Tuesday 16 December 2008

Easy Athens

A number of changes have been made to the Athens system to make life a bit more convenient.




We use Athens to provide access to all of our electronic resources via the National Library for Health.



The biggest change on a day to day basis is that the main login point has been shifted to the top right hand side of the http://www.library.nhs.uk/ page. Helpfully most people will find that they can now login in using their email address and Athens password rather than the harder to remember username.



If you have forgotten your details there is much better support with a simple guided process to reset your password.


A new registration system will allow people to register on any NHS based computer as before but will also allow rapid registration from home if you have access to your NHS email away from work (this mostly applies to people with NHS.net email accounts).



A big step forward is the ability to keep your Athens login as you move from Trust to Trust. This ensures you will not lose any alerts or searches you may have saved on the system. To access this facility you should login and then access the MyAccount page. From this page you can alter your email address / password or indicate that you have moved to another NHS organisation in England.



Please contact us if you have any problems with your Athens login.



Friday 12 December 2008

Christmas and New Year Opening

The library opening hours for the festive period are as follows:

Mon 22nd -Tues 23rd December: OPEN 8:30am-5pm

Wed 24th-Fri 26th December: CLOSED

Mon 29th-Wed 31st December: OPEN 8:30am-5pm

Thursday 1st January 2009: CLOSED

Friday 2nd January 2009: OPEN 8:30am-5pm

The Cyber Room is open as usual.


During this time, books may be returned in the white Book Return Bin on the main corridor outside the upstairs doors to the Education Centre.

Visit
Newhamcat to renew books online.

The Knowledge & Library Service team wish all our readers a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Changes to ejournal access / tables of contents

1st January 2009 will see some changes to the website we use to list all of our electronic and paper journals - MyJournals.


Most of the changes will be cosmetic (though there are big changes in the background). The most significant difference will be that you will no longer receive the Tables of Contents of journals through the MyJournals system.

A new solution for this is currently being examined but in the mean time we recommend that you either use the Zetoc system (you will need your Athens login) or subscribe direct from publisher websites. Regretably it will not be possible to automatically carry across any of your current Table of Content subscriptions. Apologies for any inconvenience caused by this.

The vast majority of our journal titles are in electronic form so MyJournals is the place to check if we have access to an article. We can get hold of anything not immediately available in just a few days.

Tuesday 9 December 2008

New Books in October & November 2008

Because we were busy with the Library Survey last month we missed publishing the link to October's New Books List, so here it is along with the list of New Books in November.

As usual we have kept up to date with many new editions of standard works including, amongst others, Te Linde's Operative Gynecology, Muir's textbook of pathology, Clinical Pharmacology by Bennett, & the 2nd edition of Holland's Applying the Roper-Logan-Tierney Model in Practice.

We also now have several copies of the new 7th ed. of the Royal Marsden Hospital Manual of Clincial Nursing Procedures, worth noting as these are the procedures we follow within NUHT.

In response to a strong request from the Orthopaedics Dept we have bought the AO Principles of Fracture Management, which is available as both book & DVD.

Of course this is only a tiny selection of our new stock. Check the booklist links above for full details. And our online catalogue NewhamCat has details of everything in the library, including an electronic link to the latest NUHT Annual Report, as well as copies on the shelves.

Image - Teddy Bear's Reading Group (c) Creative Commons

Monday 1 December 2008

Thanks for helping

Many thanks to all those who responded to the library survey. We got a wide range of responses with some very helpful feedback. We will analyse the results and publish a report with actions.


Feedback is always welcome.

(C) Image Creative Commons

Friday 7 November 2008

Have your say - survey 2008


We are always keen to receive feedback on how we are doing. Your input helps to better shape the service to meet your needs. To this end we run a survey each year. We do take action on the results - see this post from last year for details.

Please take five minutes to complete this brief survey - there are fewer than ten questions. We are interested in the views of both those who regularly use us and those who currently do not.

You do not have to provide your contact details but if you do we can follow up on any issues. We will also enter you into a prize draw to win one of our highly desirable reusable shopping bags (fifty up for grabs).

The survey will be running till 21st of November so please - give us your views!

PS A paper version of the survey is available from the library if you would rather give us your views that way!

