Cancellation of “Clinical Evidence”

During the month of April the Health Sciences Library requested user feedback on a variety of Point of Care Tools.  It is no longer economically feasible for the library to continue subscribing to all of these resources but we wanted to get feedback from our users before making cancellation decisions.

The feedback the library received about the Point of Care Tools was outstanding and extremely helpful!  Some of the feedback appears as comments to the blog post from April 3, 2012.

Based on the initial review of feedback received and the usage statistics for these products, it was clear that the Health Sciences Library should end its subscription to Clinical Evidence.  We will not be renewing our subscription to Clinical Evidence and we will lose access on May 3, 2012.

The feedback for the remaining Point of Care Tools needs more analysis and we will be working on that for the next couple of weeks.  Watch for future postings telling our final decisions!

Getting Started With Papers

The Library recently hosted a “Getting Started with Papers for Mac” session, led by Dr. Mike Pascoe, an early adopter of Papers and Papers super-user.

We were able to record the session.  Watch a video of a “Getting Started with Papers for Mac” class (March 27, 2012) hosted by the Health Sciences Library and taught by Papers super-user and anatomy instructor Mike Pascoe.

View or print the slide set [PDF]    View or print the class handout [PDF]

NOTE:Due to a technical problem, the audio volume is extremely low.  Turn up the volume on your computer and the video panel all the way.
For better audio use a USB headphone with adjustable volume.

The Health Sciences Library does not have staff that are trained to support Papers at this time.  However, we can offer the following links to help campus Papers users:

• 30-day Trial for Macs or Windows. Try Papers before you purchase a copy.
• Download the software for Macs or Windows.  Cost is $79, 40% discount for students.
• Purchase apps for the iPad or iPhone to use Papers in a mobile format.
• Get help for the Mac or Windows versions.
• The ezproxy URL to set up the article retrieval function is: https://hsl-ezproxy.ucdenver.edu/loginSee instructions at: http://support.mekentosj.com/kb/how-to/configure-papers-to-work-with-your-library-proxyAdd a Proxy URL and paste in https://hsl-ezproxy.ucdenver.edu/login

[Lynne Fox, Education Librarian]

New exhibit in Gallery – and Opening Reception

The “Analogue Love” photography display by Mary Norbury-Glaser (Barbara Davis Center) is currently on display in the Gallery. This collection of photographs is created using plastic cameras and analogue film. In this day of digital photography, film photography has become nearly a lost art. Most people are immersed in technology and seek digital perfection. Mary uses lo-fi techniques to create photographs untouched by graphics editing software. What you see is what the camera sees – imperfect and unpredictable.

An Opening Reception for “Analogue Love” will be held on Friday, May 4th from 3:00 – 5:00 pm.  If you are free, stop by to meet Mary and see her art.

The exhibit will be on display through May 31^st, 2012.

April is National Autism Awareness Month

Autism is a complex developmental disability that generally involves problems of social interaction and communication. Often referred to as a “spectrum” disorder, Autism is better characterized as a group of disorders that have similar features. All of the causes of Autism are not known, but most scientists agree that genetic factors play a role (See the CDC link below for more information on causes). As of yet there is no cure for Autism, but there are a number of treatment options that can help minimize the symptoms.

Autism is a growing source of concern among the American public. Recent figures suggest that as many as 1 in 88 children have the disorder. Parents face costs ranging from $3.5 million to $5 million to care for an Autistic child according to the Autism Society (http://www.autism-society.org/). Researchers believe that growing rates of Autism do not necessarily reflect an expansion of the disorder, but rather better detection and diagnosis on the part of health care providers.

No doubt due to frustrating gaps in the understanding of Autism, there is wide-spread speculation about its causes. Perhaps the most popular belief is a link between Autism and vaccines. The Center for Disease control has reviewed the issue and concludes that there is not an association between vaccine use, in particular the vaccine preservative thimerosal, and Autism. Read more at:  (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Autism/Index.html).

A good place to get an overview of the disorder is the National Library of Medicine’s Medline Plus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/autism.html) and the National Institute of Health (http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/asd.cfm). For data on prevalence and other background information, see the Center for Disease Control website (http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/index.html).

The Health Sciences Library also offers books about the diagnosis, treatment and research of Autism.

[Ben Harnke, Reference Librarian]

FYI: Advice for getting that dissertation done!

Many factors can prevent dissertation completion.  Don’t let procrastination affect you! Rachel Herrmann, a history PhD student, offers advice http://chronicle.com/article/My-Terrible-Horrible-No/131438/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en that applies to dissertation authors across disciplines. Her recent Chronicle of Higher Education column outlined some techniques for procrastinators to help them stay on track.

