[HSF] Paper Journals in an Internet age.
Michael Firstenberg
msfirst at gmail.com
Mon Jan 1 09:36:40 EST 2007
This is clearly a problem with the digital internet age -
BI (before internet) - everything will be lost as it will not be
available in a digital format, no one knows how to use a library, and
even the major search engines (pubmed) dont go back too far. I
remember doing a few literature search on the origins of a few
surgical topics and digging up the original papers - sometimes very
difficult - was kind of fun (some of the "landmark" papers would
never be even considered these days - just look at Loop's NEJM IMA
paper....)
... then again, a lot of the stuff out there now is also self-
serving, biases, statistical mumbo-jumbo........
(and I will even include some of the things that I have written)
-michael
everyone else must be sleeping in after a good new year (I hope)
since not too much discussion this am
On Jan 1, 2007, at 9:16 AM, prasannasimha wrote:
> I am trying to do some but have to get the time and teh Mood !! If
> some one can send me some of these important ones like Gibbon's
> original paper which was impossible for me to get hands on we could
> make one large collection of the "Most Important papers in Cardiac
> surgery".
> If we could agree to a list of 50 most important papers we could
> try to collect them and make them into one large PDF with a brief
> write up of them and why they were so important.
> For starters
> Alexis Carrel's vascular suture paper.
> Jay Macleans paper on Heparin
> Gibbons' original paper
> Bigelow's work on hypothermia with ennis first clinical attempt.
> Andreas and Watson's controlled cross circulation (Paper I never
> got to see)
> Lillehei's controlled cross circulation.
> Kirklin's initial series.
> Bharati and Lev's paper on the conduction system in relation to VSD's
> Jatenes original paper on the arterial switch
> Fontan's original paper
> Zuhdi et al paper on hemodilution with the paper by Cooley added
> to it.
> Castaneda's paper on neonatal correction.
> Horiuchi's paper of circulatory arrest with the subsequent paper by
> Barret Boyes.
> Debakey and Cooley's paper on aortic arch aneurysm's
> Laks stitch for controllable ASD
> Kantrowitz's paper on IABP.
>
> That is an initial list off hand.
>
> Prasanna
>
>
>
>
> Michael Firstenberg wrote:
>> Ahhh, those where the days - I remember using some online
>> reference systems and thinking wow, this is great.
>>
>> Prasanna - what would it take to get some copies of some of those
>> early papers? (ie scanned PDFs?)
>>
>> -michael
>>
>>
>> On Jan 1, 2007, at 12:00 AM, prasannasimha wrote:
>>
>>> For me it is very plain and simple. If I were to subscribe to
>>> ATS, JTCVS and EJTCVS, I would have to spend nearly Rs 10,000/=
>>> approx per month and that is impossible for me. So I rely on the
>>> Hospital Library which gets journals at its own time depending on
>>> subscriptions and vagaries of airmail. We have a thing called
>>> Helinet.This is a system where our hospital subscribes via our
>>> Health university (we have a single university for all medical
>>> colleges in Karnataka state) to an Internet based service called
>>> HELINET through which we can access certain journals via things
>>> like science direct , Ovid etc but unfortunately the only cardiac
>>> surgery journal is ATS and that too its payment (and hence
>>> access) is a bit erratic. I usually get articles of interest via
>>> many kind souls who send them over to me when I ask via email and
>>> I acknowledge their altruism in helping me out. There are many
>>> journals that are free after varying amounts of time. I can get
>>> access say after 6 months or a year and some are free access for
>>> India (for Eg Lancet / NEJM etc). Unfortunately the free access
>>> system (after a period of time) does not exist for cardiac
>>> surgical journals except a couple.
>>> The whole process of journal writing etc are to allow
>>> dissemination of Knowledge and I cannot see why it has to be
>>> locked down after say 6 months or a year. I appreciate that
>>> journal publishing companies have to make profits but they should
>>> allow free access at least after some time. The contributors and
>>> editors have done it for gratis and they should allow access
>>> after some time. This would increase the journal's prestige and
>>> impact factor anyway.
>>> All I have is a few old dusty copies of some earth shaking
>>> articles for eg Lillehei's original cross circulation paper and
>>> Hillel Laks "Laks suture" (fenestrated ASD for Fontan's) etc. I
>>> hold on to these.
>>> Then there is a thing called Amedeo which sends interesting
>>> articles (the titles and links to PUBMED) weekly which I find
>>> useful and PUBMED is great for doing literature searches.
>>>
>>> I remember taking around 50 disks of Silver Platter and searching
>>> Index Medicus or worse the huge bound Journals of Index Medicus
>>> that I had to wade through when I did my MS(Gen surg) and MCh
>>> (Thoracic) degrees. I had to wear a mask and cap while I rummaged
>>> through all those books. My MS thesis was on gall stones and
>>> since I read every reference that I quoted, I was searching in
>>> the really old archived section of Grant Medical College (which
>>> is around 170 years old and so had most of the really old
>>> journals). Since photocopying was not very prevalent and
>>> expensive , most of these used to be read and the article
>>> summarized in a note book.I used to have a carbon paper copy of
>>> each page while writing. Writing a thesis was actually involving
>>> cut and paste (we used to write it in sections and then actually
>>> cut out portions and paste them on sheets) -I still remember
>>> Jimmy Carter getting one of the original word processors
>>> (basically what we could call as an electronic typewriter) and
>>> when I saw my first one. I said Wow it can justify edges and we
>>> can correct the lines prior to typing using a preview option. My
>>> first thesis was written when I was doing my MBBS - (I had got a
>>> research grant as a first year medical student - a rare thing in
>>> India those days) and typing on a manual typewriter was such a
>>> pain and getting some one to type who could understand medical
>>> terminology was a bigger pain !! At that time photocopying was
>>> such a laborious process (I am sure many would remember the old
>>> manual photocopiers involving a frame with toner that used to be
>>> shaked and the margins of the photocopier surface had to be wiped
>>> etc) Writing it down was easier !!
>>> The final indexing was a tremendous pain invovling flash cards
>>> and indexing cards !!
>>> Today we can do it all in a click of a button !!!
>>> Dr Frater could probably tell about his tribulations in his time !!
>>> Prasanna
>>> Michael Firstenberg wrote:
>>>> I used to like the idea of entire bookselves filled with
>>>> Journals - now they just take up tons of space. Since, for the
>>>> most part the internet and PDF access (at least to recent stuff)
>>>> is easy - does anyone keep this stuff anymore? if so why?
>>>>
>>>> Am I just being sentimental for the old days?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -michael
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> HAPPY NEW YEAR to all
>>>>
>>>>
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