Monday 20 October 2008

Latest New Books


Here is the link to our list of
We try to keep up-to-date with new editions of key texts, and have purchased several this month, for example, the latest editions of Hampton's popular ECG books and several anatomy books, including Grant's Atlas and those by Tortora.

Critical Care practitioners will appreciate the 3rd edition of Hinds Intensive Care and for surgeons we have Burkitt & Quick's 4th ed of Essential Surgery: problems, diagnosis & management and the 3rd ed of the Oxford handbook of Clinical Surgery by McLatchie.

For those working in obstetrics and midwifery we have the 2nd ed of Downe's Normal Childbirth and Impey's latest edition of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.

Outside the clinical field, we also have the newest edition of Scambler's Sociology as Applied to Medicine.

If you spot any new editions we have missed do let us know, but check NewhamCat first (available on Newham UHT & Newham PCT networks) as we may already have bought it; the above is only a small selection from our available stock.

And if you would like to review any of our items just send us an email with one brief paragraph on why you found a book useful (or not!). You might even win a prize!

Picture: Doctor's Light Reading Copyright Creative Commons

Thursday 16 October 2008

Having Problems Finding the Information You Need?

The Library's 1 houBoldr training sessions on searching the healthcare databases for journal articles are now running regularly.

You will need an NHS Athens username and password to access the databases. To obtain these self-register at http://www.library.nhs.uk/
If you have already registered but cannot remember your details please contact the Library.

Course Title
Finding the Evidence:
Searching the Healthcare Databases

Monday 20 Oct 5.15pm
Thursday 30 Oct 2.30pm
Wednesday 5 Nov 11.00am
Monday 10 Nov 5.15pm
Friday 21 Nov 2.00pm
Thursday 27 Nov 1.00pm
Tuesday 2 Dec 5.15pm
Tuesday 9 Dec 10.00am
Thursday 18 Dec 8.30am

The session covers the following: keyword and subject searching, applying search limits, saving and printing your search results and accessing the full text of available articles.

Book on ESR (search for 258 KLS or by course title) or contact the Library on 8016 for advice.









Tuesday 7 October 2008

Bang Up To Date

We currently have a trial in place for Up To Date (please note - link only functional at work).


For those not in the know (drawn from their site):

"UpToDate is an evidence based, peer reviewed information resource..." "Our faculty writes topic reviews that include a synthesis of the literature, the latest evidence, and specific recommendations for patient care."

Please give it a whirl and provide feedback to us on how useful you find this resource.

Wednesday 10 September 2008

Five a day

A regular piece of feedback to the library has been that people would like to be able to borrow more books.

In the past we had a limit of four items on loan from us at any one time. Over the past few years we have increased the size of our collection considerably. Regular users will have noticed the effect of this as the area of shelving devoted to books has slowly grown. NewhamCat has also had an impact in helping people find, reserve and manage their loans.

We are happy therefore to announce that the new upper limit is five.

PS The picture is (of course) the Superfive-a-daybanana.

Tuesday 9 September 2008

Newest book arrivals!

The August New Books list has now been published, showing our latest arrivals during the past few weeks.

This month we have been building on our Medical Education collection with a collection of items supplied by the London Deanery. We have several ASME titles in the Understanding Medical Education Series , eg Simulation in Medical Education & Teaching and Leading Small Groups, and books by Della Fish in collaboration with Linda De Cossart & Colin Coles, including Developing the Wise Doctor & Medical Education: Developing a Curriculum for Practice.

Paediatricians will appreciate the new editions of Duffy's Essentials of Paediatric Urology & Waterston's Paediatrics : A Core Text on Child Health, while psychiatrists will find access to new e-books (electronic online books) useful, eg The MRCPsych Study Manual, Hughes' Outline of Modern Psychiatry & Freeman's Handbook of Evidence-Based Psychotherapies. These e-books are available via your NHS Athens log-in.

All new and existing stock items are listed on NewhamCat, our on-line catalogue available on Newham UHT & Newham PCT networks.

Image (c) Creative Commons

Wednesday 3 September 2008

NewhamCat is one... contribute and win!

NewhamCat is one today!

In the past year it has issued some nine and a half thousand books, seen us add a thousand books / 300+ ebooks, gained cover images in search results and generally been a boon to all concerned.

To celebrate this anniversary we are launching a new feature. NewhamCat'sEye is your opportunity to write a brief review of any item you can find on NewhamCat.

