If you would like to write POPLINE regarding this new policy, on your
own time of course, go to
http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/popweb/contact.html.
Janet
Janet Fischer
Collection Development/Government Documents Librarian
Golden Gate University Law Library
536 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
phone: 415-442-7826
fax: 415-512-9395
email: jfischer@ggu.edu
http://www.ggu.edu/lawlibrary
>>> "Library" <Library@kvn.com> 4/3/2008 2:02 PM >>>
Even though we are not medical librarians, I'm sure many of us will
find the news in the attached posting troubling.
Anne Barker said it was fine to forward her posting about the
self-sensoring being done by POPLINE,"the world's largest database on
reproductive health." The database has made the term "abortion" a stop
word and keyword searches will no longer pull up those citations.
Paula Lichtenberg, Librarian
Keker & Van Nest LLP, San Francisco
library@kvn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Anne Barker [mailto:annenb@hillbillyhermit.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 5:21 PM
To: San Francisco Bay Region Chapter
Subject: [BULK] [sla-csfo] Fwd: POPLINE - 'abortion' is now a stopword
Have folks seen this one yet?
I received a couple of e-mails today from various listserv
subscriptions, including the SLA-DBIO list message forwarded below, that
POPLINE has recently decided to make the term "abortion" a stop word in
their database.
POPLINE, "the world's largest database on reproductive health,
containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports,
books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family
planning, and related health issues", is funded by USAID.
* Please understand, I know this can be a hot button issue, but this is
a message about access to information and political interference in
scientific research, not about abortion.*
A medical librarian at UCSF was having trouble replicating a search she
performed in January on POPLINE and asked for assistance as to why her
results were incomplete. This is the reply she received from POPLINE:
"Yes we did make a change in POPLINE. We recently made all abortion
terms stop words. As a federally funded project, we decided this was
best for now. In addition to the terms you're already using, you could
try using "Fertility Control, Postconception". This is the broader term
to our "Abortion" terms and most records have both in the keyword
fields.
Also, adding "unwanted w2 pregnancy" in place of aborti*. We have a
keyword Pregnancy, Unwanted and there are 2517 records with aborti* &
unwanted w2 pregnancy."
You can still pull up results by selecting "abortion" from the
controlled vocabulary list, but no results are retrieved via a simple
keyword search.
I wonder at what point the abortion-related records will simply be
purged from the database.
At this point it is unknown if they were getting pressure from above to
make this change or if they made it, as they say, preemptively.
Anne
---------- Forwarded Message -----------
From: Jo Anne Boorkman <jaboorkman@ucdavis.edu>
To: "Biomedical & Life Sciences Division" <sla-dbio@sla.lyris.net>
Sent: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 15:11:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [sla-dbio] Fwd: POPLINE - 'abortion' is now a stopword
Hello All,
The message string below addresses the decision by POPLINE managers to
make 'abortion' a stop word in that database...
Jo Anne
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Gloria Won" <Gloria.Won@ucsfmedctr.org>
To: ddickson@jhuccp.org
Cc: langman@mlahq.org, expertsearching@pss.mlanet.org, cschatz@sla.org,
ncnmlglist@mailman.stanford.edu, mlamis@mlahq.org, "San Francisco
Biomedical Library Network" <SFBLN@LISTSRV.UCSF.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, April 2, 2008 12:48:09 PM (GMT-0800)
America/Los_Angeles
Subject: POPLINE - 'abortion' is now a stopword
To: Debra L. Dickson
POPLINE Database Manager/Administrator
INFO Project
111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, MD 21202 ddickson@jhuccp.org
Tel: 410-659-6300 / Fax: 410-659-6266
Hi Debbie [UTF-8?]–
Thank you for your quick response to my e-mail. I have forwarded your
e- mail to researchers with whom I am working; I suspect they will be as
puzzled as I about the decision to make [UTF-8?]“all abortion terms
stop [UTF-8?]words†in the government funded, publically available
[UTF-8?] “POPLINE†database. Even more troubling is the implications
for the average user [UTF-8?]– eliminating this term essentially
blocks access to the reports in the database and ultimately to
information about abortion.
