AIDS TREATMENT NEWS Issue #299, July 17, 1998
John S. James

Later there will also be another Geneva conference information resource--a CD-ROM with abstracts, text of some plenary talks, updated extended summaries, and several thousand slides. These disks will be expensive, 250 Swiss franks (about $175)--probably necessary to cover the cost of preparing a labor-intensive document which will have a limited market. (You can order the 12th World AIDS Conference Update CD-ROM from Congrex Sweden AB, fax 011-46-8-661-8155.)

Also note that the abstracts as submitted will almost certainly be added to AIDSLINE, and show up in future searches of that database.

In addition, audio tapes of about 130 oral sessions are available for purchase, at $11 each (with quantity discounts); call Convention Cassettes Unlimited, 800-776-5454 (U.S., toll-free), or 760-773-4498, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific time Monday through Friday; ask for an order form for tapes of the 12th World AIDS Conference.

Before retrieving detailed conference information, it helps to know a little about how this meeting was organized, and how the abstracts and sessions were numbered. The major official conference presentations were divided into four tracks: Track A, Basic Science; Track B, Clinical Science and Care; Track C, Epidemiology, Prevention and Public Health; and Track D, Social and Behavioral Science. (While officially equal, in practice Track B usually gets the most emphasis at the World AIDS Conference, and Track D the least.)

The abstracts are referenced with 5-digit numbers. The first number is the day of presentation ('1' is Monday June 29, '5' is Friday July 3, and '6' means that the abstract was accepted for publication only but not given an oral or poster presentation slot. Many oral talks also appear as posters, sometimes on a different day; where appropriate, a reference may include both the oral session number and the abstract number. The important Late Breaker talks, and Late Breaker publication-only abstracts, are numbered like other abstracts, with the talks also identified as 'LB 1' through 'LB 24'; all were presented in two simultaneous sessions on the last day of the conference, while their abstracts were presented on earlier days. In addition, there were community symposia and other talks outside of the four major tracks; these do not have abstracts, but many of them are available on the Webcast or by audio tape.

Here are the major Geneva conference resources available today on the Web:

Searchable Abstracts

All 6,000 abstracts accepted by the conference are online at the official Web site, http://www.aids98.ch. You can search by any word or words in the abstracts, and read or print all or some of the abstracts you find. The search software works quite well. But there are some problems users should know about.

Note: The following instructions apply at this time (July 14). The site may be changed later.

The main problem now is the difficulty in finding the abstract search function on the official Conference Web site; you have to know where to look. After going to http://www.aids98.ch, select "Build your own Programme" (a bar on the left side of the screen). That will take you to another page from which you can select "Online Search Programme." [Note: This link may be difficult to see. It is just below the heading, "Build your own Programme based on the Abstracts."]

If this is your first time, you will need to follow the instructions and create a user name and password in order to reach the abstracts; for later searches, it will be faster if you remember your name and password--but if not, you can make up another. If the system says that your user name and password are unacceptable, try another; the name is probably already in use by somebody else. (The ostensible reason for having a password is that this system was set up primarily for use before and during the conference, to prepare an itinerary of presentations to see at the meeting. The system keeps the itinerary for each user, allowing you to come back later and add more items to it.)

There are instructions for doing the search, but you may not need them. Just select "Standard Search," and you can type one word which will be searched anywhere in the abstracts. Then select "View All Titles" or "View Full Abstracts," depending on which you want to see. It is often useful to look at the titles first.

Unfortunately you can only print 10 titles or abstracts at a time--unless you put them into your itinerary, which then allows printing of up to 200 at a time. This is the only use we ever had for the itinerary function.

Be aware that the abstracts were submitted on paper forms and then read by an optical scanner--a machine which never works perfectly. Many typographical errors were introduced by the scanning process. Apparently there was not time or money to hire technical editors to read through all of the originals and scanned copies to make corrections; a spelling checker would have been problematic, since it is probably better to leave all the errors than to correct just the obvious (and less serious) ones which a spelling checker could find.

The online abstract search is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Abbott Laboratories.

Comment

A way to reduce the scanning-error problem at future conferences is to give presenters the option of submitting their abstracts by email. Of course paper abstracts must still be accepted, as many will not have computer access, and others will have graphics or formulas not well suited to the computer formats provided. It would also help greatly if computer printouts of all accepted abstracts could be returned to the authors for optional corrections--allowing them to update their content and data as well, weeks or months after the original submission deadline, making the entire conference record that much more current.

While thanking the pharmaceutical sponsors who make this information distribution possible, we also note that valuable data is being generated--potentially exclusive access to detailed information about what everyone in the world is searching for in the online World AIDS Conference abstracts. (The same searches can be done using a CD-ROM which was given without additional charge to attendees who requested it, and then no central data is generated.) The password system makes the data collection cleaner, since most people will use the same name each time and the records of their searches can be linked together. Since the individuals are not identified, privacy issues are minimal. The main practical concern is that the requirement to go through a "front door" and use a password makes the process less convenient for users. [Note: the. 12th World AIDS Conference is *not* collecting information about. user searches of the abstracts. But the password system which is in place as we go to press does make access more difficult than otherwise necessary.]

"Webcast" Audio Lectures and Slides

About 30 to 50 lectures a day were videotaped and are being placed on the World Wide Web, where they will remain until the end of 1999. Free telephone technical support is available (but only for one month after the conference) if you need help in setting up the software; call 404-836-2186 between 4 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern time. This important "Webcast" system is supported by Gilead Sciences.

Whoever selected the lectures for this broadcast has done a good job in picking some of the medically important ones. But Track D (Social and Behavioral Science) was not recorded on some days, due to technical limitations. While some lectures were placed online locally within hours of presentation, others which were recorded are not yet online, apparently because of the wait for the master videotapes to clear U.S. customs.

This system allows users to receive audio recordings--plus still photos of the accompanying slides, which do help in following the lectures. The slides do not reproduce well, however, so fine details and small writing are lost.

We did have some technical hassles setting up our computer to use this system; however, all of them involved standard computer technology, not the Webcast site specifically. Users will not be dependent on the Webcast technical help desk, which is scheduled to close soon. Those who need assistance can ask anyone who knows enough about their computer to download the "Real Player" software package and get it running on their Web browser. Once it is set up, the system is easy to use.

Online Summaries, and Other Information

The online conference summaries provide the most accessible, in-depth reports of the conference--the easiest to obtain and the easiest to understand. Since this information is still changing rapidly, we have not listed the Web sites here, but are maintaining links at our AIDS Treatment News Internet Directory site, http://www.aidsnews.org (usually 'aidsnews.org' is enough to get you there). At this site, select the 12th World AIDS Conference section.

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