Just one paragraph describing why you found the book useful (or why you didn't) is all we are after. You might want to explain why colleagues might want to read it or how it changed your practice or just highlight a key concept.

We will add the best ones to NewhamCat so you can see what others think. The first 25 accepted reviews will win one of our eco friendly reusable shopping bags (or a library mug).

To give you the idea see the NewhamCat record for "Mosby's dictionary of medicine, nursing and health professions" - you can choose to have your name on your contribution or leave it anonymous if you prefer.

Submit your entry to the usual address.

Friday 29 August 2008

Back to the future - more time now at the KLS

We are happy to announce a return to full opening hours for the library.

With effect from 1 September 2008 our opening hours are going back to:

Monday and Tuesday 8:30am to 7pm

Wednesday to Friday 8:30am to 5pm

Thank you for bearing with us while we got back up to full strength.

The Cyber Room remains available 24 hours a day - every day - to all staff with a swipe badge.

(c) Image Creative Commons Attributed

Monday 18 August 2008

New Books July 2008

The library's list of New Books purchased in July 2008 is now available. Books are listed alphabetically under Subject - scroll down to find your area of interest.

See details of these and other resources in our online catalogue at NewhamCat, linked from any Newham University Hospital NHS Trust or Newham PCT networked computer.

We have acquired the most recent editions of several titles including Bailey and Love's short practice of surgery, Cardiac nursing : a comprehensive guide by Hatchett & Thompson, Polgar's Introduction to research in the health sciences, & Balen's Infertility in practice. Check the list for other new editions.

In response to demand, we have made several purchases in the area of Management, notably the Good to Great titles by J. Collins, Thought leadership : moving hearts and minds by R. Ryde & Journey to lean : making operational change stick by J. Drew et al. We also now have hard copies of the Improvement Leader's Guides from the NHS Innovation and Improvement.

Several books have recently been published on the NHS as it reached its 60th anniversary. We have selected Building a world-class NHS by I. Smith & The NHS after 60 : for patients or profits? as of particular interest.

We continue to add nationally available NHS E-books (i.e. books available electronically online) to NewhamCat so that you can locate them easily, eg Isaacs' Evidence-based pediatric infectious diseases. You will see this screen when you first click an e-book link. Make sure you have your Athens log-in details to progress to the full text.

Feel free to contact us if you need advice or help.

Image (C) Creative Commons Attributed

Friday 15 August 2008

Happy birthday to NewhamKnowledge

It is exactly a year since the creation of this blog.

One of the handy things about publishing updates and news this way is that people can readily go back and see what we have been saying.

If you go to the blog proper rather than reading it on NewhamCat (or in your RSS Reader) then you can search all the past entries, browse the archive or use the quick subject labels to retrieve a set of entries - all our new book updates for example.

We enter similar labels on all the books and ebooks we add to NewhamCat. This should make it a lot more likely that you will find what you need. What we can also do is add a special label to identify a collection of resources. So for example if you wanted people to find a particular group of documents on team management we can provide a simple way to retrieve these. Drop us a line to find out more.

Thursday 14 August 2008

Comments welcome

A common feature of blogs like this one is the ability to make comments. The Knowledge & Library Service team are always keen to receive comments via any means email, phone (020 7363 8016) or just by popping in for a chat.

Thus far we have received precious few comments in responses to posts here - maybe because most of you read us on the front page of NewhamCat or on our website where the comment option is not immediately apparent. But if you ever feel the urge - just select the title of the item you want to comment on and scroll down to "Post a comment". You do not need to be logged in and we read all comments.

So let us know if you think we should have bought different books, or offered a different picture or maybe if you want to hear about something else.

Friday 8 August 2008

I want the blue one...

We are pleased to announce a new and improved version of NewhamCat with added book cover images. While you cannot yet search for the blue one you may find it easier to recognise if the item you have found is the one you wanted.

For those new to this blog NewhamCat is the way you can search our collection of books and ebooks via the Newham UHT and PCT Intranets. You can also renew your books and reserve items you may need.

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Finding search

By now I hope most of you will have noticed that you no longer have access to the DIALOG interface to search for journal articles (see blog posts past).

From the
1st of August the main entry point for finding journal articles is via http://www.library.nhs.uk/ and more specifically the Books, Journals and Healthcare Databases section of that site.