[UTF-8?]“Unwanted w2 [UTF-8?]pregnancy†is not a synonym for
abortion.
My colleague, Gail Sorrough and I are also forwarding this e-mail to
several organizations whose members are primarily medical librarians.
We suspect they will also be puzzled by the notion that a perfectly good
noun such as [UTF-8?]“abortion†should for no apparent reason be
classified as a [UTF- 8?]“stop [UTF-8?]word†and equated with
[UTF-8?]“aâ€, [UTF-8?] “anâ€, [UTF-8?]“theâ€.
A better explanation is deserved [UTF-8?]– the explanation should
also be posted on the website for all users to know, e.g.,
[UTF-8?]“The POPLINE database producers have decided to
ignore [UTF-8?]“abortion†as a searchable to term because
[UTF-8?]â€|â€|. ?
We look forward to a better explanation for why this term has been
eliminated; all of the users of POPLINE deserve to know.
Regards,
Gail Sorrough, Director of Medical Library Services and Gloria Won,
Librarian H.M. Fishbon Memorial Library UCSF Medical Center at Mount
Zion 1600 Divisadero St, Rm A116 San Francisco, CA 94115
415 885-7378
Gail.sorrough@ucsfmedctr.org
Gloria.won@ucsfmedctr.org
_______
From: Dickson, Debbie L. [mailto:ddickson@jhuccp.org]
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 7:26 AM
To: Won, Gloria
Subject: RE: Popline retrieval discrepancy
Hi Gloria,
Yes we did make a change in POPLINE. We recently made all abortion
terms stop words. As a federally funded project, we decided this was
best for now. In addition to the terms [UTF-8?]you’re already using,
you could try using [UTF-8?]‘Fertility Control,
[UTF-8?]Postconception’. This is the broader term to our
[UTF-8?]‘Abortion’ terms and most records have both in the keyword
fields. Also, adding [UTF-8?]‘unwanted w2 [UTF-8?] pregnancy’ in
place of aborti*. We have a keyword Pregnancy, Unwanted and there are
2517 records with aborti* & unwanted w2 pregnancy
I hope this helps.
Debbie
From: Won, Gloria [mailto:Gloria.Won@ucsfmedctr.org]
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 3:51 PM
To: Dickson, Debbie L.
Subject: RE: Popline retrieval discrepancy
Hello Debbie:
I left a message on your voice mail today regarding POPLINE, but
[UTF-8?] didn’t explain the problem [UTF-8?]I’m encountering, so
here is an email follow-up.
When I ran this strategy on Jan 18, 2008, POPLINE retrieved 1684 refs;
when I re-ran the same strategy today, POPLINE retrieved fewer refs, ie,
1478 refs. Usually, when a search is re-run at a later date, the total
number of
references retrieved is more, not less. Has POPLINE undergone some
major
change in the past few months that might explain the decreased
retrieval?
What can account for this discrepancy?
(strategy removed)
I also tested a second strategy that was developed in Jan 2008 and had
similar results, ie, fewer refs retrieved this time than previous.
Puzzling?!?
Appreciate a prompt response --
Thank you, Gloria
Gloria Won, MLIS
H.M. Fishbon Memorial Library
UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion
1600 Divisadero Street, Room A116
San Francisco, CA 94115
415 885-7378
-- Jo Anne Boorkman Head, Carlson Health Sciences Library University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 email: jaboorkman@ucdavis.edu phone: (530) 752-6383 FAX: (530) 752-4718--- You are currently subscribed to sla-dbio as: annenb@hillbillyhermit.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://sla.lyris.net/u? id=23439.91695dc00bccc36deb3f97431368f380&n=T&l=sla-dbio&o=4303639 or send a blank email to leave-4303639- 23439.91695dc00bccc36deb3f97431368f380@sla.lyris.net ------- End of Forwarded Message -------
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