What I’m supposed to talk about

“If I were the editor in chief of the Cochrane Collaboration what would I do to improve the quality

of Cochrane reviews”

Richard SmithEditor, BMJJuly 2002

What I’m will talk about

“If I were the editor in chief of the Cochrane Collaboration what

would I do to make the Cochrane Library more useful, actionable, sexy, and amusing”

Richard SmithEditor, BMJJuly 2002

Methods of preparing my talk

• Just as Friedrich August Kekule dreamt the structure of the benzene ring, I dreamt this talk?

• Is this a first for Cochrane?

These are pictures I associate with the

Cochrane Library now

These are pictures I associate with hwo the

Cochrane Library might be

•Utility of information• Equals

•Relevance x validity x interactivity

• Divided by

•Work to access

Weekly BMJ

• Relevance Low• Validity Variable• Interactivity Low

• Work to access Variable

• Utility Poor

Cochrane Library

•Relevance • Too many holes• Researcher’s

questions not the questions of patients, clinicians, or policymakers

• Doesn’t recognise that the questions keep changing

Cochrane Library

•Validity • High• But what about

breaking down information os that it can be applied to individual patients

Cochrane Library

•Interactivity • Miserable• Why can’t the

Cochrane Library be as much fun as the colloquiums?

• Why no music, dancing, or trips up fiords?

Cochrane Library

•Work to access

• Too bloody much• Looks awful• No jokes• No pictures• No sex• Nothing human• No light moments

Who are the Cochrane Library’s competitors?

• Think for a moment• Feeding the dog• Hollywood movies• Manchester United• Attractive people with their clothes

off• This is the attention economy

bmj.com becomes the database forall BMJ material, which enters thedatabase independent of any printcycle

BMJ content ascurrentlyunderstood

Locals editions(inc BMJUSA) studentBMJ

BMJ careers

Multipleviews,individuallycustomisedby endusers

Views pre-customised by usEg studentBMJ,BMJ USA

The paper BMJ is(just) another view ofthe database - it's theeditor's choice ofwhat should appear inthat week's paperjournal.

The electronicversion of this residesin the database, and… (?)

Otherpaperspinoffs

bmj.com - the website of the BMJ umbrella

IN

OUT

Opportunitiesfor targetedadvertising

What might come out of the Cochrane Library?

• Something very practical for patients

• Juicy stuff on methodology• Greatest hits• The movie• The comic book version• Cochrane for those under 6

Bringing the Cochrane

Library ALIVE

The need for argument

• Where there is much desire to learn there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."

• John Milton

The liberty to utter

• Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

• John Milton

The power of conversation

• When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, and engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards; it creates new

cards. • Theodore Zeldin

Making new knowledge

• The power of bringing together the right minds around a subject in an online dialogue, well facilitated, well deliberated, has enormous potential to help us get through issues that we've never solved before.

• Mario Morino

Richard Horton’s presentation in Barcelona

• One paper• x authors (x greater than 4 less

than 10)• One conclusion• Ask the authors individually for the

conclusion• x conclusions

The friendliness and participativeness of Cochrane

• Restrictions on using the Feedback function• The Cochrane Library includes a system for submitting

feedback on reviews and protocols published in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) and on the structured abstracts published in The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE).

• This feedback service is not currently available in any of the other databases within The Cochrane Library.

• And worst of all I couldn’t go back. I was stuck. “Who’d want to a member of a club that let you in but not out.” It’s like the IRA.

What is editing?

• Editing is the same thing as quarrelling with writers--the same thing exactly.

• Harold Ross

Editors run snack bars

• Editors may think of themselves as dignified headwaiters in a well-run restaurant but more often they operate a snack bar and expect you to be grateful that at least they got the food to the table warm.

• Thomas Griffith

So what the hell is the message?

• More relevance• More different forms• More unihibited conversation• More jokes• More winkles, fewer oysters• It’s the Cochrane way

“Relax if you wanna

cum”