To search you will need to be logged in using your
Athens username (self register from any NHS based computer). We recommend that you then use the Healthcare Databases Advanced Search Mode to search a single database at a time as this will give you the most control over your search.

If you were a confident DIALOG user you may find the following Q & A helpful -

Q. How do I search for a phrase?

A. DIALOG did this by default if you entered multiple words - NOW - you should place any phrases in "". For example "Newham General Hospital". If you enter multiple terms without quotes then you will retrieve articles that include all of the words but not necessarily in the order you requested.

Q. How do I truncate a term?

A. Truncation is handy when you want to retrieve a number of words with the same root. DIALOG did this by adding a $ sign. NOW - you should use an asterisk (*). For example diabet* will retrieve diabetic, diabetes, diabetologist etc.

Q. Why am I not getting any keyword results?

A. DIALOG automatically included keyword results alongside the results of subject searches. To acheive the same effect NOW you should complete two searches - one with and one without the "map to thesaurus" option checked and then combine the two sets of results using OR.

Q. How does the new system handle plurals and UK versus US spellings?

A. DIALOG used to automatically try plurals and alternate American spellings. NOW - you need to add these yourself. Truncation (*) can be a simple way to do this for the plurals but for ae or ou words you will need to search for both. Eg paediatric* OR pediatric*

Q. How do I combine sets of search results?

A. DIALOG required you to type the set number plus AND / OR. NOW - you can still use set numbers or you can tick the sets you wish to combine and use the Combine sets button provided.
Q. How do I limit by publication date?

A. This is much simpler with a pair of drop down boxes located below the main search box. Select your dates and all searches will be limited to these years till you remove the limit. You can apply any limit to any set by selecting it and then running a search on the set number.

If this is all sounding rather confusing - get in touch and we will be glad to guide you through it.

Friday 18 July 2008

New Books for June 2008

The Library's New Books list for June has just been published. This shows the latest selection of resources available to you from the library. To see more, visit our catalogue at NewhamCat from any Newham University Hospital NHS Trust or Newham PCT networked computer.

We now have the new 17th edition of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine and the 9th edition of The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines. For obstetricians & gynaecologists there are the latest editions of Progress in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Yearbook of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

And we have purchased a copy of Evans & Tippins Foundations of nursing: an integrated approach, for which Newham's very own Andrew Frazer has written a chapter.

You will also find links from NewhamCat to the final report of Lord Darzi's NHS Next Stage Review High quality care for all and to other key new NHS documents. The King's Fund SeeSaw Report on Shifting the Balance of Care to Local Settings, and Under One Roof, their report regarding Polyclinics, are also linked from NewhamCat.

We are in the process of adding titles to NewhamCat from the nationally available NHS Core Content electronic book collection, eg Cardiology in Family Practice, Clinical Handbook of Pediatric Infectious Disease, Adult Psychopathology and Diagnosis to name a few, and we will add more over the coming weeks. These titles are accessed with your NHS Athens log-in, and can also be accessed from the National Library for Health.

Do contact us if you need help with Athens registration, or have any comments or suggestions for new titles.

Image: Reading by rachel sian (c) Creative Commons attributed

Tuesday 1 July 2008

Darzi Next Stage Review - knowledge update

Yesterday saw the publication of the Next Stage Review - High Quality Care For All. This entry will gather together the main documents and a selection of the coverage. The coverage includes a number of good summaries.

There were three main documents published at this point

1) High quality care for all: NHS Next Stage Review final report (30th June 2008) Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham KBE


The final report of Lord Darzi's NHS Next Stage Review. It responds to the 10 SHA strategic visions and sets out a vision for an NHS with quality at its heart. This link includes the full document and a summary version. For a very brief summary Darzi review: At-a-glance BBC or Main points of the Darzi report FT.

2) The National Health Service Constitution - a consultation paper (30th June 2008)


The proposed NHS Constitution published today, marking 60 years of the NHS, is about safeguarding its core principles and values for the next generation, whilst setting a clear direction for the future. It reaffirms rights to NHS services, free of charge and with equal access for all, and it enshrines patient rights to choice and to NICE-approved drugs recommended by clinicians. A selection of documents related to the consultation are presented.

3) A high quality workforce: NHS Next Stage review (30th June 2008)


More detail on the workforce recommendations in the NHS next stage review.


