January 24, 2005
Director's Report - January, 2005
by Ralph D. Arcari, Ph.D
Director, Lyman Maynard Stowe Library
Renovation
The Library renovation project begun in March, 2004, is approaching its final stages. Already completed and open for patron use are the Computer Education Center, the single point of service desk combining both circulation and reference functions, the patron self-service room and restrooms. Final project work includes a new reading area, a 24 hour study room and the offices for the staff of the Library Information and Education Services Department. Already the new reading tables adjacent to the single point of service desk appear to attract consistent use even though they are close to a public service desk where staff answer in-person and telephone inquiries.
The 24 hour study room is scheduled to be available for use by January 31, 2005. This area contains six rooms each of which can accommodate four persons. There are data connections in each room and wireless internet access is also available. The room is monitored at all times on a television monitor in the UCHC Public Safety Department. There is also a house phone in this study. During Library business hours, the 24 hour study will be accessible from a door inside the Library. When the Library is closed, this interior door will be locked and this study can be entered through an outside door equipped with a swipe card and keypad lock for which UCHC students will have access codes.
Completion of this renovation program is expected in February, 2005, a year after this project began. Planning for a rededication of the Library and reception is now underway.
Library Budget
Library journals in general are in transition from print to electronic formats. This is especially true in the life sciences where rapid access to research results and clinical studies is a significant consideration. The transition to electronic formats raises the cost for a journal subscription. The New England Journal of Medicine, for example, cost approximately $400 a year for an institutional print subscription. The electronic equivalent is $5,400.
Also, a large percentage of health sciences journals are obtained through publishers located in Europe. Sixty percent of the UCHC Library journals are obtained through commercial companies with headquarters in European Union countries. Because of the strength of the euro compared to the dollar, it is a sufficient challenge to simply retain the number of journals for which subscriptions are already in place, much less add new titles.
The Library budget proposal for FY 2005/2006 will request additional funding for new journal titles to respond to faculty requests as well as for increased capacity for certain commercial databases which receive such extensive use that our licensed maximum number of users is reached on a regular basis.
Indirect Cost Study
Library staff cooperated in a study to determine the amount of usage the library receives by those engaged in research sponsored by the Federal government. The results of this study provide data that assist in determining the indirect cost rate that UCHC can charge the Federal government based on the use of institutional resources, like the Library, by Federally supported grant programs. However, an added outcome of this study is a determination of Library usage by board categories of users.
Questionnaires, both print and electronic, were used over a series of survey days, to determine who was using the library and for what purpose. The results are noted below:
User Category Percentage of usage
School of Medicine 48%
School of Dental Medicine 24%
Graduate School, Basic Sciences 9%
Graduate School, Public Health 5%
John Dempsey Hospital 5%
Other 9%
Total 100%
This survey documents the Library as a service provider to a wide range of institutional functions.
RDA
20 January 2005
Posted by Robert at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2005
Selected New Books in the Library
by Helen Madden, MLS
Catalog Librarian
THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN OF MAN AND WOMAN: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed. Alexander Tsiaras, Barry Werth, authors. New York: Doubleday, c2004.
As much a work of art as an anatomy atlas, this book superimposes computer images onto traditional drawings of the human form to reveal the wonder and complexities of every system of the male and female body. Richly detailed images are accompanyied by a text that is both lyrical and scientific. Together they show the human body as a wonder of engineering and architecture.
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THE ANSWER TO CANCER. Carolyn D. Runowicz, Sheldon H. Cherry, authors. Emmanus, PA: Rodale, c2004.
Co-authored by Dr. Runowicz of UCHC's faculty, this work is written for the general public to help individuals stop cancer before it starts, arrest it in its earliest stages, and keep it from coming back. It gives an overview of the nine most frequent kinds of cancer, exposes some common cancer prevention myths, and outlines what people can and can not do to lower their risk of cancer. It provides information to help a person take control over their cancer risk by making appropriate lifestyle choices based on their own family history, genetics and environment.
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THE MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL'S GUIDE TO HANDHELD COMPUTING. Chris Helopoulos, author. Boston: Jones & Bartlett, c2004.
