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Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
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![[Read Rapid Response]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
What a resource!
- Beatrice M Doran (20 August 1999)
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Time for a Babelfish in the garden pond?
- Ahmad Risk (20 August 1999)
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Full text bias?
- Harry Rutter (20 August 1999)
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Keep up the good work
- Harsh Grewal (20 August 1999)
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cyberrevolution led by bmj
- Rumin B Shah (21 August 1999)
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Re: Full text bias?
- Sandra Swanson (22 August 1999)
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Gardening
- Grant Barrett (23 August 1999)
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Patients will drive the real revolution
- Dion Martley (14 September 1999)
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Should rapid responses carry the date (and time) of submission?
- J C R Hardwick (25 May 2000)
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Of spelling mistakes and strange grammar
- Stephen R Kepple (17 September 2000)
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Beatrice M Doran, Chief Librarian Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
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I have been meaning to write to you to tell you what a wonderful resource the eBMJ is! I constantly recommend it to our Library users or when giving talks on medical electronic resources to undergraduate and post graduate students. I am particularly pleased to receive the contents of the BMJ every Friday morning and send it to our staff electronic mailing list in the College. I have had many appreciative comments from academic staff and post graduate students who are very pleased to receive the table of contents. I also like receiving notice of articles in my own special area of interest. I pass these on to two other colleagues as well. The ability to get a reprint of any article in PDF is just great because the quality is so good. The other facilities you offer like searching Medline and alerting readers when new articles cite a particular article are also terrific. I have also used your resource collection especially the medical informatics one which I find excellent. The availability of the full text of articles and your searchable archive are just wonderful! Keep up the good work! Beatrice Doran Librarian, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland The Mercer Library, Mercer Street Lower, Dublin 2. |
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Ahmad Risk, Editor Health Informatics Europe (http://hi-europe.co.uk) Brighton England
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All this is very encouraging, shows committment and confirms to me that the eBMJ has reached the point of no return :-) All we need now is a multi-lingual site. Richard and Tony: Put that fish in the pond please! One good starting reference point is the ISOC's 'Babel' site, which I am sure you are aware of.
Ahmad Risk |
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Harry Rutter, Specialist Registrar in Public Health Oxfordshire Health Authority
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I find the eBMJ immensely useful, and would happily forego my paper version (which often only pauses on its way to the recycling bin to have its plastic wrapper removed), but I wonder if the ease with which one can search back issues for the full text of old papers is starting to have an impact on practice. When I need a full literature search that is just what I do, but often I only want a quick rundown on something. It is now so easy to do this by pulling BMJ articles off the web that I wonder what I am missing. This is my laziness of course, not the BMJ's failing, but it results in a distortion nonetheless, and one which may become more widespread as the habit establishes itself and the internet matures. This is of course just an extension of the advantage the BMJ has enjoyed for years as a result of landing on so many doctors' doormats; the influence of a journal is in part related to its accessibility. Once all journals offer free full text access, linked into Medline, the problem will be solved. In the meantime beware of geeks, especially when they are bearing eBMJ printouts (or just ask them what the Lancet says on the subject). |
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Harsh Grewal, Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery Kansas, USA
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Dear Editors, Keep up the good work. You are right on the money. I would never have subscribed or read the paper journal, with e-mail alerts I peruse the contents as well as articles of interest in every issue. Congratulations. Harsh Grewal, MD |
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Rumin B Shah, internist private hospital
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Dear Sir, I have been a regular browser of BMJ website besides a lot of other medical websites.BMJ provides all full text articles with a lot of cross refernces & relevant articles free.The BMJ hallmark of quality & TOTAL pragmatic approach to any healthcare related issue is really appreciable.It is always fascinating to read What is new in Neurology OR Hematology right on the date it is published.For a third world internist always eager to learn State of the Art medicare;BMJ website;its news letters & editors choice recommendation are just a mouseclick away.I am sure BMJ will continue this honorus task & expand the horizons further & the other prestigious journals will follow this step of free & fast dissemination of scientific material as well. yours DR RUMIN B. SHAH,BARODA,INDIA. |
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Sandra Swanson, Health Sciences Librarian Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
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Dr. Rutter expresses his concern that the ease of finding archived eBMJ fulltext articles on clinical topics may limit the information on which clinical practice is based. How fortunate, then, that eBMJ also includes features that make it very easy for its users to identify and locate additional relevant literature. I refer to the box at the top of each fulltext article offering links to the PubMed database. With a single mouse-click, one may call up an extensive, up-to-date list of related articles. In many cases, the PubMed citations will include abstracts to assist in identifying articles of interest. An increasing number of PubMed records also include links to the journal publisher's website, where a fulltext copy of the cited article may be obtained -- often free to the journal's subscribers. In the U.S., PubMed's links to the Loansome Doc service also allows users to order articles from local medical libraries. I encourage eBMJ's users to explore the features that make this fine service a vital link in expanding access to clinical information. Sandra Swanson, MLS, AHIP |
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Grant Barrett, Editor World New York
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While I do appreciate your comparison of the BMJ web site to
a garden, your clip art illustration of an over-flowing
cornucopia also includes a Pilgrim's millinery. The illustration is apparently originally intended for decoration of items pertaining to the American holiday Thanksgiving. You might be better served comparing the web site to an abundant harvest, which, of course it is, and still use the image. I cannot guess, however, how you will explain the hat. The site is extremely well-done, and I congratulate you.
Grant Barrett
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Dion Martley, gp/online editor auckland,new-zealand
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I have always savoured the BMJ and you are right on making full text free on line--it was a courageous and visionary step of your editors to realise the value of knowledge increases with sharing. Keep up the good work and if you can bridge the link with patients, you will have completed the revolution you have started. |
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J C R Hardwick
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Editor - The success of the eBMJ is through a combination of speed of transfer and publication and the lack of constraints of space (1). This speed has occasionally caused confusion depending on which version of the journal is read (2). The ease of submission of e-letters to the journal hopefully makes submission appealing to a wider audience. Perhaps of most appeal is that the fruits of the author's labour are visible within hours of submission. Many articles prompt responses within a few hours of publication (usually within the paper journal) and the themes of these letters are often similar. Each e-letter / rapid response is accompanied by the date of acceptance of the submission. This may vary by days from the date of submission (actually the date and time of the sending of the e-mail). It may be more logical if rapid-responses carried the date and perhaps even time of submission, given the speed of transfer of information in this 'electronic age'. Dr JCR Hardwick
1. Delamothe T, Smith R.The joy of being electronic BMJ 1999;319:465- 466 2. Smith R. (Reply to)"Correcting" bmj.com BMJ 2000;320:1005 |
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Stephen R Kepple, Copy-Editing Manager American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, Bethesda, MD, USA 20851
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Dear Sir: I just read your 1999 editorial on "The Joys of Being Electronic." Joys there may be, but "spelling mistakes and strange grammar" are surely not among them. So let me be the first to complain. I know, from my 22-year perspective as a medical copy editor, that these sorts of errors are often part of a pattern of carelessness and illogic that extends to the essential content of a letter (or any other species of written communication, for that matter). What is the point of publishing material rapidly if it is dreck? A lack of sufficient editorial control reduces the "publications" process to little more than an electronic chat room, which anyone can set up on a shoestring. Editorial control is the service we are supposed to be providing and is the whole point.. Kind regards and best wishes, Stephen R. Kepple, E.L.S.
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