Who'd a Thunk

CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing & Vol. 25, No. 1, 1–2 & Copyright B 2007 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

EDITORIAL

Who’d a Thunk it?

LESLIE H. NICOLL, PhD, MBA, RN-BC Editor-in-Chief

Beginning with this volume, CIN: Computers, Infor- matics, Nursing celebrates its 25th year of publication. When founding editor Gary Hales, PhD, penned the first words of his first editor’s comments, I wonder what he thought. Could he imagine what computers would look like 25 years later or that nurses would use them to map nursing concepts, educate students, or locate the latest evidence to incorporate in practice? Did he envision the Internet? Did he think that SPAM was just a canned meat product? (For the last question, the answer was probably yes.) I thought back to 1982 and tried to remember ‘‘then’’ and ‘‘now.’’ In 1982, I was married but didn’t have any FIGURE 2. Volume 2, number 2 of Computers in Nursing, March/ April 1984. children. Now I have two, and the youngest is a freshman in college, studying nursing (yeah!). I had a master’s degree but not a doctorate, although I was in literature as ‘‘portable.’’ At 24.5 pounds and the size the process of applying to my doctoral program. In fact, of a sewing machine, I would say ‘‘luggable,’’ but let’s 2007 will be the 20th anniversary of my dissertation not quibble over details. defense, on October 30. Oh wait, this isn’t about me. It cost $1795 and came bundled with $1500 worth Well, maybe it is. Sort ofI of software, including SuperCalc, WordStar, and Mbasic. I bought my first computer in 1982. It was an It had a CP/M operating system, which eventually led to Osborne 1 and was described in the advertising the demise of the computer and company, as MS-DOS became the standard. The notion of bundling software was revolutionary, however, and is the legacy of the Osborne Computer Company that lives on to this day. Can you imagine buying a computer without software installed? My computer had a 5-inch monitor and dual floppy disk drives (5.25’’ disks—remember those?). The disk with the program would be inserted on the left, and the blank disk (for saving your file) went in on the right. A box of 10 disks usually retailed for about $50. I had a dot matrix printer, which also cost a small fortune, as I recall. WordStar had ‘‘dot commands’’ to do anything: set margins, tabs, and so on. It took me a FIGURE 1. Volume 1, number 1 of Computers in Nursing,theoriginal year to figure out the dot command for underlining— newsletter. Printed on a dot-matrix printer and photocopied on blue and back in those days, American Psychological paper. Association (APA) style was to underline titles of books

CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing & January/February 2007 1

Copyright © Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. FIGURE 3. Volume 11, number 4, July/August 1993, with a new FIGURE 5. Volume 20, number 2, March/April 2002, the debut of the cover design. new name, CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing and the fourth cover design. and journals. What was my interim solution? I under- lined by hand, with a ruler and marker! Thinking back to my doctoral program, e-mail I can mark stages of my professional career by the would have been nice, but the thing that sticks in my computers I have owned. After the Osborne 1 came an mind is online access to information. To me, this is Osborne Executive, which was used to produce the first 1 perhaps the biggest and most revolutionary change edition of Perspectives on Nursing Theory. My dis- in the 25-year history of CIN. Three weeks after I sertation was typed on a Zenith (with a whopping big defended my dissertation, I was at a conference, and 10 megabyte hard drive). I also used that computer for one of the exhibitors was demonstrating GratefulMed my data analysis—after I persuaded my committee that from the National Library of Medicine. I stood there a PC was sufficiently powerful for the type of analysis 2 with my jaw hanging down to the floor. ‘‘If only I had I needed to do. had this over the past 3 years,’’ I thought to myself. Over the years, my computers got smaller and more ‘‘How many hours of work would I have saved?’’ powerful. For a while, it seemed as if an annual Now, I can’t imagine doing work any other way. Having upgrade was needed as I moved through the ‘86’ family archives of information—all types of information—has of processors: 286, 386, 486. Surprisingly, the desktop made enormous changes in the way I work and use I am typing this on—my workhorse—is 5 years old and information. going strong. Keeping up with the hardware has Similarly, computers and electronic information become somewhat more manageable and affordable. have moved inexorably into nursing practice. Not too I went through my Case Western doctoral program long ago it was common for the editorial office to ‘‘long distance,’’ but in those days, ‘‘distance learning’’ receive manuscripts delving into nurses’ attitudes meant taking up residence in Cleveland, OH, for most toward computers, this new device that threatened of the summer. In between, I communicated with some and encouraged others. Now, point-of-care com- faculty by letter and phone. No fax, no e-mail, and no puting, clinical decision support, electronic medical Internet, much less the notion of an online course. records, even electronic patient education is almost Federal Express (it wasn’t FedEx then) was brand new, taken for granted. In the future, they will likely become and it cost $35 to send a letter. indispensable. In honor of Gary Hales’ vision, I would like to thank all of you—readers, authors, reviewers—who have worked to facilitate the use of computers in nursing and to examine the impact of technology and information science on nursing practice. Here’s to the next 25 years of CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing.

REFERENCES

1. Nicoll LH. Perspectives on Nursing Theory. 1st ed. Boston, MA: Little, Brown; 1986. FIGURE 4. Volume 13, number 5, September/October 1995, a new 2. Nicoll LH. The microcomputer: an alternative for data analysis. cover design and a new Editor-in-Chief. Nurs Res. 1987;36(5):320–323.

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