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:
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
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.
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.
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.
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.