Electronic media and information is being created at a faster pace than ever before and copyright law becomes murkier with every new advance in communications technology. The Library of Congress has launched a new public Web site to cover the groundbreaking work of a special independent committee.
By 2006, this committee will recommend changes to copyright law that recognize the need for exceptions to the law for libraries and archives in the digital age.

The site offers the group’s mission statement, its schedule of meetings and links to relevant sections of the Copyright Act. The site also offers links to background papers pertinent to libraries and archives and the rights issues they encounter when working with digital materials.

The 140 year old Quekett Microscopical Club is an amazing resource that strives to remain connected to its roots as an organization devoted to amateur scientists. They meet once a month at London’s Natural History Museum.

Founded in 1865, the Club is second only in seniority to the Royal Microscopical Society, but the first members deliberately chose to call themselves a ‘Club’ rather than a society to emphasize the amateur nature of the membership. Nonetheless we are both a registered charity and a ‘learned society’ and our Journal is a reputable scientific publication, citable in other journals and papers. We also publish a less formal Bulletin, full of tips, hints and articles, as well as reports of our regular monthly meetings, and of course, this Web Site.

Other membership benefits include a lending library, a slide borrowing program, lectures and excursions. They also hold an annual exhibition:

…this is the Big One! Held in October at the Natural History Museum, members make a special effort to mount exhibits ranging from magnificent Victorian instruments to live material and video microscopy.

The California State Fair and the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine merge media technology, public education and livestock health with VetLiNC (Veterinary Livestock Nursery Cameras), an interactive Web view of the popular State Fair Livestock Nursery exhibit. http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/statefair/
The School has installed three interactive Web cameras inside the Livestock Nursery to display live video of newborn farm animals and their mothers. Website visitors may choose which animals to view, and then zoom, pan and tilt the cameras over the animal pen area. There is a PigCam, a SheepCam, and a CowCam. The webcams are operable during daylight hours during the State Fair, August 5th - Sept. 5th.

The Livestock Nursery is an important part of the school’s education and outreach program. At frequently scheduled presentations, a veterinarian or veterinary student introduces members of the public to livestock agriculture. Visitors learn about the health and welfare of food animals giving birth at the fair.

(more…)

The mission of the Telemedicine Information Exchange is to be “an unbiased and all-inclusive platform for information on telemedicine and telehealth.” The TIE was created and is maintained by the Telemedicine Research Center with financial support from the National Library of Medicine.

The list of what’s available on the site includes:

• A bi-monthly column covering what’s new in the world of telemedicine.
• A searchable database of 16151 citations (many with abstracts).
• A searchable database of 217 active telemedicine programs.
• A list of funding sources for telemedicine and telehealth activity

The other sections of the site are: Journals; Legislative, Legal and Policy Issues; Vendors; Home Health; Links; Jobs; and Telemedicine 101. Seems pretty all-inclusive to me.

(One of the many benefits of HeSCA membership is the vast collection of knowledge and experience accessible through the association listserve. I’d like to thank Lillian Scanlon for bringing this resource to my attention when responding to another member’s request for information on the listserve.)

Researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial involving 217 patients and found that the videotape and clinical encounter significantly increased knowledge and decreased anxiety. Improvement in knowledge levels was significantly greater after viewing the videotape compared with the clinic visit, whereas anxiety levels decreased to a greater degree after the clinical encounter. Whether or not a synergistic relationship may exist between exposure to an educational videotape and a physician visit was not specifically evaluated in this study.

Source: Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology

Medical imaging technology in the service of art:

“In January 2004 the artist swallowed a pill-sized camera that photographically auto-documented its journey through his body, taking 65,000 photographs. During its seven and a half hour journey as an ingested agent it traveled the passage where food and fluid are converted into energy and waste material. As a satellite of the internal world, it transmitted whilst worming its way by peristaltic, muscular contractions.

Performed at MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome - September 2004, Curated by Valentina Valentini.”

There is a also web version available that requires a long horizontal scroll.