Home >> Publications >> Blake_AMIA_2005
Blake, C., West, D., Luo, L., &
Marchoinini, G. (2005). Cataloging On-Line Health Information: A
Content Analysis of the NC Health Info Portal. In Proceedings of the Annual
American Medical Informatics Association Conference (AMIA 2005).
Abstract:
The unrelenting increase of
health information on the World Wide Web has resulted in an urgent need for
portals that provide consumers with trustworthy health information. In response
to this need, the National Library of Medicine initiated the Go Local
initiative, which extends MEDLINEplus by providing consumers with links to local
health services, programs and providers. NC Health Info (www.nchealthinfo.org)
is the first NIH funded Go Local portal. Our goal is to gain insight into
the nature of interactions that occur during the cataloging process of online
health information resources. We conducted a content analysis of annotations
made by catalogers on the NC Health Info portal between January 2000 and
September 2004. Our analysis of 2269 online information resources revealed
challenges with establishing the navigational, geographical and topical content
of an on-line resource. Our analysis provides insights into the mechanisms that
catalogers use to overcome those challenges and thus will be of value to future
Go Local portal development.