Eahil 2008 Helsinki

Conference blog is closed

2008-08-27T13:13:00.003+03:00

The conference blog is now closed. A big thank you for all the conference attendants and those who have written and commented on the blog. See you next year in Dublin!

Conference Website moved

2008-08-11T12:47:00.001+03:00

The conference website has been moved under EAHIL.net. See http://www.eahil.net/conferences_eahil.htm

Slides and fulltexts on the web

2008-07-04T14:48:00.002+03:00

EAHIL 2008 Helsinki Conference slides and fulltexts have now been added to the scientific programme homepage:

https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/EAHILScientificProgramme/Home

Some of the authors have notified, that their fulltext will be a bit late. So in case the text you are interested in is now missing, it is worthwhile to take a look at the page again later.

Many thanks for all the conference participants!

Pirjo Rajakiili
Chair of the International Programme Committee

Best Oral Presentations and Best Posters

2008-07-02T15:06:00.005+03:00

During the General Assembly on Saturday 28.6. the Best Oral Presentation, Best "EAHIL first time" oral presentation, Best poster presentation and Best "EAHIL first time" poster presentation got awards.

Arne Jakobsson lead the evaluation process, and the evaluation team worked hard during the whole conference.

Following presentations were awarded, and as a prize the presenting authors got free registration for Dublin EAHIL Workshop 2009 or Lisbon EAHIL Conference 2010.

Best oral presentation:
EMBASE dot com: strength and weaknesses; a comparison, Dieuwke L. Brand-de Heer, Suzanne Bakker (The Netherlands)

Best "EAHIL first time" oral presentation:
Placing the academic library at the centre of veterinary PhD students'
training, Christine Brouwir, Sandrine Vandenput, Michel Maas, Nancy Durieux, Nicolas Fairon, Francoise Pasleau (Belgium)

Best poster presentation:
Personal professional development and skills transferring, Tuulikki Airaksinen, Kirsi Salmi (Finland)

Best "EAHIL first time" poster presentation:
The Danish Hospital Licence Consortium, Hanne Christensen, Conni Skrubbeltrang, Ilse Schødt (Denmark)

As members of the poster evaluation team - together with Elisabeth Akre and Manuela Colombi - we can only say, that since the quality of of the posters was very high, it was not easy to pick up the winners. As a tool for evaluation the evaluation forms [poster evaluation criteria] [oral presentation evaluation criteria] were used.

Congratulations for the awarded presentation and poster authors!

Katja Hilska and Katri Larmo

Saturday: General Assembly: EAHIL Awards for Linda Lisgarten and Ulrich Korwitz

2008-06-28T12:43:00.006+03:00

The EAHIL Award 2007 goes to Linda Lisgarten for her continous work for the association (and I can only stress that point as she's a great colleague of mine at the editorial board of JEAHIL).

Ulrich Korwitz gets the EAHIL Award 2008 for his outstanding work (and even struggle) for achieving an high standard in copyright and interlibrary loan! Congratulations!!

Friday: Gala Dinner / Three rules

2008-06-28T12:22:00.011+03:00

The gala dinner allowed for topic-free (and even sense-free) discussion and so it's no surprise that we came up with some brilliant ideas worthwile to share with you:

1. Three rules of library marketing (brought to us by the famous V&A sisters from Shefield)

Doctors: Make them think your'e an important person.
Nurses: Make them think you're ~~a nurse~~ like them. (see also commentary)
Students: Make them think you have a lot of give-aways. (but don't give them your cell phone number)

2. Three rules for music at a gala dinner (brought to us by a famous German dancer)

If you want to empty the dance floor, play three slow love songs in a row.
If you play (or pretend to play) traditional finnish songs, make a bid for the farewell ceremony.
If you want to make it a success, play sirtaki at the end.

3. Three rules to make friends among Finnish people
(brought to us anonymously)

People are different. Don't generalize. Not every Finn descends from the mongolian (even if he looks like).
Each Finn is 75% extroverted and 25% introverted. Check his mood before any conversation. Dancing should be handeld even more carefully.
Finns like to laugh a lot, so: If you are not that smart guy you pretend to be, learn some jokes by heart in advance.

If you have some 3-rules too, please don't hesitate to write them as a comment, I will add them.

Saturday: F1 - New technologies - Web 2.0

2008-06-28T09:21:00.005+03:00

Only some short remarks, as I was the cheerleader of this session :-)

Dorine Kieft-Wondergem (The Netherlands): How to use Web 2.0 technologies in you library instructions

Use NETVIBES! It's so easy and just fun (and you can offer cute customized pages to your users)! As Guus added (see commentary), the EAHIL2008 Netvibes portal can be found at:

http://www.netvibes.com/eahil2008

Join and be an active part of the growing EAHIL2008 Web2.0-Community!

Giovanna F. Miranda, Francesca Gualtieri, Paolo Coccia (Italy): The revolution of the Web 2.0 in the library and information services

This was a comprehensive and well-thought paper which should have been taught at the very beginning of the conference. One thing really excites me: Because of the large number of different Web 2.0 applications, librarians are just not capable of knowing every single one of them in advance. So that's quite annoying or even anxiousing. In former times every librarian know every tool or database in advance to the user's request. This was his task and for that we was educated quite well. Now we have a somewhat big level of uncertainty, what will the user bring with him, what he will use, what he is used to. So what to do? Obviously, librarians have to show some attitude of ambiguity but also be familar with the basic tools (like Flickr, delicious, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, RSS and so on) and be flexible to quickly learn other tools as well.

Nicola Foxlee, Pauline Ford (Australia): Using your bite: a collaborative approach to evaluating improvement in information literacy skills using Web 2.0 technologies for dental and oral health students : a pilot study

At the beginning of her speech, that remarkable abroad-experienced lady (UK, Aus, CN, Fiji), recommended to just relax and enjoy her speech, which I was only to willingly to follow. So please forgive me that - after a heavy Gala Dinner - I just put some parts of my brain on Auto-Pilot. ;-)

From now on, please use only electric toothbrushes! Nicky will definitely control your oral health at Brisbane 2009 and made a EBLIP study out of it!

Saturday: Plenary Session III

2008-06-28T09:10:00.011+03:00

Eero Hyvönen, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland: HealthFinland - Finnish Health Information on the Semantic Web

Eero (actually from the Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo), Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), Laboratory of Media Technology, University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science - wow!) speaks on a prototyp semantic web, the so called HealthFinland. It's goal is to collect and distribute information on Finnish Health Information on the Semantic Web (there's also a book on this).

When listening to such systematic, all comprehensive-to-be large project, I'm always feel afraid on the immense engagement and money needed for just that simple access to information. But access to information is not that simple anymore, as librarians should know. Google has to do so much in the background to provide that search engine - and then we call it "simple"!

The promotion tells us: "There is an abundance of health-related information available on the Internet, but finding relevant information using traditional search engines remains a challenge. A lot of information is published through isolated web sites - "silos" of content that seldom link to each other. The information will be collected from a diverse group of sources including expert organizations, governmental institutes and non-govermental organizations. A quality control process will ensure that all information published through the portal is accessible, easy to understand, relevant to the topic, and factually correct. All content will be linked together using semantic web technologies: a common set of subject ontologies (YSO, MeSH, TESA) will allow the portal to link information from different sources, and ontological reasoning will be used to guide the user to relevant resources."

Lotta Haglund (Speaker] & David Herron, Karolinska Institutet University Library, Sweden: Implementing EBLIP to stimulate professional development

EBLIP (Evidence Based Librarianship Information Practice) is regarded as too time consuming to be put into practice (yeah, that's true). I quit for now - Please follow Lars' report on Lotta's talk at Nowherenorth.

Now, Lars found her cute youtube video for marketing the EBLIP5 conference in Stockholm next year (this post is in itself a proof of viral marekting, as the video infects blogs after blogs):

Friday: E1 - Virtual communities - Changing information services

2008-06-27T16:15:00.005+03:00

Anne Collins, Isla Kuhn[Speaker], Peter Morgan (UK): Making a virtue out of virtual communities: working electronically with an advisory panel of library users.

Problems with existing user groups and library committees at the Medical Library at Cambridge University:

- poorly attended
- reverse volunteerism
- overcrowded agenda

Promises (to get participants):
- no meetings!
- opinion gathering function
- not to be a formal representative ("What did you think?")
- eager to have a two-way dialogue
- they didn't have to answer the question, no pressure
- fairly informal

They've got 46 faces "behind the voices". Mostly NHS Hospital and Univ Cambridge, less NHS regional and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

First questions were:
- journal consultation
- library closure on public holiday
- closure for stock check
- social networking

Friday: E2 - New technologies - Mobile applications

2008-06-27T15:51:00.006+03:00

Lars Iselid (Sweden): Is there a mobile challenge for the libraries? - Mobile web 2.0 and the future of mobile access to content

| View | Upload your own

Lars, nobody can live blog this guy. But if, he will loose everything worthwile to mention: The vivid, surprising style of this Police-addicted swinging, swedish Linux-guy. Just great! Elisabeth Husem right away recommend him for keynote presentations. Lars' message: Keep on following the (coming and/or already present) mobile web, especially Google's ANDROID.

Paula Saraiva (Portugal): Change to a mobile environment: PDA reference services at the Library!

Paula compared PDA usage in 62 European and 17 oversee libraries. Especially she distinguished between user-owned vs. library-offered applications. She made a SWOT analysis on the "Benefits on using PDA's in Clinical Practice" and on "Implementing PDA Services in Libraries" with exciting outcomes. Respective threats were battery life resp. anxious staff.