The main publications from the next stage review are gathered here.
This includes the current documents, visions for better healthcare from the 9 SHAs outside London and interim guidance.

London was already covered by
Healthcare for London: A framework for action (paper copies in library)

Responses

The King's Fund


Related materials from King's Fund
- Follow up Briefing (added 14 July 2008)



The NHS Confed

- Follow up Briefing (added 14 July 2008)

Related materials from NHS Confed

The British Medical Association


Royal College of Nurses


Democratic Health Network - registration required

This briefing provides an initial summary and commentary on these documents with particular reference to local accountability and the interface between the NHS and local authorities.

Picker Institute - Added 5 July

Conservative Party - no comment yet on website but likely to appear at this link


Labour


Liberal Democrats


Unison - no comment yet on website likely to appear here



Media coverage

BBC
Quality ranking key to NHS funds

Cash-for-quality in new-look NHS

Darzi review: At-a-glance



Viewpoints: Darzi review of NHS

BMJ - updated 5 July

Reward hospitals for improving quality, Darzi review says
Government publishes a constitution for the NHS
Up to 500 patients with long term conditions will have their own personal budgets next year
Right of patients to drugs recommended by NICE is strengthened
NHS must pioneer public health drives if it is to survive
GPs face more competition after Darzi's review
Annual "quality accounts" will help improve services and increase choice for patients, says Lord Darzi
Darzi backs new body to oversee medical education in England


HSJ

Specific Darzi coverage

Daily Mail
General

Prof Karol Sikora - stop treating NHS like a national religion

Comment: A wasted Chance


Financial Times
NHS plans to raise quality of care

Main points of the Darzi report

Broad welcome from business


Guardian
Summary

NHS review: Darzi plan offers patients more choices and more information

Editorial: a promising prescription

Much more coverage


Independent
Pick your own surgeon

Leader: The right medicine, but far too mild a dose

Comment: Well-informed patients will make better decisions


The Telegraph
Bonuses for NHS hospitals and GPs that are highly rated by patients

Comment: does review live up to expectations


The Times
NHS review: hospitals that provide poor care to be fined

Analysis: a classier NHS, but choice still an illusion

Leader: The NHS: World Class Care Costs

More health news coverage


E-health insider - Darzi review stresses choice and information


Lighter comment

Simon Hoggart in the Guardian on Jargon

Simon Carr in the Independent on administrative drivel




Tuesday 10 June 2008

New books in the Library May 2008

The list of new titles added to the Library over the past couple of months is now available.

We are constantly updating our stock and this is just the latest selection of the resources available to you from the library. To see more, visit our catalogue at NewhamCat from any Newham University Hospital NHS Trust or Newham PCT networked computer.
Among the titles are the latest editions of Magee - Orthopedic physical assessment, Cameron - Current surgical therapy , Jarvis - Physical examination & health assessment & Tidy's Physiotherapy. In response to input from the orthopaedic dept we have also purchased Schatzker & Tile - Rationale of operative fracture care . For those finding life as a new doctor confusing, Parbhoo's - What they didn't teach you at medical school might answer a few questions! And for nurses we have the new NMC code, which is also available electronically.

If you have any comments, or would like to suggest titles for stock, please contact us.

Image: The Time to Read is any Time - (c) Creative Commons Attributed

Friday 23 May 2008

The ebook option

We recently added some new ebooks. Checking NewhamCat I was suprised to find we now have nearly 750 books in electronic form. These range from the brand new NCEPOD report on Sickle Cell (Sickle: A Sickle Crisis?) published in the last couple of days to most of the major Department of Health documents since they started putting them on the Internet. We have a number of Oxford Handbooks / Textbooks and a wide range of mental health and nursing / midwifery related titles.

The best way to find our ebooks is to search NewhamCat - all ebooks are marked as such and have a link direct to the item itself (Athens login sometimes required). You can also search the majority of our book type ebooks (ie not the DH ones) via the National Library for Health (Athens login definitely required here).

We can add pretty much anything web based to NewhamCat so feel free to point out things we have missed or that you feel would be useful for others.

Friday 9 May 2008

Your choice of new books

A recurring feature of this blog are the lists of new books available in the library.

Due to the budgetary cycle there are relatively few new items to add in April. Accordingly there will be no new books list this month.

