Objective: Annually, librarians teach the two-credit course, "Introduction to Biomedical Information." During one session, librarians teach Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) by using Web 2.0 models to contextualize the value of a controlled vocabulary for searching biomedical literature.
Methods: For academic year 2007/08, the average age of the students enrolled in the course is twenty-three years old. Like most individuals in this age group, these students use Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube and Flickr. Therefore, the library decided to integrate Web 2.0 into its lesson on MeSH through an indexing assignment, which requires that students use natural language to tag an article, image and movie clip. Students submit their tags prior to the in-class session using online forms. To stress the value of MeSH, the librarians then generate tag clouds to visually represent the frequency and variety of the submitted terms. At the end of class, students tag a new article and these tags are compared to terms assigned by the National Library of Medicine for the same article. The results from both tagging exercises are analyzed to evaluate the training. Ultimately, students come to understand the merits of controlled vocabularies through a familiar and dynamic Web 2.0 lens.