To WordPress!

I figured Blogger would be a good platform for my needs, but after some use its turning out not to be.

I'll be transitioning this site to WordPress soon.

Site to follow at https://bibliobemused.wordpress.com/

BiblioBemused: About & Introduction

Welcome to BiblioBemused, the personal blog of Lukas Miller.

This is a personal blog with no particular target audience (Oops. Blogging 101: have an audience). I hope to eke out these details as time goes on - for now I simply desire to sometimes put my thoughts on a page to put out there for others to see.

About Me & This Blog

I am a privileged (straight, white, male [he/him]), and societally dissatisfied (read: depressed, anxious, nihilistic) Gen X / Millennial with opinions. I aim to bring my identities and passions as a music lover, librarian, socialist, introvert, and resident Saskatchewanian to light.

I aim to make this blog a mix of professional and educational matters. I hope to provide helpful information to my fellow librarians in both clinical and non-clinical contexts and share my experiences toward continuous development and lifelong learning in the library sector.

More about me here.

Scope

A brief overview of what topics you may see addressed on this blog:

Professional

• The Librarians' Toolkit. Part of the aim for this blog is to curate lists of tools and resources commonly used by myself and other librarians. My intent is to critically review and assess popular and emerging products that librarians can use to make their jobs easier.
• Clinical/Medical Librarianship. This is my job. I've found a lot of people (including health-care workers) do not know that clinical/medical librarians even exist. I hope to promote the profession by sharing what we do.
• Information and Digital Literacy. Given the crisis of "fake news" and dissolution of truth by those in positions of power, I plan to use my blog as a platform for combating these vices. 
• Freedom of and Access to Information. The public sphere, and so on.

Personal

• Games. I'm interested in the artistic and cultural impact of video games, as well as trends, issues, and research concerning games and their design.
• Music. Musings on musicology, music history, genres, subcultures, and more.
• Health. My experiences living with depression and anxiety, and my efforts to improve my mental and physical well-being.
• Politics & Current Events. In my aims to be a more communally- and politically-engaged citizen, I plan on sharing my thoughts and opinions on current, local, and newsworthy events in my area. 
• The Internets. The "Internet as a thing", the "Internet as a place", and "Internets of things" are all intriguing concepts with drastic implications for the now as much as in the future. Lets' talk about Internets. 

Why "BiblioBemused"?

I received a Bachelor of Music (B.Mus) from the University of Regina in 2007 and figured I might as well use it for something. Why not the name of my blog!? Now I can at least say I'm putting that little piece of paper to use!

National Guideline Clearinghouse (guideline.gov) Shutdown

On May 7th the following was posted to the AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) National Guideline Clearinghouse website:

AHRQ National Guideline Clearinghouse (guideline.gov) website as of May 10, 2018.

TAKE NOTICE
The AHRQ National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC, guideline.gov) Web site will not be available after July 16, 2018 because federal funding through AHRQ will no longer be available to support the NGC as of that date. AHRQ is receiving expressions of interest from stakeholders interested in carrying on NGC's work. It is not clear at this time, however, when or if NGC (or something like NGC) will be online again. In addition, AHRQ has not yet determined whether, or to what extent, the Agency would have an ongoing role if a stakeholder were to continue to operate the NGC. We will continue to post summaries of new and updated evidence-based clinical practice guidelines until July 2, 2018.

Full write-up available at: https://guideline.gov/home/announcements

In my work I make quite regular use of the NGC to find policies and guidelines at the request of health professionals conducting patient care or reviewing their own local policies and procedures. I consider it an integral tool to mine and other medical professions. Its departure signals yet another strike against evidence, truth, and the openness information by the powers-that-be.

This situation is the result of decision made by the Trump Administration.

(Thankfully, the TRIP Database is making efforts to preserve discovery of these guidelines and resources through their suite of tools. See their recent blog entry "Guidelines on Trip" for more information).