than drugs - add a second term - don’t use very general terms (journal, health, Nursing) • If you retrieve too few results make your search broader - use the term “rare diseases” instead of “Gardner Syndrome”

12. Browsing • Browsing is only possible at the individual gateway level - different thesauri and classification schemes are used by the different subject gateways • Can browse by keyword (thesaurus term) or by classification scheme

13. Browsing

14. Other Features of the BIOME site • Virtual Training Suite tutorials – 8 free tutorials teaching Internet information seeking skills • BIOME-hosted services – PsiCom, MedHist, and Bioethics • RGA for Health and Life Sciences

15. Useful contacts and Urls • BIOME http://biome.ac.uk and for background information http://biome.ac.uk/about/ • General enquiries help@biome.ac.uk • Requests for leaflets and other promotional materials leaflets@biome.ac.uk • To submit a site – choose the relevant gateway and select the submit button from the top tool bar • BIOME Service Manager - Donald MacKay dmm@biome.ac.uk