Trip Database Blog

I got this lead from Ben Toth. This is a brilliant application.

It doesn’t work with many sites, but it does on Amazon.com. When you load a page with an ISBN number Book Burro recognises this and automatically compares prices over a variety of book stores. In additon, it has agreements with some libraries to show stock.

As you will see on the screenshot, Amazon is by no means the cheapest and also that the book is available in Earlham and Manchester Colleges. Not that that does me much good as I’m based in Cardiff – still it’s the principle that’s important.

Below are the most viewed articles from TRIP for November:

1. Growth reference charts for the UK (RCPCH) – viewed 188 times
2. Contact dermatitis (PRODIGY) – 164
3. Acute sore throat (PRODIGY) – 140
4. Guidelines for the management of enteral tube feeding in adults (CREST) – 89
5. Guidelines for the administration of blood components (ANZSBT) – 87
6. Urine Dipstick for Diagnosing Urinary Tract Infection (FPIN) – 82
7. Guidelines for Blood Grouping & Antibody Screening in the Antenatal & Perinatal Setting (ANZSBT) – 81
8. Nutrition support in adults (NICE) – 80
9. Lower back pain (PRODIGY) – 79
10. Buprenorphine transdermal patches (Norspan) for chronic severe pain (NPS) – 78

The highest placed Q&A was, in 50th place, Treatment of Tinea unguis, viewed 44 times.

TRIP is getting more and more popular, find below our search stats:

• 25,000 searches per month (while we were a subscription service)
• 132,538 – September 2006
• 191,581 – October 2006
• 274,106 – November 2006

Since going free in September we’ve had monthly increases, in use, of approximately 45%. That’s strong growth, but when will it plateau?

Given the ‘strength’ of TRIP I’m looking forward to the next batch of upgrades. Not likely to happen till Spring 2007 (too busy on Gwagle). But if you have any suggestions on how to improve TRIP I would love to hear from you!

I came across two fairly recent articles that have used TRIP as part of a literature search:

• Systematic review: the effectiveness of hypnotherapy in the management of irritable bowel syndrome.
• Does cardiopulmonary resuscitation cause rib fractures in children? A systematic review.

It’s nice to see that we get mentioned in the literature as well as being so highly used.

Google is shutting down its Google Answers service. As the article syas it might well be to re-launch with something new and innovative in the New Year.

Interestingly, a Q&A ‘service’ will be one of the core features of Gwagle…

We’re near to finalising the design for the TRIP leaflets and they’re looking pretty good. If you want any let us know via ‘Contact Us‘ on the TRIP Database – they should be available December or early January.

Ambient Findability, by Peter Morville, is a great book. Only half way through but already lots to think about.

A news article on the BBC website ‘Podcast numbers show ‘few hooked‘. The article reveals:

• The survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found 12% of US people online had downloaded a podcast.
• Earlier this year, a survey by the same research group found that just 7% of online Americans had downloaded a show.
• But despite the growth, just 1% of respondents said that they would download a podcast on a typical day.
• This figure remains unchanged from the February survey.

I’m not sure why, but I have an affection for the Merck Manual. It’s not massively popular on TRIP (eMedicine is more popular). But it’s recently been updated to the 18th edition (most updates are 2005); the previous edition – 17 – was in 1999.

There’s something verging on ‘old fashioned’ about completely re-writing a book every 5-6 years. I suppose this reflects the ‘old media’ style approach to things. Some clinical areas move very rapidly while other move much more sedately. Surely it’d be better to have more frequent updates of the ‘rapid’ areas. I suppose the problem with that is that it pushes back the development of the ‘sedate’ chapters.

Still, it highlights the problem of ‘central control’. Merck retains control of the content – making it very expensive (no doubt) to update, making it rapidly out of date etc.

eMedicine, another eTextbook, takes a different approach. It retains control, but updates happen with fair regularity. It appears that a senior clinician is given overall control. I imagine if s/he hears of new information they’ll want it added to ‘their’ chapter.

Then we have wikis such as Ganfyd. Lots of doctors contribute and ‘own’ it – there is no central ownership, but likewise little resource. So contributions are made in the docs own time. As it stands there appears to be a lot of titles (they’re easy) and relatively few ‘solid’ articles. It’ll be very interesting to see how Ganfyd ‘matures’ over time.

Let’s compare the entries for hirsutism:
Merck Manual
eMedicine
Ganfyd

Hardly a scientific test but the Merck Manual will possibly stay the same for the next 5 years, Ganfyd will change slowly, while eMedicine seems the most comprehensive/useful! In fact the Merck Manual (recently published) was last updated November 2005, while eMedicine’s last update was July 2006.

Anyway, that aside, I’ve got the Merck Manual to add to TRIP – only another 1,000 links to manually add!