She sees PDA services as excellent opportunities of innovation in health libraries. The use of PDAs in daily clinical practice increased productivity, better communication, immediate assistance, decrease of medical errors, integration with clinical decision making system and medical records.

she conclude, that all health libraries agreed to the benfits of PDA implementation and technological infrastructures are not the main constraint against that goal, but library budgets, staff resistance, and lack of appropriate applications.

Using PDA's in medicine is an irreversible process.

Friday, a pick from D1 Evidence-based practice 2: a clinical librarian

2008-06-27T14:55:00.002+03:00

Clinical librarians as facilitators for an evidence-based nursing practice: clinical librarians in clinical wards. Sylvia Määttä, Gudrun Wallmyr, Maria Bohlin (Sweden)

Maria works as a clinical librarian (CL) in a hospital ward. She attends rounds regularly and is a familiar sight in a ward. Her services include:
- doing searches and putting reports together
- holding seminars in critical appraisals
- "Book a librarian" for face-to-face session
- "Call a librarian" for immediate help
- newsletter by e-mail
- information search request forms on the intranet

At first CL was a bit of an outsider, as she was a new and an unusual person in a ward. Nowadays she is seen as a catalyst: when CL and nurses collaborate, the use of evidence-based information has increased.

Friday: D2 - Virtual communities - Changing Library Space

2008-06-27T14:47:00.010+03:00

Wouter Schallier, Jens De Groot[Speaker] (Belgium): Experimenting with scientific information. The biomedical library as an information lab

They reduced space by reducing the numbers of paper subscriptions. From 1.200 subs in 2005 they intend a reduction to only 200 in 200andsomething. They reduced binding too. Furthermore there saving space through collaboration among flemish academic libraries. Such as in Swiss, one out of of five libraries is responsible for preserving copies for a specific title. The other could eliminate them. (In Germany we have the National Library of medicine, Cologne, fortunately, which has this responisbility for the whole country.)

In contrast, the number of visitors to the library rised incredible. But we didn't have enough chairs (212), so students will leave the library if they don't find a free one. That's obviously a great loss of potential users. Library change from an information collector to an information facilitator (gatekeeper).

We should bring students, faculty and library staff together in one place in new ways of teaching and e-learning.

Library space should be primarily for learning and not for content (that's very, very true in my perspective too). They divided the library space in three spaces: a quiet one, a mixed zone (mostly PCs) and a group work zone.

Friday: Plenary Session II

2008-06-27T14:21:00.006+03:00

Please take look at Lars Iselid's report on my talk (for censorship reasons I didn't read it before ... ;-) )Oliver Obst on “Marketing virtual services” at Eahil 2008

| View | Upload your own

The second speech in this session was Prof. Christine L. Borgman's "The role of librarains in E-science." She recently wrote a book at MIT press on Scholarship in the Digital Age. If you manage to get a copy before the end of the conference, Prof. Bergman will be pleased to sign it.

I personally benefited from her speech quite much, even if is wasn't that much on medical libraries, if not libraries at all. Instead she - astonishingly in very much the same way as Prof. Peltonen-Palotie at the Opening Ceremony - opens up a somewhat bright future for librarians: They could probably manage all the incredible data streams either arising from environmental of genetic studies - depending on the respective subject area. I've already a few names for this new job: biomathematics informationists or bioinformatics dataphysicians or datadoctors...

Friday: selections from C2 Evidence-based practice 1

2008-06-27T11:35:00.003+03:00

The role of the information service in developing and maintaining a National Guideline Programme
Maurella Della Seta, Rosaria Rosanna Cammarano (Italy)

Maurella Della Seta presented a case of doing a guideline on schitzophrenia. The information specialist worked as a part of a multidisciplinary work group and attended meetings, where a clinical question was defined and databases and keywords were selected. She was responsible for planning and executing the search and providing full text articles.

In the future the role of the information specialist is going to be amended. She will participate in data extraction and analysis and will therefore be recognized as one of the authors.

Does collaboration improve health? Lesley Sander, Mala Mann, Sara Hayes, Fiona Morgan, Hilary Kitcher, Ben Carter (UK)

In 2002 in Wales, an unpublished systematic review did not find evidence that inter-agency collaborative working between local health and local government authorities necessarily improved health outcomes. There was decision to investigate the matter in depth and they submitted a research protocol for Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group. The protocol is titled "Collaboration between local health and local government agencies for health improvement".
The study wants to assess and summarise the effects of inter-agency collaboration on health outcomes and is interested in any intervention that compare a usual or standard care with augmented care and is aimed at improving health. The research process is under way but hopefully in some of the near future EAHIL conferences we will find out if collaboration does improve health.

Supporting evidence-based health in the county hospitals and the health care-educations
Karina Sjögren (Sweden)

The Umeå Medical School was changed toward more evidence-based teaching, and a new EBM course was arranged for medical students in 2001. In 2001-2003 the course was arranged in the 1st semester, then it was moved to the 4th semester and starting from 2009 it will be arranged in the 6th semester. The library is responsible for teaching how to search evidence-based information and has had very good feedback.
The goal is to arrange EBM courses to all staff in Västerbotten's three hospitals, and a course for new EBM teachers is also planned.

Friday: C1 - Virtual communities - Collaborative practices

2008-06-27T10:31:00.007+03:00

Thomas L. Williams (Saudi Arabia): Library as place and presence: transcending space & place - two approaches

After working at the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar,(WCMC-Q) the oldest branch of a western medical medical school in the middle east (here's the webpage of the eLibrary) he is building the Alfaisal University at Riadh. Almost no physical space at WCMC-Q was devoted to the library from the onset. 95% or more was electronically. But that was not only an advantages - in terms of less overhead - but also a disadvantage as there was less working space for staff. For six librarians there were only a quite minor space for do their work. As a consequence, their walking around the library, eagerly asking students (who would like to work quietly and alone) "Do you need help? Do you need help?" Which caused some irritations ... In addition, students heavily missed the printed volumes.

At the very new University Alfaisal - is the first private university in Saudi Arabia - there was a total other approach: a western style approach with an 'arab touch'. This brand new university will largely be based on grants and tuition. Each building, incl. the library, have to be funded by major donors and will accordingly be named after them.

A 2 year preparatory program is neded to improve the students skills in English and other things. The College of Science and Undergraduate Studies will provide these studies in a western style.

The 12.000 sqm library (a combination of the best from traditional and online content) will be hopefully finished in a year from now. A student body of 5.000 or more is expected and they intended to build shelves for 1 Mio. books - which would need centuries to be fully booked.

The presentation can be ordered by Email at the autor: twilliams@alfaisal.edu.

2nd European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine and Medicine

2008-06-26T15:18:00.003+03:00

Just in the middle of an exciting conference I would like to pass on the announcement of the next exciting one (after the game is before the game): 2nd European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine and Medicine, Oslo Sept 4th, 2008. I just recognized, that the list of speakers/chairs is really marvellous. Alma Swan, Jan Velterop, Matt Cockerill, Anthony van Raan, Michael Mabe, etc pp.

Thursday: B3 - Virtual communities - Scholarly publishing

2008-06-26T14:26:00.005+03:00

Jukka Englund (Finland): Promoting scholarly publishing through libraries

The Medical Library at Terkko answers one of the most striking questions of scholars in their strive for maximum visibility and impressiveness for their publishing efforts: How many of my articles have been published and what are the Impact Factors of the journals? They programed a database called Scholar Chart , which combines RSS feeds, Impact Factors (IF) and SCImago Journal Ranks (SJR) for 550 Finnish medical scholars. a really huge task and a quite fascinating solution!

Elisabetta Poltronieri, Alessandro Giuliani, Antonella Mangone (Italy): The discipline makes the difference: impact of research results published in open access and non-open access journals

Outcomes: Open access article were cited twice as much by open access papers than non-Open access articles. There is a close correlation between the number of citations in OA and non-OA journals -> The scientific community for both journal groups is quite the same (logically, as a scientist is only interested in Impact Factors, not in the economic publishing modell of the journal). Surprisingly, the citation latency in OA journals is not significantly shorter than in non-OA journals.

Thursday: a pick from parallel session Education and professional development

2008-06-26T11:57:00.003+03:00

Therese Svanberg and Eva Alopaeus (Sweden): The library's role in a hospital-based HTA centre - experiences from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden

Health technology assessment or HTA in short is defined by INAHTA as "the systematic evaluation of properties, effects, and/or impacts of health care technology. It may address the direct, intended consequences of technologies as well as their indirect, unintended consequences. Its main purpose is to inform technology-related policymaking in health care. HTA is conducted by interdisciplinary groups using explicit analytical frameworks drawing from a variety of methods."

The HTA unit in Sahlgrenska University Hospital was set up in October 2007. The library's aim is to support decision-making in different levels in the hospital. All the planned investments in health technology that have a budget over 1 million SEK must be evaluated and the library has an active role in the evaluating process. The library actively participates in constructing a clinical question (PICO), plan the search strategy and execute the searches, read and select the articles based on PICO, send relevant articles to the researchers and provide a description of the search process to the final evaluation report.

The library has gained a new higher status and recognition of services and competence. It has also become a natural research partner. Participating in HTA research has given the staff new challenges and a possibility to professional development.

Thursday: A1 Virtual Communities

2008-06-26T10:37:00.007+03:00

This session was attended by about 150-200 people.

Isabelle de Kaenel (Switzerland): New tools for an old challenge: can a wiki help at a service desk

What are the benefits of starting a wiki at the library?
- streamline internal processes and share knowledge
- identification of info needs
- involvement of staff (that's a real challenge)
- professional development (there's a learning curve)

The library website is not that much useful for quick reference, because it's static, has a formal publishing workflow, has a lack of participitation and is not meant to be printed out. (exactly the same is true for my library!) The wiki proved to be far more practically.