The good news is that we are ready and waiting for your requests for the items you need to support patient care, personal development and research. Feel free to drop in to discuss your needs, call or send me an email.

You can use NewhamCat to check what we already have in your area(provided you are on a NUHT or NPCT computer).

All requests will be given due consideration. While some might have to be rejected we will be happy to explain why and can generally borrow any item you might need from another library. I am particularly interested to hear from people who feel we do not support their needs. The first step to getting that fixed is getting in touch.

Wednesday 7 May 2008

DTB - Drugs on your desktop

We are happy to report that Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin is once more available to all healthcare staff in Newham.

From their site "DTB's aim is to provide informed and unbiased information on medical conditions, medicines and other treatments to enable people to make informed choices."

You can access the full text of DTB back to 1994 using your Athens username and password.

Thursday 24 April 2008

Master MRCP with the Medical Masterclass (other exams are available)

One of the resources we are frequently asked for here in the library are exam revision aids - short notes, MCQs, EMQs etc etc.

We do our best to keep a regular supply of these on the shelves to help if you are studying for anything from your FRCA to your GPST or indeed an NVQ. Suggestions for new texts in these areas are always welcome as no one knows the latest quality exam texts better than those studying for the exam.

As mentioned in the latest new books post we have recently added the new edition of the Medical Masterclass . Thanks to support from the London Deanery we have four sets of the 12 paper modules that cover all aspects of the MRCP curriculum. You can also access two sets of interactive cases (only available on Newham NHS computers - you may need to get IT to install a plugin). Finally the package includes web based MCQs and mock examinations (ask KLS staff for a login).

Happy studying!

Wednesday 16 April 2008

Super computing

You will be pleased to read that the Knowledge & Library Service recently took delivery of a batch of brand new computers.

We have a total of 13 machines (unlucky for some) spread across our three rooms so you have a decent chance of getting onto one when you need one. While the new machines look only slightly more technologically advanced than the one in the picture I am assured they are pretty good. Enjoy!

PS Don't forget that we are currently open from 8:30am to 4:30pm Monday to Friday due to reduced staffing levels. The Cyber Room remains available 24 hours.

Thursday 3 April 2008

Search 2.0 - how was it for you?

Here we are one week into the launch of NLH Search 2.0 and currently the stress meter in the KLS reads "Exceedingly Anxious" (see image). There are a few bugs to fix and a number of peculiarities to get used to.

In particular at present our electronic and paper journal holdings are generally missing. You can still see these in the Dialog system or by checking MyJournals.

For now we recommend that you stick with using the old Dialog system for at least a couple more weeks.

For those of you starting to explore Search 2.0 (something for the weekend perhaps?) here are some tips -

Stick to searching one database at a time so you can use the thesaurus.

The default search is just on the title field - use the drop down box to select Title and Abstract or All fields for a more sensitive search. Just searching the title is good if you are trying to find a known article.

Use "" to search for a phrase. Handy again if you are trying to check a reference or you want two or more words only when used directly next to each other.

Use * to represent 0 or many characters e.g. pregnan* or child*

If you put in more than one search word Search 2.0 will search for articles with all of the requested words in any order. Boolean logic fans will recognise this as a default AND.

That should be enough to get you started. I am keen to hear of any experiences you have with Search 2.0 - positive or negative.

Tuesday 1 April 2008

New Books March 2008

The list of new titles added to the library in March is now available.

This is just a selection of the resources available from the library. You can access our full catalogue at NewhamCat from any Newham University Hospital NHS Trust or Newham PCT networked computer.
This month's new titles include:

The new editions of the Medical Masterclass series, the second edition of Evidence-based care for midwives by Brayford, Chambers et al, Doyle's Paediatric anaesthesia and the latest edition of Calvey and Williams' Principles and practice of pharmacology for anaesthetists. Endocrine therapies in breast cancer by Buzdar, Management of spinal cord injuries by Harvey and Statutory supervision of midwives, produced by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Please get in touch with any feedback or if you'd like to suggest titles for purchase: library@newhamhealth.nhs.uk

This month's library is the New York Public Library in New York City.

Friday 28 March 2008

Saved Searches - Lost in the move

Any major move always seems to result in a few breakages and at least one or two things getting lost. Yesterday I updated you all on the big move from Dialog to Search 2.0.


The bad news is that it will not be possible to automatically copy across any saved searches you might have in Dialog. The good news is that you have two months to rescue any saved searches before they disappear for ever.


