August 16th, 2008 Brian Herzog
One difficult question I get occasionally is “do you have rankings for doctor/lawyers?”
I think what people are expecting is a Consumer Reports-like ranking of these two professions, but unfortunately, we don’t have anything exactly like that. We do have some resources for doctors, but lawyers are different.
A patron asked me to help her find lawyer rankings this past week. I did find a few websites showing some rankings, but I had no idea how reliable any of them were, and none of them got down to the local level needed by a patron in a small public library. Another thing I found were lots of articles talking about lawyers suing websites about their rankings, so that might explain the scarcity of resources.
In the end, two resources appeared promising, but only one ended up helping:
- The American Bar Association has a Lawyer Locater, which is powered by martindale.com and LexisNexis. It does provide some information on a lawyer’s background, including the Martindale-Hubbell peer review rating from their Law Directory. The amount of information varies by lawyer, but in this case, the lawyer my patron was looking for wasn’t listed at all
- The Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers provides an attorney status report which, while it doesn’t rate lawyers, does indicate when the lawyer was admitted to the bar and if they’ve had any complaints against them (my patron was shocked to find out her lawyer was admitted to the bar just eight months ago)
- A third resource the patron left with was the phone number of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Dial-A-Lawyer referral program, which assists private citizens in choosing legal council
Finding resources to research local doctors is slightly easier. This might be because the medical profession is more closely watched than the legal profession, or that people are more willing/able to travel for medical procedures than law suits.
One book I often turn to in our reference collection is America’s Top Doctors, which lists doctors by region, specialty, hospital, and by name.
Another nice local resource is the Boston Consumers’ Checkbook (which is also available for other cities). This magazine is similar to Consumer Reports, but instead of rating products, it rates services, including many medical services.
Part of the Mass.gov website reports on Health Care Quality and Cost Information. It includes lots of information for patients, but what I usually steer people towards are the “Volume by Surgeon and Hospital” reports - these aren’t rankings exactly, but instead show how often a doctor or hospital performs a certain procedure. Other reports also list cost and mortality rates for doctors and hospitals.
Another state-level website is the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine’s On-Line Physician Profile Site. Each profile includes general biographical information supplied by the doctor, and also has sections showing any malpractice payments made or any disciplinary and/or criminal actions taken against the doctor.
Additional web resources are:
- The American Medical Association’s doctor finder doesn’t provide rankings, but it does show contact and biographical information for both AMA members and non-members (it gives priority to members, it does list non-members if you click the right buttons)
- DrScore.com lets people score their own doctors and report on their experiences. Although the ratings are voluntary and anonymous, I did notice they indicate “Castle Connolly Top Doctors,” which is the America’s Top Doctor’s resource I mentioned above. And in addition to the ratings, this website is also useful as doctor finder
- RateMDs.com seems more commercial than DrScore.com, but it also seems to have more ratings and comments. This also has nice feature search for finding local doctors
I list these because they are free and useful, and accessible for my patrons. I’m sure there are many more not-free websites out there too, as well as additional good print resources. I’d appreciate hearing suggestions for more resources in the comments below - thanks.
Tags: doctor, doctors, hospital, lawyer, lawyers, legal, libraries, Library, medical, public, ranking, rankings, rating, ratings, Reference Question, Resources, sources, Websites See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question, Resources | 1 Comment »
August 5th, 2008 Brian Herzog
Someone sent me a link to AllMyFaves.com recently - at first I ignored it, but now I kind of like it.
It’s a visual list of popular website, broken up into cataegories like Video, Maps, Search, Travel, etc. It reminds me of the early days of Yahoo, with two guys making a directory of useful internet websites. But seeing everything on one screen is helpful (and being a visual person, I like the logos).
And that’s it’s compiled by “a team of experts,” I can reasonably presume that these are the “important” websites in each category (at least, important to someone). Which is great for me to learn of a new website, or to use as a cheat-sheet to see what the kids are using. Plus, it helps with reference questions like “what’s another website like Facebook and MySpace.”
I did notice they didn’t have a “Books” category, so I made my own:
See Also
Posted under Library, Resources | 3 Comments »
July 5th, 2008 Brian Herzog
I really like answering reference questions using print resources. But I also get just as much satisfaction answering a question using a tool I read about on someone’s blog.