Katja Hilska (Finland): How wiki-intranet changes the internal communication?

Katja reports on a case study on wikis by the National Public Health Institute. They surveyed their staff members before and after the introduction of an internal wiki and interviewed 32 people too. Using a wiki has essentially gives everyone a vote.

[every now and then there's an huge explosion in the conference venue, some "refurbishment" processes going on here too - coincidentally :-( ]

A.J.P. van den Brekel (Guus) (The Netherlands): Space up your library: social networks and libraries

Guus recommends to not use a single social community portal (such as facebook), because users will use many different ones. Nurses use their speical one, doctors use their one (obviously Doctorshangout). Reasons, why not to ignore social networks:

- discussing, sharing, connecting, keeping current

Make flexible, tailor-made toolbars! I made these so called Web Widgets available for you. Just now Guus demonstrates the social network of this very conference: www.netvibes.com/eahil2008. His sum-up:

To boldy go where our users has gone before.

On Saturday, Session F1, 10:30, Dorine Kieft-Wondergem (The Netherlands) will talk in more detail on Netvibes: How to use Web 2.0 technologies in you library instructions.

Thursday: Plenary Session

2008-06-26T09:14:00.009+03:00

Anne Brice, NHS National Knowledge Service, Oxford, UK
: Working with uncertainty: the role of DUETs in harvesting what we don't know

DUETs - Database of Uncertainties about the Effects of Treatments - was set up to provide answers to most important patient question. not pain but uncertainties. DUETs draws on three main sources to identify uncertainties about the effects of treatments:

* patients', carers' and clinicians' questions about the effects of treatments
* research recommendations in reports of systematic reviews and clinical guidelines
* ongoing research, both systematic reviews in preparation and new 'primary' studies

Hopefully, our medical library profession will make use of the same high standards regarding clinical studies: to make thouroughful literature searches and then clearly state uncertainties. These database may be called DUEL or DUAL: Database of Uncertainties on the Effect or Advantages of Libraries...

Heather Todd, University of Queensland Library, Australia: Library spaces - new theatres of learning: a case study

Their experiences: Physical usage is (of course) dominated by undergraduates. The library changed from a calm place to a rather noisy, social place. We define several library generations:
Lib Gen 1: collection centric
Lib Gen 2: client centric
Lib Gen 3: experience centric
Lib Gen 4: connected learning centric

Their are special user groups, for each you need special designed spaces: spaces for extroverts, spaces for the voyeur, for the introverts, etc pp. (where the hell they've got all the money for that lovely furniture?) Students loved to move the furniture around, so in a way they create their own library! (furniture that can be transformed from "group fur" to "individ fur") Survey: What they do in the library: study>email>assignment>meet a friend. Refurbishment was quite successful, so the usage doubled actually.

Policy for quiteness: Higher you go the quiter is gets

"Design thinking" : five step process for creating success (understand the user, observe real life, visualize the concept, evaluate/refine, implement it). Survey. Which communities user know/engage about: MySpace, Facebook > SecondLife. In that overall process, the library did become a change agent for the university.

The Library did a UQ Library Video Contest among their users. They should describe how to use the library: Incentive was 1.000 AUS Dollar as a first prize. Heather showed us the video, is was excellent and that much funny. Next time at this theater: Chronicles of LIBRARY MAN (The Runner-up by Phil Scott is Monthy-Phyton-like and genious too!)

Asked, how they managed to get the money for that great refurb, Heather told, that you need three things: User complaints, a former successful project, and - of course - a lot of patience.

Reception at the Helsinki City Hall

2008-06-26T08:54:00.002+03:00

Yesterday evening the librarians took over the Helsinki City Hall. Mrs. Maija Berndtson, director of Helsinki City Library, bid everyone welcome on behalf of the city representatives who were on a trip in France. Mrs Merja Jauhiainen welcomed us on behalf of the local organizing committee. After that, we all enjoyed the buffet table and a good conversation with colleagues.

Wednesday: Opening Ceremony

2008-06-25T15:12:00.009+03:00

Some excerpts from the Opening Ceremony in the Finlandia Hall:

Suzanne Bakker, EAHIL President: Users we could be proud of are the nurses, they take up very quickly the idea of evidence based medicine. In contrary we almost loose the doctors and scientists as active users of the library. We're proud to be medical librarians.

Sari Sakomaa, Minster of Education and Science: Libraries are at the very heart of education and research. In order to stay at the cutting edge, we need library services. Cooperation between libraries is needed to reduce materials, to offer services like the National Electronic Library. Open Access is needed that everyone can access scientific research without barriers. University of Helsinki and the National Library of Health Sciences just introduced an Open Access repository which require researchers to deposit their articles from 2010 onwards.
What about the future? Towards an new information space - a neverending journey to new challenges. But we need also to provide something old which proved to be good.

Leena Peltonen-Palotie, Prof. Human Genetics:
I will talk about explosion of information and the increasing demand for access to information. To use the full potential of data such as the human genome, we're in need of an advanced infrastructure for data storage, analysis and release. we ned help for that (maybe help from librarians? Yes, your expertise in informatics is really in high demand!).
Genetics was a male-driven science over the years. But the structure of the DNA was obviously (happily?) discovered by a woman - Rosemary Franklin. Our personal genome is 3*10⁹ letters and differs to 0,1% from other humans. One sequencing effort produces terabites of primary data. It eates up so much data space! The laboratories has to consult informatics to get rid of these huge levels of information.
Profiling the human genetic variances, we are in high demands in pipelines and logistics, because we collect information on 500.000 to 1 Mio. genetic markers from 100 to 10.000 individuals. At the moment, the cost of genotyping per persons is in the range of some 200 Euros. The ability of this rather cheap genotyping has caused a huge flow of information on genes responsible or not for certain diseases. But the're still rules and guidelines for submission and access needed. Currently, from the 350.000 gen profiles accessible (or stored) on the web, only some 200 were not from an european origin!
One didn't not longer have to propose hypothesis in advance, because the genetic studies reveal amazing relationships between different diseases such as Chron's disease and Psoriasis which were never thought on before.
In fact these studies are the very basis of somewhat increasingly called as personalized medicine. In that new medicine, genetic risk factors and life style risk factors represents a complex interplay. But where to store this kind of individual information? Nobody obviously will want anybody else (especially health insurance companies) to have access to his genetic record.
Europe need an top level biobanking effort and an respective information infrastructure to harvest all the benefits of these genetic outcomes (to be on the cutting edge...).
Maybe we need new specialists in health care who are capable of interpreting the (huge and unstructured amount) personal genetic information.
Currently five commercial companies (23andme, decodeme, navigenics) provide for somewhat 1.000 USD genetic testing for cancer, cardiovascular and other health risks, only by offered a drop of your blood.

Wednesday: Council Meeting

2008-06-25T15:03:00.005+03:00

Just I'm listen to a nice classical quintett at the opening ceremony, I will do some conference blogging right away. The Council Meeting was quite successfully, we're able to discuss some needed changes in the rules of procedures. With the help of all of us we could provide some beneficial suggestions. The spirit among the council is remarkable lively, all are so engaged to support the association. EAHIL president Suzanne Bakker and Arne Jakobsson guided the session very well. You all will have to vote on the proposed changes at the General Assembly on Saturday. So please be sure to attend and don't forget your membership cards!

An art exhibition worth seeing

2008-06-25T10:21:00.003+03:00

If you have some free time amidst all the conference hustle and bustle, you might want to check out an interesting photography exhibition in Art museum Tennis Palace.
Anton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer famous for his photographs of musicians, actors and other celebrities. The exhibition presents Corbijn’s four key series of photographs from 1976 to 2002.
The museum is right in the centre of Helsinki and it is open Tue-Sun 11 a.m. – 8.30 p.m. The entrance fee is 7 euros except on Fridays, when the admission is free.

A full day of CECs: finding evidence-based information

2008-06-24T18:46:00.005+03:00

Today was an interesting day with two CEC courses. In the morning Chiara Bassi and Carol Lefebvre taught a class on where to find clinical trials, health technology assessment reports and practice guidelines. We went through different websites, trials registers and databases and looked at how to do a search on them. It would be nice if someone could come up with a meta search engine for trials registers and another one that would search practice guideline sites.

In the afternoon we had a hands-on class on searching the Cochrane Library and PubMed. During exercises we first formulated a PICO question, selected MeSH terms and keywords to reflect the different aspects of the PICO and ran the search. We also practiced using PubMed's Clinical queries tool. I myself am an Ovid user so it was good to refresh my PubMed skills. Thanks to Hilde Strømme for an excellent course and for chocolate. I'll make sure to try the same motivational trick next time I teach a class! :)

The First day of CECs

2008-06-23T14:34:00.003+03:00

After about two years of planning and organizing we are finally here in Terkko (National Library of Health Scieces) having the continuing education courses of EAHIL 2008 in Helsinki.

The weather is not quite as nice as we'd like but everything else is fine, at least from the organizers' point of view. Today we've already had two courses, and two more are just under way.

Tomorrow we'll have seven more CECs before it's time to go the the concert in the evening, and then start the conference on Wednesday in Finlandia Hall.

And the weather will get better.:)

The Weather

2008-06-16T15:25:00.002+03:00

Wondering what to pack for next week? Looking for weather forecasts? What will the weather be like in Helsinki and Finland?

See e.g. http://www.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/weather/local.html?kunta=Helsinki

The forecasts for next week we'll be avaiable later this week.

