This is an exciting time to be interested in medicine, in search, in medical librarianship and in neat, new shiny things to look at. Yes, PubMed is the gold standard and is free to users. But we let us be open to the development of promising subscription services that might be of use to even the smallest cash-strapped library, independent researcher or laymen afflicted with conditions in the treatment of which authoritative information on new developments is vital. Infovell is worth a look and combines features of other relatively new tools such as Patents.com, GoPubMed, Lalisio Literature and Vadlo.

Some of these tools clearly have major financial backing (e.g., Patents.com) and some are the spare time products of clever scientists with day jobs. But all of them are useful adjuncts to the world of PubMed and Google.

It is de rigueur among medical librarians when reviewing new search tools to point out what the tool under discussion does not do and to make comparisons that reflect ill on the new tool. So, I will get that part over with forthwith.

Okay, here is what I didn’t like or found puzzling. As usual, I started out with the search term, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.” “Amyotrophic,” was underlined in red suggesting it was a misspelling, whereas I had, for once, actually spelled it correctly. That got me off on the wrong foot with Infovell and just at the moment I am getting the message, “Can not search data source(s) at this time…” But those are probably just teething problems of this beta version.

Also, I personally detest frames on Web sites and that makes it hard for me to fully embrace such potentially useful tools as Infovell and GoPubMed (which I really, really like). That is a matter of personal taste, but frames to me just scream, “Clunky!” As I have said before, I will take the slick, dream of an interface of Patents.com over frames any day.

It took quite a bit of clicking, for instance, via dropdowns, to tweak my search. It is times like that that I miss the good old, user-friendly limits page of PubMed.

Also, Infovell is basically a gateway to abstracts and only in a roundabout way to free, full-text materials via PubMed Central. I am always on the lookout for full-text material and Infovell disappoints on that score. It does draw on some interesting databases such as FDA Vaccine Adverse Events and United States Patent and Trademark Office abstracts. But skillful professional searchers could find that kind of material on their own without paying for a subscription service.

Indeed, I am not sure who the target audience for Infovell is. Medical librarians, I suspect, would not be terribly impressed and unless the interface were slicker even educated consumers would not buy in nor would stressed searchers in the corporate sector, who would be turned off by some of the way-off results that came from a search of, “News.” Maybe Infovell could somehow partner with Cognition Technologies, Inc. to sharpen up its results.

Okay, now that I have expressed what I suspect will be the initial reactions among medical librarians and corporate info-folk, what do I like about Infovell? Well, the whole concept, really, of rendering more of the Deep Web discoverable and the obvious commitment they have made to that effort. My boss on this blog sends me quite a number of tools each week to look over and in the course of trying each out I often come across fascinating PR releases about developments in ALS research or new devices or technologies to help those with it or a patent application for such or a PowerPoint by smart graduate students on some aspect of the condition. And think of the thousands of consumers and researchers who are fascinated by like conditions. More power to Infovell for trying to encompass commercial sources of information such as those of GlaxoSmithKline, Astra Zeneca and Merck along with the huge federal databases and good for Cognition Technologies for developing search technologies that would enable us all to sort through such aggreagations and good for Lalisio Literature and Vadlo for highlighting what is available in the recesses of scholarship.

Infovell has potential, but information professionals, especially those lucky enough to work in data-rich settings, are tough nuts to crack and have a very hardnosed, convince me mindset. But then, they have the resources to try out subscription services like Infovell. Innovation in medical and scientific search is to be embraced and encouraged. Go, Infovell.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Reviews, Uncategorized, Verticals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.