Essentially the process is one of printing out and then entering them again in the new interface - think of it as a learning experience. Instructions have been prepared by the good folk in the NLH Service Team. Give it a go and give us a call if you get stuck 0207 363 8016.

Thursday 27 March 2008

NLH Search 2.0 - what? when? why?

For some time now the National Library for Health home page has been sporting a big red button announcing the impending arrival of Search 2.0. You may also have spotted an advert in one of your regular weekly reads.


So what does this mean in practice? Many of you will be regular searchers of our healthcare literature databases (Medline, EMBASE, BNI, CINAHL, DH Data and PsycINFO) via the Dialog interface. Search 2.0 is going to replace both the Dialog interface and some of the other options currently used on www.library.nhs.uk . The Search 2.0 interface will be NHS specific and integrate with all the electronic resources purchased for you both nationally and locally. It should mean fewer changes to interfaces in the future and an improved experience as we exercise increased control over development.

In the first instance there are likely to be a few teething problems. Search 2.0 is due to be made available on the 1st of April. The good news is that we will have a two month overlap period where the old dialog interface will remain in place.

The Knowledge & Library Service team are working hard on getting their own skills up to scratch on the new interface and will be offering a programme of training as soon as possible. We will also be creating training guides and cheat sheets. Inspired by our colleagues at the FADE Library up in Liverpool we will be bringing you highlights from the training guides over the next few days.

Thursday 20 March 2008

Electronic Journals - Update - more for managers

Hot on the heels of our previous message about electronic journals comes a further announcement.



An additional collection called EBSCO Health Business Elite will be available from 1 April. As you might expect given the title this will cover health management topics. You can access the full title list online with some 500 journals included.

One title that stands out is the Harvard Business Review which we know people appreciated when we had access to it in the past. The weekly publications Hospital Doctor, Doctor and GP are also all included so we will have a way to track down older articles from these publications that people often wanted. There are a lot of titles from across the Atlantic for those seeking a wider view and the collection includes finance and HR titles.

All of the information about access in the previous post remains applicable. More to follow I am sure.

(c) Image Creative Commons

Tuesday 18 March 2008

Electronic journals - gains and losses

The tangled mess of cables illustrating this entry reflects the slight complexity of the situation regarding electronic journals. As librarians you can be confident that our cables are much tidier than these and we will be doing our best to ensure that the changes to your electronic journals are as free from complication as possible.

With effect from 1st of April you will have access to the following (using your Athens username - register from any NHS computer):

All the journal titles published by BMJ Publishing Group so

SPECIALIST titles
Heart
Gut
Thorax
Journal of Clinical Pathology
Journal of Medical Ethics
Journal of Medical Genetics
Postgraduate Medical Journal
Quality and Safety in Health Care
Sexually Transmitted Infections
Archives of Disease in Childhood
Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
British Journal of Ophthalmology
British Journal of Sports Medicine
Emergency Medicine Journal
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry

EVIDENCE BASED titles
Evidence -Based Medicine
Evidence-Based Mental Health
Evidence-Based Nursing

PUBLIC HEALTH titles
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health
Injury Prevention
Tobacco Control

All the titles from the American Medical Association series

JAMA
Archives of Dermatology
Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery
Archives of General Psychiatry
Archives of Internal Medicine
Archives of Neurology
Archives of Opthalmology
Archives of Otolaryngology
Archives of Pediatrics
Archives of Surgery

Some 559 titles in the CINAHL full text collection. Going into these in detail is probably beyond your current needs but the curious can access this full listing (be aware that this includes all titles included in CINAHL - check the full text column for coverage). CINAHL covers nursing and allied health literature so this should be an improvement on our current electronic holdings in these areas.

We are also going to be using a system called a Link Resolver to enable us to include more of the articles now made available on the Internet (more on this at a later date).

So what are we losing? At the time of writing this is not entirely clear. NHS London has in the past clubbed together to improve the selection available. We are hopeful that this will happen again. More detail will be published as soon as we have it.

So how will this all work in practice? Hopefully - other than not finding quite the same titles you should find your experience unchanged. All the available titles will continue to be listed on MyJournals (remember to login with Athens to see everything). You will still find links to the articles direct from your results when you search Medline or other literature databases. If you get stuck just contact us.