Registration for EAHIL 2008

2008-06-16T15:21:00.001+03:00

The online registration for EAHIL 2008 Conference has been closed.

If you wish to register for the Conference, please contact eahil2008@congreszon.fi.

Registration for the Conference is also possible at the Conference site.

News from Helsinki: Helsinki Times

2008-06-12T14:43:00.002+03:00

Helsinki Times is an English language newspaper concentrating on Finnish news. So if you like to know what is happening in Finland and what are the issues Finns are talking about, please visit: Helsinki Times homepage.

An article about Helsinki Times in Virtual Finland, by Robin DeWan: "Helsinki Times delivers the news in English".

EAHIL 2008 Flickr group

2008-06-09T15:30:00.004+03:00

Please share your conference experiences with others by submitting your photos, videos and comments to the EAHIL 2008 Flickr group!

What is Flickr?
Flickr is a good way to store, sort, search and share your photos online.

How do I become a Flickr member?
To upload images to Flickr you will need to first create a Flickr account. To create an account go to the Flickr Homepage and click on the 'Create your Account' button. If you have a Yahoo! ID you can use it to sign in. If you do not have a Yahoo! ID, you must sign up for one by clicking on the Yahoo! ID sign up button.

On the Yahoo! ID sign up page, fill out your details and click the 'Create My Account' button. On the next page, make sure your details are correct and click the 'Continue' button. Now you are signed into Flickr. Choose your screen name and then click the 'Create a New Account' button.

How do I upload images to your Flickr account?
Flickr provides a range of different ways to upload photos to your Flickr account. The most popular way is to use the Flickr web form to upload your images. To use this form, look in the navigation menu in Flickr under 'You' or sign into Flickr and go to this photo upload link. Now just follow the easy step by step instructions to uploading your photos.

How do I upload my images to the EAHIL 2008 Flickr group?
Do you want to upload your images to the EAHIL 2008 group? You first need to join the EAHIL 2008 group because only group members can contribute to the group photo pool. To join the to the EAHIL 2008 group go to the EAHIL 2008 group Flickr page here.

If you haven't joined this group a link 'Join this group' will appear to the right of the screen. Click this link. You will be taken to a confirmation page. Click confirm and now you are a part of the EAHIL 2008 Flickr group.

The easiest way add a photo to the group is to go to the page of the photo you want to submit to the group. On that page, click the 'Send to Group' button between the photo title and the photo. Then in the dropdown menu choose the group you want to send it to, and you're done!

Want more Flickr help?
The following FAQ link might be able to help:
http://www.flickr.com/help/faq/

CEC situation report 2

2008-06-03T15:45:00.003+03:00

One more CEC - Global health - has been cancelled as there were not enough participants. Those who registered for the course have been notified.

Three CECs - Bridging the Gap between PubMed and the Entrez Life Science Databases, Health2.0 & Library2.0 and Latest Tools and Tricks for Better Internet Searching are now full.

On the other eight courses there are still one or two seats left. If your are interested in participating, see the timetable and descriptions, and contact eahil2008@congreszon.fi

Looking forward to seeing you in Helsinki!

CEC working group

CEC situation report

2008-05-29T11:17:00.004+03:00

Unfortunately we have had to cancel two continuing education courses (CAB abstracts and Pharmaceutical Pipelines) as there have not been more than one or two participants for them. Those who had alaready registered for these CECs have been notified.

There are still more than ten CECs to choose from, and even if you have already registed for the conference you can still register for a CEC or two, by contacting eahil2008@congreszon.fi.

For more information about the courses see http://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/CEC2008EAHIL/Home or email tiina.m.heino@helsinki.fi.

The venue for all CECs is the National Library of Health Sciences (Terkko) at Meilahti Campus.

Finland Outside Helsinki (by Liisa Salmi)

2008-05-29T10:58:00.002+03:00

There are also other places than Helsinki, the capital, in Finland. Approximately 20% of the population lives in Helsinki and around it, altogether almost one million people. The fact is, of course, that the biggest universities and a lot of other schools are in the metropolitan area, where the cultural life is also liveliest. But, there is life outside Helsinki, although some people living in Helsinki, who have never been farther than 50 km from there, don't believe it.

Turku with 175 000 inhabitants is one of these famous second cities, like Uppsala in Sweden, Tartu in Estonia and Krakow in Poland, and it was the first town or city in Finland (founded in late 13th century) and also the first capital. The first university was founded there in the mid-1600s. Turku (Åbo in Swedish) also has the only purely Swedish-language university called Åbo Akademi. Turku University includes all faculties, among them one of the five medical schools in Finland.

Some two hours by car to the NW from Helsinki is Tampere, with about 208 000 inhabitants and industrial traditions. The university of Tampere was originally focused on social sciences but includes now faculties in most fields, also a medical school.

Jyväskylä is situated some 300 km to the North from Helsinki. The university there is focused on sports and physical exercise sciences and humanities.

Kuopio is a city with 91 000 inhabitants, situated in between lakes. The university is markedly a health sciences university, with medical, pharmaceutical and nursing sciences.

Joensuu close to the Eastern border of Finland has some 58 000 people, and the university emphasises forest sciences and it is the only place in Finland where Russian Orthodox theology is taught.

The universities in N. Finland are in Oulu (132 000 inhabitants) and Rovaniemi (58 000 inhabitants), the capital of Lapland, with the largest area of all cities in Europe. Oulu is strong in IT and computer sciences, medicine and technical sciences and it has been able to create intensive industry in these fields in the city. The University of Lapland in Rovaniemi teaches law, arts, including the new media, and tourism.

Vaasa (58 000 inhabitants) on the W. coast also has a university. Lappeenranta (59 000 inhabitans) in SE Finland has a technical university.

Liisa Salmi

Finnish Children Go To School ... (by Liisa Salmi)

2008-05-26T11:23:00.000+03:00

… at the age of seven. Internationally this is rather late, but practically every child in Finland goes first to preschool at the age of six. For the time being, preschool is mostly included in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, like day care, but serious suggestions have been made to move it to Ministry of Education, like schools, and it seems obvious that a transition will take place.

Basic education takes nine years, and after that the children (the youngsters) go to a three-year gymnasium (senior high school) or to vocational school, which takes 2 to 4 years. If you are an energetic youngster, you can take both simultaneously, so when you take the matriculation exam (get your white cap) you may also have taken a vocationally oriented exam as well.

We have circa 25 universities in Finland, all government owned, where you can try to get in (we have numerus clausus) and five of the universities have a medical faculty. The hardest places to be admitted to are the universities that represent arts, such as the Theatre Academy, University of Art and Design and Sibelius Academy. Just now the Government has suggested, on the basis of a committee's work, that we found an “Innovation University” by putting together the Technical University in Espoo, the University of Art and Design in Helsinki and the School of Economics in Helsinki and giving them a lot of money .The committee's thoughts are considered too simplified in universities because a very innovative university cannot be created just by making the technical people find the innovations, the artistic people giving them a nice form and the economic people selling them worldwide.

There are 28 polytechnics in Finland all over the country and the Ministry of Education think now that they are too many in a rather small country, and they want to discontinue a part of them. It is true that not all of them get full admittance and there are “empty” places, and it seems that these schools, which are rather a new idea in Finland, still seek their place in society and have to better adjust in the educational system.

Anyway, there is a great change going on in the Finnish university world, and new models of administration are intensively sought. All these changes were started during the previous (socialist) government, but when the conservatives got the power, the speed of changes has remarkably increased.

Liisa Salmi

Maternity and Babies in Finland (by Liisa Salmi)

2008-05-19T11:32:00.002+03:00

There are some 58000 babies born in Finland every year, which means that every mother gives birth in an average to 1,83 children. Finland has a well developed maternity and infant health centre system, which has strongly lowered infant mortality, it being now 2,7 babies of 1000 newborns, and just one baby of 1000 dies during the first week of life. These world-record figures are very similar in all Fennoscandian countries.

When a future mother gets pregnant, she visits the maternity health centre once a month, where a qualified midwife-nurse checks that everything is well. This goes on up to the 30th week of pregnancy, when she visits the centre every other week, provided everything has gone as it should. From week 36, the checkups take place every week. A physician makes a physical examination once in every trimester, and an ultrasound examination is performed twice during the pregnancy.

When the baby is born the parents get an allowance of circa 140 euro or a box with all the things that a newborn baby needs, the value of this box being much more than 140 euro. Thus the parents are encouraged to choose the necessities for the baby. The contents are very useful and even the box can be used as the newborn's bed.

After the birth, a nurse-midwife visits the family immediately when the mother and baby are at home. An alternative is to visit the baby health centre after they have arrived at home. The visit to the centre go on first twice and then once a month until the baby is six months, then every two months until the baby is 18 months and once a year after the baby has reached the age of two years.

Vaccination against eight different contagious diseases is started at the age of three months and it goes on until children are 15 years. Tuberculosis is so rare nowadays in Finland that Chalmette's vaccine is given only if there is an obvious risk.

Maternity leave is 105 days, and after that either the mother or the father has right to 158 days of leave, or they can share it. After that the mother can stay at home with the child for three years without losing her job. The allowance she gets monthly during this time is up to circa 300 euro. All children have a subjective right to day care before they go to school and it is the community's duty to organise it. For the time being, this right has been questioned because it is rather costly for the communities, but it is a system that works well. It has once again fuelled the discussion who is a better mother: she who stays at home with children or she who works. This is something you never hear of fathers; on the contrary, young fathers say that it is nowadays a special merit in the CV, if you have stayed at home with your baby for e.g. six months. We still have to go a long way to full sex equality in these matters and in my opinion; it can be reached only if an equally long paternity leave is also made obligatory.

