Levy Library

NLM's Turning the Pages Online

There are some things that you see online that just make you say, WOW!  One such thing may be found on the website of the National Library of Medicine, in the Turning the Pages Online section (http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/intro.htm).  On these pages can be found six famous titles in the history of medicine, brought to life by technology. The titles include Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica and Conrad Gesner’s Historiae Animalium.  Viewers can literally turn the pages of these wonderful sources and see every page of the volumes in high resolution images.  In addition, there are added features that help explain or highlight various sections of the text and images, making the experience more rich.  These books had once been available only to scholars who could travel to scattered libraries.  Now they are online and available to anyone with a good Internet connection.  Check it out and be amazed!

Medpedia Launches

Last week a potentially exciting new tool, Medpedia, was released in beta form.  Medpedia, like the extremely popular Wikipedia, is a wiki - a collaborative and free encyclopedia edited by a group of interested volunteers. However, Medpedia is focused on providing information for health, medicine, and the body.  Only carefully screened physicians and Ph.D.s are allowed to edit the articles.  It currently offers what looks like a few hundred articles on biomedical topics.  Sounds like a very interesting project.