In honor of the Fourth of July this year, a patron was doing off-beat research into things that have happened on July 4ths past, to develop a trivia game for his cookout.
I knew of plenty of “in this day in history” type resources, but he had already found a lot of that kind of information. Happily, I remembered reading a library’s blog post mentioning a website listing #1 songs for a given day in history.
With just two clicks, we had a list of the Billboard #1 song for July 4th for the past 100+ years. The patron was very happy with this, and proceeded to our CD collection to get as many July 4th #1 songs as he could to use as music for his party. It’s rare to see a patron walk away giddy, but this was one of those times.
This website will also be handy with a annual cub scout project. To earn one of their merit badges, the scouts have to find out what happened on the day they were born. Not that knowing the #1 song will make them better scouts, but it does add a fun new dimension to the project.
Also, I would like to point out that in my birth year of 1974, the #1 song was “Rock the Boat” by The Hues Corporation. That’s a good song title for a holiday celebrating revolution and independence (even if that’s not what the song’s about).
Tags: #1, billboard, birthday, history, libraries, Library, music, number 1, number one, on this day, public, Reference Question, song See Also
Posted under Conferences, Library, Personal, Random, Reference Question, Resources | 1 Comment »
May 31st, 2008 Brian Herzog
As I’m sure you’ve heard, gas prices are on the rise. Stations around here are still hovering in the $3.90 range, but $4.00/gallon can’t be far away. I am sure that’s what prompted this week’s exchange:
Patron: Can you tell me about, gas prices… and, um… fuel economy… ?
Me: Well, maybe. What kind of information are you looking for?
Patron: C’mon, you know, gas prices, and tips, and stuff. Is it real?
After a bit more of this, I learned that the patron:
- received an email forward from a friend with driving tips that claim to save gas, and also a list of gas stations that sell gas made from oil from Middle Eastern countries,
- wanted to know if there were real driving tips that could save gas, and,
- wanted to see national gas prices and find the cheapest gas in town.
I’ve seen the gas imports email before, and lately have been seeing and hearing gas saving tips everywhere. We started searching the internet for information about driving tips, and found lots. Here’s my attempt at organizing those that look reliable:
Driving Tips To Save Gas
Gas Price Listings
Other Fuel Economy Information
Of course, the best tips are to drive less (by walking, biking or riding public transportation), or buy a more fuel efficient vehicle. None of those were practical options for the patron, so he was pretty happy to get this list when I emailed it to him later that day.
Tags: auto, autos, car, cars, driving, economy, efficiency, fuel, gas, gasoline, libraries, Library, public, Reference Question, tip, tips See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question, Resources | 3 Comments »
May 24th, 2008 Brian Herzog
A patron called in and asked for a listing of all the public access television stations in Massachusetts. She said she had an idea for a show, and wanted to see about getting it on the air.
In our reference collection, we have the Directory of Massachusetts Broadcasters, from the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association, but it didn’t seem to list public access stations. I called them and spoke with someone who checked with their assistant director. The word was that they do not deal with public access, and they suggested calling a local station and asking if they had a directory.
We do have a local cable station in town, Chelmsford Telemedia, but they patron said she had tried calling them but couldn’t get through. We’ve got a pretty good relationship with them since they film lots of programs at the library, but when I called everyone was out of the office, too - those are four hard working guys.
So, continuing on, I tried the Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media, which is also in our reference collection. This looked like it had what the patron wanted, but also listed a lot besides public access stations and seemed difficult to sift through.
Next I tried the FCC and Massachusetts State government websites, thinking they might provide a list, but couldn’t find a simple list. Then it was onto the general internet, using searches like “list of public access stations” and “public access television massachusetts,” and found:
All of these listed more or less the same stations. I called the patron back to let her know what I found, and she was happy to hear about the online lists. I sent her all the urls in an email, and also said that if she comes to the library we can help her look through the Gale directory.
I never heard back, so I take that as a good sign - the online lists got her off and running on her project, and she was just too busy to reply (whereas I usually hear back right away if the information is not helpful).
I still feel like there should be an official government source for this type of listing, but I still have yet to find it through any official channels.
Tags: cable, channels, libraries, Library, local, public, public access, Reference Question, stations, television, tv See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question, Resources | 1 Comment »