Liisa Salmi

Don't forget to register for the EAHIL 2008 conference!

2008-05-15T17:47:00.004+03:00

We offer an excellent scientific programme, an interesting social programme, a wide variety of CECs, plenty of exhibitors, and an architecturally remarkable venue.

The registration fee is 430 € (accompanying person 230 €). The Continuing Education Course (CEC) fees are 60 € - 80 €.

Even if you have already registered for the conference, you can still add some interesting CE-courses on your conference programme by contacting eahil2008@congreszon.fi.

We're looking forward to seeing you in Helsinki!

Finnish Music and Music Events

2008-05-12T15:36:00.047+03:00

What comes to music, we Finns have our own kind of taste: more than half of the records sold in Finland, are also made here. The proportion is one of the highest in Europe. We Finns also love music festivals and outdoor concerts in summer time. During and right after the EAHIL 2008 Helsinki there are many music happenings going on in Helsinki and near Helsinki.

Avanti! XXIII Summer Sounds, Porvoo 25. – 29.6.2008

The Avanti! Chamber Orchestra was formed in 1983 by conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Olli Pohjola and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Avanti! describes itself as "an ensemble that varies in size from a string quartet to a symphony orchestra, it specializes in no particular genre. Rather, it is proud to be a specialist in all styles with a strong sense of responsibility for the music of today." Since 1986 Avanti! has had a festival of its own called Suvisoitto (Summer Sounds) in the little Finnish town of Porvoo. During and right after the EAHIL 2008 Helsinki, there are many interesting concerts going on. See the Avanti! Summer Sounds programme [here]. Porvoo is a beautiful old town, so it is worthwhile visiting also for it's own sake. You can travel from Helsinki to Porvoo by bus in about 1 hour, or by ferry in about 3 and a half hours. Information about transportation options to Porvoo [here].

Tuska Open Air Metal Festival, Helsinki 27.-29.6.2008

Word “tuska” is Finnish, and means pain or agony. Tuska Open Air Metal Festival is the largest music festival dedicated to metal and related styles in the Nordic countries. So during the conference week you might see lots of people dressed in black going to direction Kaisaniemi park, where the festival takes place. On Thursday 26 June one of Finland’s metal pride and joy Nightwish gives a concert within Tuska Festival.

Organ Night and Aria Festival, Espoo 5.6.—28.8.2008

Series of late evening concerts in the mediaeval greystone Cathedral of Espoo provides classical music on Thursdays throughout the summer. On Thursday 26 June the concert is called Hilke with Handel . Espoo is a city near by Helsinki, and Espoo Cathedral is located in Espoo centre (Kirkkopuisto 5), so the concert place is easily accessible by bus and train from Helsinki city centre (Busses 154, 154T, 156, 213, 270; Commuter trains E, L, S, U).

Espa Stage, Helsinki

In Esplanade Park, by “Espa Stage”, you have the possibility to enjoy music free of charge. Each summer around 200 artists and groups from Finland and abroad perform on the stage. The performers include young artists at the beginning of their careers, as well as well-known and established artists. The rhythms of jazz, blues, folk music and rock can often be heard coming from the stage. Performances usually start at 4.30 p.m. Monday–Thursday, and at 10.30 a.m. on Saturday. On weekdays during the lunch hour, the stage is also a popular place to perform. During EAHIL 2008 Helsinki for example following performances has already been announced to take place at Espa Stage:

- Wednesday 25 June, 16.30: Kindly Ink
- Thursday 26 June, 18.30: Blueintheface

Further information about Finnish music and Finnish festivals

Finnish Music in a nutshell
Written for Virtual Finland by Pekka Hako; music researcher, author

Finnish Popular Music
Tero Valkonen, Finnish Music Information Centre (FIMIC)

Finnish Contemporary Music
Finnish Music Information Centre (FIMIC)

Finnish Folk and World Music
Pirkko Kotirinta, Finnish Music Information Centre (FIMIC)

Finnish Jazz
Petri Silas, Finnish Music Information Centre (FIMIC)

Finnish Music Information Centre (FIMIC)
Includes “Fimic player”, where you can listen to samples of Finnish folk, rock, pop, jazz and contemporary music

Music Export Finland
Includes “Musex player”, where you can also listen to samples of Finnish music.

Finland Festivals
Information about festivals in all over Finland

Finnish Food (by Liisa Salmi)

2008-05-12T10:48:00.001+03:00

Finland has well followed the international trends in gastronomy and thus it is possible to get a great variety of different kinds of foods, especially in bigger places. If you travel around in the country you cannot expect all kinds of ethnic cuisine in every place, but on the other hand, you may find some genuinely Finnish courses. Not all countries in the EU value Finnish food (here I am referring to the Italian Prime Minister and some French high officials), which of course immediately made us to defend our eating.

The most important thing is perhaps that food grown in Finland is pure, especially compared to some other countries, and the Finnish Food Safety Authority is a very strict authority. EU gives us all directives on food safety, and unlike some other countries, Finland also follows them (it's our Lutheran sense of responsibility).

Please see http://www.foodfromfinland.com/ and once there, see also http://www.virtualfinland.fi/ for Gastronomy.

Although we nowadays import a lot of even exotic food from all over the world, it is good to know something of the basic Finnish characteristics in our food habits. We use a lot of rye and dark rye bread, even sour, is available everywhere. We grow also barley and oats, which both have health-promoting characteristics. Oats seems to be good for people with celiac disease, and much research is done in this field in Finland. All these are also used for porridges, of which we eat a lot.

Finns eat a lot of potatoes; they have kept us alive in hard and poor days in the past. At Midsummer, we get the first potatoes of the new harvest (“new potatoes”), and it is a must then to eat them with dill, butter and salt herring, caught in the N. Atlantic waters. We drink much milk, fat free and more or less fatty, and also their different sour variants. Finnish people are, perhaps surprisingly, one of the biggest coffee drinking nations in the world.

Being a scarcely populated country, we still live quite close to the nature. This also means that we do fishing and hunting, pick wild berries and fungi in the forests. We also grow a lot of strawberries, which are picked in July-August. This is the best time for Finnish fresh vegetables as well.

The menu in Finnish homes always includes berries (fresh, deep frozen, juice and jam made of them), and fungi (fresh, dried and deep frozen), fish (fried, cooked, marinated, barbecued, smoked) and many people in other places than the metropolitan area (“Rush Finland”) hunt especially in the autumn and eat much elk meat and of course reindeer meat in the North. As to meat, we eat pork, beef, mutton and poultry, but have to also import them.

We grow apples, plums and pears, but they grow properly only in Southern Finland. We prefer them to imported ones, because there is no need for preservatives, but we don't have enough of them for the whole winter.

Then there are the seasonal foods: at Christmas we eat ham, stockfish (not a delicacy to everyone), rice porridge, ginger biscuits and Christmas pastries with plum jam. At Easter we eat mutton and a special Easter pudding made of malt (it is dark brown and rather sweet and foreigners usually don't even want to look at it) and colour the Easter eggs with children or boil them with onion peels to make them yellow. Scattered around the year there are minor celebrations for various occasions and some of them have characteristic foods. Especially the Swedish speaking people have a crayfish party in August-September and then a lot of snaps is drunk and a lot of merry songs are sung.

Generally speaking, Finnish cuisine is a mixture of Slavic or Russian and Western foods. Especially different kinds of pies, both sweet and salt, are of Russian origin, and you can make a pie of almost anything. Interestingly enough, there is still a rather clear “bread division” in Finland: in Western Finland people have always eaten hard bread and in Eastern Finland people eat fresh bread. Nowadays the distinction is not so clear any more and the variety of breads is more or less international. In the West bread was made once or twice a year and then hung on the beams close to the ceiling and dried. In the East bread was made once a week and eaten fresh and soft. This also affected oral health: the Westerners had better teeth than the Easterners.

So, once in Finland, eat Finnish and go to the market places to see what we make our food of.

Liisa Salmi

CEC Venue Change

2008-05-07T13:49:00.003+03:00

All the continuing education courses, both Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th of June, will be held at the National Library of Health Sciences (Terkko) at Meilahti Campus (not at Viikki Campus).

You can still register for the CECs; only one is absolutely full already.

Timetable https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/CEC2008EAHIL/Timetable+CEC
Course descriptions: https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/CEC2008EAHIL/Home

For more information contact Tiina Heino tiina.m.heino@helsinki.fi

First of May in Finland

2008-04-29T11:51:00.003+03:00

As in other countries, Finland also celebrates the First of May as the labourers´day. For the first time it was commemorated in 1898, then mostly to promote temperance in drinking. In 1944 we got the legislation of the First of May being an annual holiday, a bank holiday. Since 1979, the day has also been an official flag-raising day. The labour traditions include marches and public speeches of trade unions and other labour organisations.

First of May is, of course, also the day of the students. When we matriculate from senior high school we get a white cap. In all bigger cities the student unions have their favourite statue, which is given a white cap on the day tbefore, on the First of May Eve, towards the evening when celebrating begins. We all put our white caps on simultaneously, old and yellowish as they may be. There are a lot of balloons, streamers and other decorations available, all the restaurants are fully booked and a lot of sparkling wine is imbibed and then we let it go.

The next morning, that of the First of May we eat a Baltic herring brunch, outside if possible, go for walks and lunches wearing our white student caps. All people seem to be out, friends and families together strolling about, listening to concerts and musical matinees. We eat May-Day fritters and drink mead. The children enjoy the balloons, streamers and other decorations and eat a lot of ice cream. Plenty of alcoholic beverages are drunk, both the day before and on the First of May. The police and social workers wish that the weather be chilly and rainy, because then people stay more inside and less accidents take place.