[Lynne Fox, Education Librarian]

Basic science journal searching made easy with Quertle

Quertle is a search engine offering an innovative approach to basic science searching. Quertle’s creators realized that often molecular biology searching is focused on subject-verb-object relationships (triplets), such as “A causes B”.  They’ve captured millions of these relationships in order to enhance searching PubMed and other US government databases and documents, news, whitepapers, and posters.

At the heart of effective Quertle searching is the use of Power Terms.  http://www.quertle.info/pages/powerterms.shtml  Power Terms are short cuts that encapsulate whole classes of terms for which you might want to search.  For instance, I can use the Power Term $Genes to stand in for any gene name or $Proteins for any gene product.  I can even be more specific and use $ProteinKinases or $SignalingProteins.

Here’s a search that you can try in Quertle:

$Protein $Action $Disease inflammation

On the left of your results there’s a list of filters.  Narrow your results by adding terms, limit to recent years of publication or publication type, choose specific key concepts with a relationship to one of your search terms, or add other general concepts. Export your results in RIS format for import into your favorite citation management software. You can even register with Quertle to save your favorite search filters to apply to future searches and access the Health Sciences Library’s fulltext journals.

If you’ve found PubMed’s approach to searching frustrating when searching in the domain of molecular biology, then Quertle might be the discovery tool for you! Ask Us http://hslibrary.ucdenver.edu/aal/ if you’d like to investigate Quertle with a librarian to see if it meets your searching needs or to learn more about the many search tools that provide an alternative PubMed.

[Lynne Fox, Education Librarian]

Micromedex updates: outage and mobile

Scheduled outage: Between the hours of 7pm and 8pm on April 21, 2012

Updated directions for accessing the mobile interface:  The Micromedex Drug Information App is free from the iTunes store. The Drug Interactions App is available free for our faculty, staff and students with the password Micromedex provides. You must access the Micromedex page through the library’s website, (if you are off campus, you will authenticate with your usual username and password) then click on mobileMicromedex in the upper left corner and continue with the directions they provide. Please see the directions below for more assistance.

BioMed Central – Supporter Membership cancelled

In these difficult financial times it is imperative that we allocate the library’s collection budget in a manner that will provide the best tools for the majority of our users.  Unfortunately that means having to make difficult decisions regarding resource cancellations.  The CU system libraries have decided to cancel their supporter membership to BioMed Central effective April 10, 2012.  Please rest assured that almost all of BioMed Central’s content is open access so Anschutz Medical Campus users will continue to maintain access to the journal articles.  The CU system libraries are cancelling our supporter membership which gave authors a 15% discount on the author fees to publish in a BioMed Central journal.  What the CU system libraries found after reviewing our supporter membership is that very few faculty took advantage of the discount and that even with the discount faculty members still had to pay a large fee.

The CU system libraries, including the Health Sciences Library, is very committed to open access (OA) and we are looking for other ways to support publishing in OA journals.  If you have questions or would like more information please contact Melissa De Santis, Deputy Director at (303) 724-1748 or melissa.desantis@ucdenver.edu.

FYI: Is your C.V. well crafted?

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, “The Rhetoric of the CV,”  writer Joshua Eyler encourages you to think about the message your C.V. communicates.

Do you need to create or revise your CV to send the best possible message about your work?  Register for the University of Colorado Denver Writing Center workshop: Writing a Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)

This workshop is designed for both graduate students who are considering a career in higher education and instructors/faculty who are interested in revising their CVs. The workshop will provide an overview of creating a Curriculum Vitae: a specialized academic resume. We will discuss who needs a C.V. and why, what goes in a C.V., and examine a variety of professional samples. Time will also be allotted to look at drafts of your own C.V.

Presenter: Justin Bain, Writing Center Director
Dates/Times: April 20th, 12-2pm, Anschutz Medical Campus: Health Sciences Library, Teaching Lab 1 & 2

ADDED June 12, 2012: On Hiring, a blog from the Chronicle of Higher Education, offers more advice:  Fluffy CV’s and Cluttered Ones

 

HSL LibX browser toolbar – 2.0 edition now available

The LibX browser toolbar is like taking the library with you on the web! Now available in version 2.0, the toolbar is now available for both Firefox and Google Chrome. more info | download

Sitting innocuously near the top right of your browser, a simple click on the icon brings up a search prompt. A selection of search targets are available, including the library’s FindIt Discovery Tool, Find Journals portal, IMPULSE library catalog, Pubmed, Prospector, Google Scholar, and Wikipedia. Search results open up in a new browser tab.

Users can also try out the right click functionality including DOIs and Pubmed ID (PMID) formats. Simply highlight any term and right click to obtain a number of LibX search options including Pubmed and Google Scholar. Right clicking can also be useful when you are off campus. Wherever you are and wherever you are on the Web, simply right click any journal web page to reformat the URL and sign in through EZproxy to get to the full text.

Try it today!