Written for all levels of healthcare professionals, this is a guide to choosing and using a PDA in clinical practice. Chapters include: assessing your needs, hardware options, operating system: palm versus pocket pc, internal memory and expansion memory, monochrome versus color, batteries versus rechargeable, wireless, keyboard, and multifunction phone, and an analysis of brands and models.
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THE CULTURES OF CAREGIVING: Conflict and Common Ground among Families, Health Professionals, and Policy Makers. Carol Levine, Thomas H. Murray, editors. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, c2004.
Patient care at home is most often done by family members who are untrained and unprepared for the responsibility, and whose values, priorities, and relationships to the patient may differ greatly from those of the healthcare profesional, resulting in conflict and misunderstanding. This book examines the differences, conflicts and common ground between family caregivers and medical personnel, and suggests ways to improve the situation.
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THE MOLD IN DR. FLOREY'S COAT: the Story of the Penicillin Miracle. Eric Lax, author. New York: Holt, c2004.
Everyone asociates the name of Alexander Fleming with penicillin, while few have heard of Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, or Norman Heatley. Although penicillin's development began with Fleming, it was the work of the other men that turned the anibacterial properties of mold into a life-saving drug. This book tells the story behind the discovery, the story of how mold's active ingredients were isolated and transformed into a wonder drug, why it took so long, why credit was misplaced, and why the achievement won a Nobel Prize but no financial rewards for any of them.
Posted by Robert at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2005
eMedicine: a Database that Competes Against UpToDate
by Hongjie Wang, MLS
Head, Information and Education Services
eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base is a medical information system similar to UpToDate and is available from the library’s web page at http://libdatabase.uchc.edu/databases/databases.asp. This is a popular database with an average of usage sessions at 1300 a month last year, right after UpToDate, MDConsult and Ovid Medline.
Key features of this system include:
• Thousands of peer-reviewed, 24/7 updated, medical reference articles, covering 58 specialties and 650 consumer reference articles
• Unlimited free PDA/Palm textbook downloads
• A personalized education update system that allows you to register to receive automatic topic updates, MEDLINE journal article updates, weekly quizzes on ECGs, X-rays, and images
• 30,000 hours of institutional CME, CE, and OCEU for physicians, nurses, and optometrists at a discounted rate of $6.50 per unit with use of the discount code, IDC-918.
• A high-resolution collection of over 30,000 pictures suitable for teaching lectures
• Advertising-free environment
At present, two users can access this database at the same time. Please remember to log off when you are done with the search.
Posted by Robert at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2005
Tsunami Relief Agencies
For more information on ways to help the victims of the South Asian Tsunami, log on to the American Public Health Association website at
http://www.apha.org/news/press/2004/tsunami.htm
Posted by Robert at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2005
PubMed Update
By Nancy Carter-Menendez, MLS
Information & Education Services Department
Cubby
Stand by for news about the exciting enhancements to Cubby that will be announced in the near future.
The New/Noteworthy link located on the blue sidebar on the left hand side of the PubMed screen under Entrez PubMed is an excellent way to keep up to date on PubMed news and changes.
In addition to the UCHC Library newsletter now available as a blog, other excellent resources providing updates about PubMed are the NLM Technical Bulletin and the NER’estah, the newsletter of the New England Regional Medical Library.
The most recent issue of the NLM Technical Bulletin, 2004 November-December, is now available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/current_issue.html and the list of issues of the NER’estah is at http://nnlm.gov/ner/newsletter/index.html.
2005 MeSH
Year end processing has been completed by NLM and the 2005 MeSH is now in use. An article highlighting the additions, changes and deletions to the 2005 MeSH vocabulary is available in the NLM Technical Bulletin at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd04/nd04_mesh.html.
Index Medicus
The NLM will cease publishing the printed Index Medicus (IM) with the December 2004 edition (Volume 45). For the last 125 years the National Library of Medicine has been publishing the monthly printed Index Medicus. In 1836 Library of the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army (the present National Library of Medicine) was established. From about 1865 to 1895 John Shaw Billings, MD, (1838-1913) served as director of the Surgeon General’s Library, and was responsible for the publication of the printed Index Medicus beginning in 1879. According to NLM, use of the print IM has declined since MEDLINE became available in 1971.
Posted by Robert at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)