If the weather is good, warm and sunny, everyone is happy to enjoy the arrival of spring in Finland. In the agrarian society in older times, this was also the time when the cattle were let out for the summer.

Kalevala - National Epic of Finland

2008-04-27T18:49:00.003+03:00

We all had to read Kalevala, our national epic at school, and did not, of course, always like it. I can imagine that not all English schoolchildren love Shakespeare, or the Spanish youngsters Don Quijote. All the wisdom included in these Finnish folk poems or songs, did not attract so much at school, but even then, the rhythm and metre somehow fascinated. Understanding the value of national epics in general, grows by age, luckily enough. The metre is trochaic tetrametre, also called the Kalevala metre. It is an efficient metre when reading Kalevala as bedtime stories for children: it won´t take long before they fall asleep.

Until the 16th century, an archaic song tradition was a living tradition in Finland, but the Reformation with its Lutheran church forbade the pagan songs. This meant that the tradition of singing the songs gradually disappeared, but in the 19th century, collection of old folk poems was started and several trips were made to Karelia where the knowledge of them was strongest. The main collector was Elias Lönnrot, who also compiled and edited the first version, published in 1835.

Elias Lönnrot was a physician who worked as a general practitioner in a small city in NE Finland. Besides his professional work he did an invaluable job in creating and compiling a coherent story of the folk poems he had collected. The Finnish Literature Society was founded in 1833 to further his work. In addition, he was the first populariser of medical knowledge, by writing a medical guide book for ordinary people. His production also includes an illustrated book on Finnish plants called Flora Fennica. He was very interested in educating ordinary people and contributed to this in many ways.

The songs of Kalevala consist of a series of poems on the creation of the world, where two clans fight with each other for the ownership of Sampo, the mythical source of riches, whose looks are not described in the poems (limitless inspiration to artists). A great number of different stories are interwoven in the main theme. Please see http://www.virtualfinland.fi/finfo/english/kalevala.html

Life in Finland has been very much influenced by Kalevala, especially all genres of arts. We also have a lot of personal names deriving from Kalevala and it still affects our thinking and in everyday language there are references to Kalevala, although we do not always immediately recognise them.

Shortest Possible History of Finland

2008-04-14T19:33:00.003+03:00

Prehistoric Times

The last Ice Age ended in Finland some 10 000 years ago. The oldest piece of evidence of human life dates back to 8900 b.C. The Mesolithic inhabitants (8300 - 5300 b.C.) had dogs as domestic animals and used nets for fishing and had created some artistic artifacts. If you visit the Finnish National Museum in Helsinki, please have a look at the world´s oldest fishing nets and the moose heads made of stone. Agriculture is supposed to have been practised already some 3000 years b.C. although hunting and fishing were the main means of livelihood.

Sweden and Novgorod (Russia)

The Bronze (1500 b.C. - 500 b.C.) and Iron (500 b.C. - 1300 a.D.) Ages were characterised by close contacts with the neighbouring countries. In the 1150s the British bishop Henry crusaded from Sweden in order to convert us from our pagan belief to Christianity - he was, however, killed by a Finnish peasant on the ice of a lake. Until these times, Finland was more or less a political vacuum, although both Sweden (Catholic) in the West and Novgorod (or Russia, Russian Orthodox) in the East were interested in it. The 1323 peace treaty between these two assigned the Eastern part of Finland to Novgorod and the Western and Southerns parts to Sweden and thus to the Western European cultural sphere.

As a result of close ties to Sweden the Western legal and social systems became rooted in Finland. Because Feudalism did not exist in these systems, the Finnish peasants never became serfs and they always retained their personal freedom.

The first town, Turku, was founded in the middle of the 13th century and some 100 years later, Finns were given the right to participate in the election of the king, and from the middle of the 16th century Finns were represented in the Swedish Diet. During the 16th century Catholicism was replaced by the Lutheran church. The New Testament was translated into Finnish in 1548 by the Bishop of Turku, Mikael Agricola, who had produced the first Finnish language book, a grammar five years earlier. He is called the father of the Finnish language. You can see his statue behind the Cathedral in Turku.

Sweden, the Superpower

During Sweden's most powerful time in Europe, the border against Russia was extended further east. The Swedish rule in Finland in the 17th and 18th centuries was rather intensive and, in fact, Finnish soldiers were necessary to Sweden to gain the superpower status in Europe. By the early 18th century Sweden had lost its position and in the war in 1808 - 1809 Finland became part of Russia.
Under the Swedish rule Finland had been a group of separate provinces, but now we became an autonomous Grand Duchy of Russia (1809 - 1917). We had our own senate and Finnish affairs were presented to the Emperor of Russia in St. Petersburg by the Finnish Minister Secretary of State.

Grand Duchy of Russia

Emperor Alexander I (1809 - 1825), who was an enlightened ruler, gave Finland extensive autonomy. This was a good and prosperous period of Finnish history and the National Movement with the first ideas of independence were born. The first university in Finland had been founded in Turku in 1640, and when Helsinki became the new capital in1812, the university was moved to Helsinki in 1828, after the great fire in Turku. We still remind, when needed, that the University of Helsinki was founded in Turku.

In 1863 Emperor Alexander II issued a Language Decree, which started the process which resulted in Finnish becoming also an official administrative language. After Alexander II Finland´s position weakened and the period of Russification began (the first period 1899 - 1905, the second period 1909 - 1917). During the Russian revolution in 1905 Finland carried out a parliamentary reform with a unicameral parliament and universal suffrage. Finnish women were the first in Europe to gain the right to vote and the first in the world to become eligible in parliamentary elections.

Independence

On the sixth of December, 1917, while Russia was in a state of great upheaval, Finland declared itself independent. The Civil War between the Whites and Reds left deep wounds in the collective consciousness. In late 1939 the Soviet Union attacked Finland and we lost the Southeast part of the country (Karelia) in the Winter War, which was over in early 1940. In 1941 Finland had to enter the war again, and the Continuation War went on until 1944. Finland was not directly involved in WW II, but the German army helped us against the Soviet Union. We lost the northeast part, or one "arm", of Finland and areas along the Eastern border. In addition, the Soviet Union required heavy indemnities which had to be paid in eight years. The whole country worked hard and the debt was paid in 1952.

Marshall Mannerheim was elected as the sixth President of the Republic of Finland already during the war. He is considered the national hero of Finland. He was succeeded by Juho Kusti Paasikivi, who created the "Paasikivi Line" to improve relations with our Eastern neighbour. He also made
our position internationally stronger and cooperation with the Nordic countries was strengthened. Urho Kekkonen was President for a quarter of a century (1956 - 1981) and was succeeded by Mauno Koivisto. When the new millenium started, Finland was ready for its first female President, Tarja Halonen, who was re-elected in 2006 for six more years.

Finland joined the European Union in 1995. We cooperate with NATO but membership of NATO is under discussion but will not take place during the present government.

Do you know the database called Global Health?

2008-04-14T17:17:00.001+03:00

Global Health is CABI's human health database.

Robert Taylor will teach a hands-on CEC on Global Health in Helsinki on Tuesday 24th June 9:15-13:15.

Course description: Aspects to be covered will include the subject coverage of the database, its origins, unique features, and how to search it on the CAB Direct platform. There will also be an opportunity to look at the Global Health archive which has records going back to 1913.

Robert Taylor is the Content Manager for Human, Animal and social Sciences at CABI based at their headquarters near to Oxford in the UK. With a degree in Zoology, he has worked first on veterinary and animal production information, before also managing the Global Health team at CABI. He has given training on CABIs databases throughout the world and has worked on several information projects to strengthen information systems in developing countries.

Unexpected library findings

2008-04-11T13:36:00.024+03:00

The other day, I checked out our local public library. I had postponed it for quite some time, well aware of that pile of still unread books on my bed side table. Besides the usual excitement over all the unread and yet untried possibilities (DIY section - here I come!), I found something quite unexcpected. Right before the entrance was a big barrel filled with Nordic Walking poles - all there for the lending customer's joy :)

I didn't end up borrowing the poles, but they inspired me to think of another unexpected library finding - the Lux Humana collection in the Finnish National Library of Health Sciences.
Lux Humana contains high quality fiction and non-fiction within the humanities, and it aims at enhancing arts and humanities in medical education, research and clinical work. Another purpose of the collection is to help medical students, teachers, researchers and general practitioners to develop their communication skills, their ethical thinking and their capacity for empathy in the meeting with the patient. The collection is a result of a joint collaboration between the library and the Department of Public Health at the University of Helsinki.

Päivi Pekkarinen, Collection Services Coordinator at the National Library of Health Sciences, has written an article on this interesting collection and the process around developing it. The article can be found at: Newsletter of the IFLA Section of Health and Biosciences Libraries Volume 5, Number 1 January 2006 (pages 9-12).

Finnish Four Seasons

2008-04-02T19:48:00.003+03:00

The year in Finland is distinctively divided into four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. We are just overcoming winter, which was much warmer than usual. The winter temperatures have been recorded for a hundred years, and only one winter, in 1924-5, was warmer than now. This winter was 4 - 6,5 centigrades warmer than the average (-20 to 0 centigrades, depending on the latitude) in more than 30 years. In practice, this means that Southern Finland and the coastal areas have been snowless, and children there do not learn to ski.

The seas in Finland did not freeze this winter at all, and the ice on the lakes has been much thinner than usual. This has, unfortunately, resulted in many drownings because Finns love winter fishing in holes in the ice and they cannot help going on weak ice.

