Digitization and Encoding of Classical Articles in
Neurosurgery, 1870-1922
Goals of project
There are classical articles in the medical literature that are recognized as having an important impact in the field. These articles are still of interest to researchers, students and medical historians. The reliance on Medline, which has citations back to 1966 only, hampers researchers in looking for these documents, which predate modern indexing efforts.
We propose a project to digitize and encode classical articles from Neurosurgery, and to make the texts available from our server. In the process, we will learn how to use SGML/XML to mark up text in a format meeting the Text Encoding for Interchange guidelines. These skills will be useful beyond work on this project, in any endeavor involving encoding documents for publication in a networked environment, such as the World Wide Web. In addition, we will explore collaboration with PubMed Central, which has expressed preliminary interest in this project.
Methodology
Classical articles in Neurosurgery from 1870-1922 will be identified using Morton's medical bibliography: an annotated checklist of texts illustrating the history of medicine (Garrison and Morton), a recognized authoritative guide to important biomedical literature. A search of the holdings at this library will then be done to determine which articles in this group are held at the library. A preliminary study suggests that at least twenty such articles exist.
Each article will then be photocopied and scanned to produce a digital format. If scanning is impractical, articles may simply be keyed in, instead of scanning. Each article will be converted into two formats. Adobe Acrobat will be used to produce a PDF file. OmniPagePro will be used to produce a searchable text file. The text files will be carefully proofread to insure accuracy, and will then be marked up using SGML/XML. The articles will then be posted on our web site. Additionally, the articles will be added to ORBIS and to the OCLC CORC database. The articles will be submitted for inclusion in other larger projects, such as PubMed Central.
Project Evaluation
At the end of the project, we will evaluate whether we can develop sufficient expertise in SGML/XML to make more such projects feasible. We are further interested in examining whether we could design a process of encoding articles (those in the public domain), which could then be posted on our Web site, during normal interlibrary loan activities.
As a long-term evaluation of the project, a search will be done in Web of Science to determine a citation rate for these articles. This search will be repeated one year after the articles are posted on the World Wide Web, to see if there is any statistically significant difference in the citation rate.
Estimated Costs
Student work hours (scanning and proofreading)
$10 per hour, 20 documents @ 6 hours per document
$1200
Caere OmniPagePro Scanner Suite
$100
Total
$1300
Timeline
Scanning and proofreading articles: 120 hours (5 to 10 hours per week of student time for 10 to 20 weeks,) will be completed by May 2000.
Encoding text and testing: June-September 2000.
Post on server October 2000.
Impact on the Library Community
A desired outcome of this project is to develop collaborative efforts with other libraries to make more important biomedical literature available through the World Wide Web. The SGML/XML expertise acquired will be necessary for these collaborations. The experience gained can also be used in aiding researchers and clinicians as they seek to participate in projects such as PubMed Central, which will require that submissions be properly encoded using SGML/XML. Finally, Web publishing projects using SGML/XML will have a major impact on how biomedical research is archived and accessed. Librarians should be involved and knowledgeable about these efforts, so that we may fully participate and help to shape the future of biomedical communications. The project will also result in a paper or poster session regarding using SGML/XML, and how librarians can be involved in collaborations such as PubMed Central. The citation analysis performed before and after the project will show whether such projects can have an effect on research activities.