I don't know what this says but searching "pregnancy termination" produces 1,366 hits. After finding an article from the list of "pregnancy termination" articles, I found the keyword "abortion" and clicked on it and got 24,943 hits. So if they are censoring it, they are doing an inept job of it.
Rick Rick Froman [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Mike Palij [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 1:12 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: [tips] U.S. Federal Restriction on Searching for "Abortion" In Population Database (POPLINE) The messages below came through on another mailing list but may be of interest to both teachers and researchers on TiPS. I don't know the details but the people involved in providing the info are reputable. The story as to why this is occurring now should be very interesting. I've also tried to search POPLINE with the term "abortion" just before sending this email and also got zero hits. -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ============================================ fyi ... several action steps you can take NOW to block the censorship of abortion-related issues on POPLINE ... please also pass this notice along to other relevant listserves and colleagues ... *************************************************************** Nancy Krieger, PhD Professor, Dept of Society, Human Development, and Health Harvard School of Public Health 677 Huntington Avenue, Kresge 717 Boston, MA 02115 (USA) phone: 617-432-1571 fax: 617-432-3123 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] webhttp://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/NancyKrieger.html >>> From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 4/4/2008 12:08 PM Subject: censorship at POPLINE - alert for researchers, educators, doctors, librarians Dear Colleagues and Friends, I've just learned from a librarian at Barnard College, Jenna Freedman, about a very serious censorship issue concerning a major database (POPLINE) run by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and funded partly by USAID. The have blocked scholarly, professional, and public access to information about abortion. Searching the POPLINE database for the term 'abortion' will now yield an astonishing ZERO results. Try it yourself: http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/popweb/ In both my research and in teaching (especially my course on Women & Health) I rely on POPLINE. Our librarian was told by Debra L. Dickson at POPLINE: "We recently made all abortion terms stop words. As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now." FYI, a "stop word" means that the search engine ignores that word (e.g., it's how 'and' is treated). According to the official blurb on POPLINE (POPulation information onLINE), it is "the world's largest database on reproductive health, containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues." PLEASE TAKE 2 MINUTES, at least, and do one or more of these 3 WAYS TO TAKE QUICK ACTION: 1 - drop a quick comment on their webpage (link & language below) 2 - call/email the INFO Project P.I. and Project Director (info below) 3 -call the Hopkins/Bloomberg School of Public Health, Director of public affairs, Tim Parsons, at 410-955-7619 or email him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tell him that blocking abortion information through POPLINE constitutes political censorship, and is a stain on Johns Hopkins. * Submit a comment on the INFO Project webpage here: http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/popweb/contact.html Here's some suggested language which I invite you to crib: I'm shocked and extremely disappointed at the new policy of treating abortion as a 'stopword.' I rely on POPLINE as both a researcher and an educator. Your decision effectively blocks access to professional and scholarly information about abortion. This absolutely invalidates your status as a reliable source of information. Until this is changed, I will no longer accept a search of POPLINE as an acceptable research strategy from my students, regardless of the topic. I look forward to your response, and even more to your reversal of this policy. * Call &/or email the INFO Project: Professor Jane Bertrand, Principal Investigator [EMAIL PROTECTED] The INFO Project (410) 659-6300 Earle Lawrence, Project Director The INFO Project (410) 659-6300 ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: POPLINE scandal From: "Jenna Freedman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, April 3, 2008 7:43 pm To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------- Hiya Beck, Librarians are up in arms about POPLINE sabotaging access to information on abortion http://radicalreference.info/jenna/popline/abortion , and I'm hoping to expand the outrage to women's studies scholars and scientists. Can you help? The two sentence version: If you search this government funded database on reproductive health for information on abortion using "abortion" as the sole search term, you will get zero results, based on a change made in the last three months. "We recently made all abortion terms stop words. As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now." The quote being from Debra L. Dickson at POPLINE I hope you're well and having a restful and/or productive sabbatical! Jenna -- Jenna Freedman, MLIS Coordinator of Reference Services and Zine Librarian Barnard College Library 212.854.4615 AIM, Google Talk & Yahoo: BarnardLibJenna -- Rebecca M. Young Assistant Professor of Women's Studies Barnard College 212-854-9088 [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