On the other hand, the best skiing season (February to April) is now on in Lapland and most of the winter sports centres are fully booked. Central Finland has enjoyed a good skiing and skating season from February to March. The vernal equinox (the day is as long as the night) was on March 20, so we have again a lot of light, after a dark winter.

April and May are the very spring months, and it is always astonishing how quickly the growing season begins. We may have half a metre of snow in early April and in four weeks it is green all over. So, in this sense, we do not agree that "April is the gruellest month" but rather a promise of the coming summer. In May people start cleaning their yards and preparing their gardens and seeing their neighbours and in late Mayand early June the flowers are here once more and summer begins.

Summer is the time in Finland when everyone takes it easier. Collectively, life is bearable (we have a tendency to inwardness and melancholy), we are happier and much more sociable than in winter. It is light and warm (hopefully) and we do not have to be so very responsible for everything all the time. The Finnish summer is full of events and festivals, please see www.visitfinland.com where you can see that we have World Champioships in most peculiar sports,such as boot throwing, wife carrying and swamp football. Admittedly, the Estonians have won the WC in wife carrying for the ten last years.

Summer is also the time for the annual holidays of four to five weeks, most commonly between Midsummer and the end of July, and during this period the whole country is more or less "closed", i.e. it is hard to get anything done e.g. in public service offices, and any mistakes in working life are put on the summer apprentices or substitues. Closeness is especially true of Midsummer, is the greatest feast of the summer with its bonfires (in the Finnish regions) and decorated poles (in the Swedish speaking regions). This is the time for spending time at summer cottages, for visiting family, friends and festivals, whether they be musical, arts, literary, sports or beer drinking ones. Since the 1950s, having a summer cottage has become more and more usual, and now there are some half a million summer cottages, most preferably by a lake or by the sea. The most common activity at the summer houses is fishing, with different kinds of traps, and the world's oldest fishing nets - appr. 8000 years old - were found in Finland on the Karelian Isthmus (which now belongs to Russia).

In August, days become again shorter and it is dark in the evenings. August may be a lovely month with velvety darkness when it is still relatively warm, but the main rule in Finland is: when it is dark, it is also cold. Late summer and early autumn are also the time for harvest for farmers and wild berry picking for everyone.

September is already autumn, and this is the time for wild mushroom picking. In Finland we have "everyman's right", a legal right to access all forests and other places, provided we do not go to the land owner's front door to do the picking. Mid-September is usually the best time to go trekking in Lapland if you want to see the colourful landscape with all the leave trees carrying yellow, golden, red leaves before dropping them and subduing to winter. The first snow usually comes in October to December, but most probably due to global warming, we now have had a couple of winters with no snow before January or even February. A snowless Christmas is something Finns consider unnatural, but obviously we have to get used to it. October to December is the darkest time and then many Finns spend a holiday in sunnier and warmer countries, such as Spain or Thailand.

Christmas is the greatest highlight of the winter. It is a family feast with traditional food and quiet leisurely days. And of course, we have Father Christmas, who lives at one of the mountains on the Russian border zone. The winter solstice (the day is at its shortest) on December 21, and after that the days start becoming longer and Finns start waiting and planning activities for spring and summer.

CECs are filling up - don't wait too long to register

2008-03-26T12:56:00.003+02:00

It seems that the continuing education courses (CECs), organized on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th of June before the conference, are quite popular.

The CEC working team suggests that you do not wait too long to register for your favourite CECs. We understand that making the choices might be difficult but, please, make up your mind before it's too late.

There is a turnout limit for each course. Right now even the most popular CEC has a couple of seats left but not for long, we're sure.

The CEC timetable: https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/CEC2008EAHIL/Timetable+CEC
The CEC descriptions: http://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/CEC2008EAHIL/Home
The registration form: https://events.congreszon.fi/EAHIL2008/en/ParLogin.jsp

If you have questions about the CECs, please, post a comment here, or e-mail Tiina: tiina.m.heino@helsinki.fi

Looking forward to seeing you in Helsinki!

Ann, Tiina & Tuulevi

Scientific Programme with abstracts now on the Conference Web Page

2008-03-20T14:04:00.004+02:00

EAHIL 2008 Helsinki Conference Scientific Programme with abstracts has now been added to the conference web page. Please take a look at it by clicking here.

Also please remember, that registration for early birds only continues until March 31st, so be sure to register soon.

Happy Easter for Everybody!

Sauna

2008-03-08T14:32:00.002+02:00

First of all, the word "sauna" is pronounced [sauna], the diphtong -au- being the same as in the English "town".

The Finns have used sauna for about 2000 years. When a new house even nowadays is built, the first thing to be completed is the sauna, whether it is a house for permanent living or a summer house. Where ever the Finnish peace corps are ordered in the world, a sauna is always built as the first thing for the peace keepers. When the Finnish scouts participate in international Jamborees, they always put up tent saunas first.

Nowadays even apartments in block houses usually have saunas. The apartment saunas are heated with electricity, but it is common that summer house saunas are heated with wood.
There is a sauna society in Finland, and for good information of saunas and sauna bathing please turn to http://www.sauna.fi/ where there is information in English, too.

There are appr. 2,5 - 3 million saunas in Finland, so actually the whole population can have sauna simultaneously all over the country - and they do, twice a year. Christmas sauna and Midsummer sauna are the most essential parts of these great celebrations of the Finnish year. There are small saunas, rooming just two persons and there are big saunas, e.g. military institutions have saunas for several tens of men.

Babies start having sauna baths when they are able to sweat. Newborns can stay in sauna for a while, to get really warm, but sweating is an important part of sauna bathing. It is common to have sauna familywise, and thus children grow up getting used to nakedness within the family. But it is not only families who bathe together. Good friends bathe together, genderwise, when they meet, and so can be done even with people you meet for the first time. Even teenagers, when they gather together to go out to have fun, very often first have sauna together, especially at weekends. Every enterprise with even small representative duties take their clients and guests to sauna. And President Urho Kekkonen was a legendary sauna bather: he always took the Soviet leaders to sauna before starting negotiations.

If you have sauna with your family, both sexes usually go together, but otherwise bathing takes always place genderwise. The traditon is that ladies go first. We do not know why, but perhaps the right temperature is tested with them.

Public saunas were common in towns and cities in earlier times, and people went there at least once a week. There are just a few public saunas left in Finland, since they became unnecessary when people wanted to have saunas of their own. Public saunas now exist in the swimming halls in Finland.

There are certain unwritten rules when having sauna: you are supposed to behave restrainedly, not raising your voice or arguing heavily, not to say anything of real fighting. Children are taught to behave peacefully in sauna from the very beginning. On the other hand, some of the most fruitful and rewarding discussions often take place in sauna.

In summer, we make a whisk of birch twigs, with which we then beat ourselves on the benches in sauna at a good temperature. We can also dry and deep freeze these whisks, in order to have them in winter, or at least in Christmas sauna.

There are very few people in Finland who never go to sauna, simply because they do not like it. This does not mean, however, that you must try sauna while in Finland. If you do not like the idea of being naked with strangers, you can always have a swimming suit on or wrap yourself in a towel.

In old times, the tradition of sauna meant much from the hygienic point of view. There was always a place to wash yourself, long before bathrooms, and there was always the possibility of plenty of warm water. The Finnish life has always been tied to sauna: babies were born in saunas and the corpses of the deceased were washed there.

Whoever warms the sauna, be prepared to hear him/her shouting "Sauna on valmis" or "sauna is ready" and then you can start your adventure.

Continuing Education Courses (CEC)

2008-03-04T17:54:00.008+02:00

The CEC timetable, as well as the course descriptions and the teacher introductions - with photos! - are ready for you to choose and register for.

https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/CEC2008EAHIL
http://www.congreszon.fi/eahil_2008/registration/

We offer 14 interesting courses on different topics from practical hands-on sessions on database searching, including e.g. CAB abstracts, Global Health, Pharmaceutical Pipelines, PubMed and other Entrez databases, to topics like health2.0 & library2.0, marketing, progressive inquiry learning, strategic planning, and many more.

The venue for Monday's CECs is the Viikki Science Library at Viikki Campus, and the venue for Tuesday's CECs is the National Library of Health Sciences (Terkko) at Meilahti Campus.

All but one of the courses are half-day (4 hours) and cost only 60 euros so that is convenient and easy to attend at least two courses and possible to attend even four! The courses are filling up so don't wait too long to register in order to be able to attend you favourite CEC.

You can comment and ask questions here in the blog, or contact the CEC working group for further information.

Accommodation in Helsinki

2008-03-04T14:01:00.005+02:00

If you are looking for a nice hotel in Helsinki, take a look at these pages :)

http://www.hel2.fi/tourism/EN/suunnittele_majoitus.asp?kieli=en&ASPID=1&a=0&page=1&sijainti=keskusta

Finnish Language Revisited

2008-02-27T14:42:00.002+02:00

Finnish is a phonetic language, which means that all letters are pronounced in the same way in whatever environment they are (compare e.g. English -ea- in words like head, steak, read). Thus, the Finnish children learn quite easily to read, and they are able to identify new Finnish words without difficulties, and this is very helpful with regard to the fact that new compound words can be created in Finnish almost endlessly.

To be a phonetic language also means that the length of vowels and consonants plays an essential role:

"muta" = mud
"muuta" = something else
"mutta" = but
"muuttaa" = to change.

There are a couple of features in Finnish which explain why we Finns make certain mistakes in speaking e.g. English, German, Swedish, Spanish, French.

We do not have grammatical gender, i.e. the nouns are not masculines, feminines or neutres and we only have one word "hän" for he/she. So just saying "hän" we do not know whether it denotes a he or a she - this is of course sometimes very practical. On the other hand, if you mention a Finnish first name, you always know immediately, if it is a he or a she.

Finnish does not have articles with nouns, such as a, an, the in English.

We do not have prepositions in Finnish but we do have 14 different cases with specific endings for expressing e.g.

"talo" house
"talo -ssa" in the house
"talo -sta" from the house
"talo -on" into the house.

Foreigners sometimes say that it is difficult to learn all those cases, but do not give up, to learn any language properly you need patience.

Linguistically, Finland is a very homogenous country, since practically everyone in Finland speaks or at least understands Finnish. We do have two other official languages: Swedish and sami. There is a minority of 5,5% of the total population of 5,3 million with Swedish as the mother tongue, mainly on the southern and western coasts. Some 6000-7000 people speak sami in the Finnish Lapland.

Medical Librarianship & Web Geekery

2008-02-19T18:48:00.005+02:00

I came across a very interesting site called davidrothman.net according to its author, David Rothman. The site is about Medical Librarianship and Web Geekery - exactly the topics that I think many of you coming to EAHIL 2008 will find interesting. He is also advertising JEAHIL on his page, so I think it's just fair to return the favour :)

Some highlights:
List of Medical Wikis*
More on wikis for health librarians
Organizational Wiki Adoption (which I find most interesting as the two wikis I'm actively using are products of this company)

*Actually the same list of wikis is cover by Oliver in the latest JEAHIL, but hey - it doesn't hurt to hear it twice :)

2008-02-15T14:42:00.005+02:00

Registration has started

Registration for the conference has started. To register, please go to the conference website.
When you get there, you can also take a look at the preliminary scientific program and read about CEC courses.

Finnish language

2008-02-12T11:15:00.001+02:00

Finnish language differs very much from most of the European languages. The closest language in the same language family is Estonian, which we almost understand. Almost means that we recognise words, but cannot communicate fluently with our "next of kins". Another related language is Hungarian, but it differs so much that we don´t understand a word of it. There is one thing we recognise in Hungarian and that is the intonation and the fact that the stress in these languages in always on the first syllable of the word, with a few exceptions.

Hungarians are a good example of the fact that genes and languages do not necessarily have a direct correlation with each other. The Hungarians have genetically practically nothing to do with the Finns, but their languages are related.

Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian belong to the family of Uralic languages, and, in more precisely, the Finno-Ugric languages of the Uralic language family. There are appr. 23 million speakers of the Finno-Ugric languages, including the Sami language spoken in the Laplands of Finland, Sweden and Norway. These languages are non-Indo-European, which means that they are not related to e.g. English, German, French, the Scandinavian or Slavic languages. Thus, we can state that English in closer to Russian than Finnish.

The Proto-Finno-Ugric language was spoken some 5000-6000 years ago, and we still have words deriving from that period. One of these words is "suksi", meaning (the noun) ski. Of course you don´t need this word because you come to Finland in summer and do "skiing without skis", i.e. the Nordic walking with poles.

Liisa Salmi

2008-01-04T12:15:00.000+02:00

Skiing without skis - in the middle of summer?! A treat for EAHIL first timers in Helsinki

Forget the cocktail dress and the high heels for this year's first timers' event. Instead, slip into something more comfortable, and get ready for a slightly different experience…

When in Rome, do as the Romans, and when in Finland…? Well, the answer is obvious. Forget the skis, take a pole in each hand, place your right foot before your left and the other way round, and come join us in a session of Nordic walking!

The event is planned for Wednesday 25.6. Starting at 10 a.m. and ending around two hours later, it will leave you plenty of time to switch gear and get ready for the conference's opening ceremony. More information about the event and a chance to register will be found in February on the conference's web site in conjunction with the registration. We'll keep you posted!

Letter of Acceptance

2007-12-21T12:40:00.000+02:00

Unfortunately, due to a lectureship in Oman, I wasn't able to attend the IPC meeting which decided the acceptance of the proposed presentations. From the 134 abstracts submitted,

- 55 were accepted as oral presentations
- 5 were accepted as keynote presentations
- 60 were accepted as posters
- 3 will be presented in other settings
- 11 were rejected in total.

The "Letter of Acceptance" was send out on December, 19th, automatically by the abstract grading system - thanks to Arne and his wonderful IT staff!

Conference Gala Dinner

2007-12-02T10:27:00.000+02:00

In LOC:s meeting 28th November we discussed a lot about the gala dinner. The gala dinner will take place Friday 27th June at Hilton Helsinki Kalastajatorppa (Kalastajatorpantie 1, 00330 Helsinki). Kalastajatorppa is a well-known and esteemed banqueting place Helsinki. It opened in 1937 and since that many important gatherings have been arranged there, for example a gala reception during CSCE in 1975, and the meeting of Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin in 1997.

Kalastajatorppa is situated at seashore and surrounded by beautiful Finnish nature. In the dining room Siirtomaasali, where we will be having our dinner, one whole wall is covered by windows, so we can see the midnight sun while we eat.

Although Kalastajatorppa is surrounded by nature, it is still just about ten minutes travel from downtown. Transport to gala dinner will be arranged, but if anyone likes to come on one's own, Kalastajatorppa can easily be reached by tram 4.

In this page by TravelXL.com you can see some pictures from Kalastajatorppa.

Here are Helsinki City's web pages about Kalastajatorppa.

Continuing education courses (CEC)

2007-11-08T11:53:00.000+02:00

The CEC committee is working hard to build up an interesting variety of courses to be held on Monday and Tuesday before the conference. We already have CECs on many subjects but maybe we didn't think of everything. So, if you have an idea for a CEC, please, post a comment to this, and we'll try to arrange it.

Abstract Grading

2007-11-08T10:45:00.000+02:00

Yesterday it was the last day for the the call for papers. Now the work starts for the Programme Committee. A total of 134 abstracts were submitted - that's really a first success worth to tell! In addition, the overall quality of the abstracts is quite amazing, as I could tell from the first glimpse.

The grading process will last till December 2nd. Because no committee member will see the grading of the others, we have to wait for the meeting of the committee in Helsinki on 14th and 15th December to know which abstract succeeded and which not.

May be off-topic, but I'm deeply shaked by the killing of eight innocent by the amok runner in Tuusula. My thoughts and condolence are with you all, the relatives, pupils, teachers, and friends.

EAHIL Toolbar links to Helsinki

2007-10-29T14:48:00.001+02:00

I included the EAHIL Toolbar by Guus van den Brekel in the (new) link list "Professional Links". If there are other ressources worth to mention, please let me know!

News from the local organizing committee

2007-10-23T15:46:00.000+03:00

The local organizing committee had a meeting yesterday. At the meeting we worked with information for potential sponsors and exhibitors, and detailed information about sponsorship opportunities and exhibition will be published in the conference web page within a few days. We also discussed about library visits during the conference. We are planning to organize visits to different types of libraries in Helsinki area, including scientific, public and special libraries. In addition there was an idea to organize architectural tours in one or two buildings designed by Alvar Aalto (i.e. the architect that has designed the conference venue Finlandia Hall). Let's hope that all these plans can be realised!

Making it pretty ...

2007-10-18T14:36:00.000+03:00

Katja, the founder of this blog, just gave me admin rights. She shouldn't have done that ;-) . I'm making the blog look really pretty now. Helsinki pictures from flickr, Links to the conference sites, Labels, Feeds, ... If you like more or something completely different, please tell me and comment! Maybe we could add a poll too, e.g. "Will you attend the conference?" or "Do you like the abstract submission system?"...

International Programme Committee 1st Meeting

2007-10-17T17:45:00.000+03:00

The International Programme Committee had a lunch meeting, at the EAHIL Workshop, Krakow, 13^th September.

We discussed the abstract submission system and agreed that it will be opened for submitting abstracts on 24th September. The third call for paper submission will be made during the last full week of October. The deadline is 31st of October 2007, as you may all know by now...

Keynote speakers was another topic of some concern. Does the quality of the progamme depend on keynote speakers only or could we trust on the submitted presentations from the members? We will keep you informed on the experts we caught for talks!

A second meeting in December at Helsinki will discuss further details, select abstracts, and propose a draft schedule for the scientific programme.

Call for papers and posters

2007-10-16T18:29:00.000+03:00

The European Association for Health Information and Libraries - EAHIL

The 11th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, Helsinki, Finland,

23rd - 28th June 2008

CALL FOR PAPERS AND POSTERS

The International Programme Committee invites you to submit papers and posters for the 11th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries
“Towards a New Information Space – Innovations and Renovations”
to be held in Helsinki, Finland, 23rd - 28th June, 2008.

The Committee invites research papers, innovative approaches, examples of best practice, case studies on the following topics:

* Virtual communities and virtual libraries, for example:

Collaborative information environments, collaborative practices, Partnerships and alliances, Scholarly publishing, Contribution to e-science, Open access, Open archives, Changing information needs and services, Changing physical library space, Impact on physical library space, Value of library and information services, Web 2.0

* Innovative health information management, for example:

Health informatics, biomedical informatics, Semantic web, Ontologies

* New technologies and applications, for example:

Mobile technologies, Information visualization, Web 2.0 technologies

* Health information policy, for example:

Global health information, Community health information

* Evidence-based practice, for example:

Supporting evidence-based health care, Evidence-based library and information practice

* Education and professional development, for example:

Leadership, Changing roles, transferring skills

* Medical humanities, for example:

Ethical issues in communication: physician-patient relationship, History of medicine, History of medical libraries, Digitizing the past for the future

For more information, please visit the conference web page at: https://eventnordic-fi.directo.fi/congreszon/eahil_2008/call_for_papers