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What's going on at Dalhousie Libraries

Archives for Tim Ruggles

Cochrane Library Available to All Nova Scotians

The Cochrane Library is now accessible to all Nova Scotians via their public library.
An innovative initiative spearheaded by the Kellogg Library and the Atlantic Health Knowledge Partnership (AHKP) has provided access to theCochrane Library to everyone in Nova Scotia. They need only go to their public library web site to find the Cochrane Library. To access they only have to enter their public library barcode and pin number. See the example from the Halifax Public Library at: http://halifaxpubliclibraries.ca/infodesk/edatabase.html
A province-wide license was negotiated by the Kellogg Library and the authentication and delivery of the database was provided by the Provincial Library and Department of Education. This groundbreaking partnership bodes well for future initiatives.

Kellogg Lunch ‘n Learn Tuesdays

Join us in November for three useful sessions on new and nifty things in the information world

Using the “cool tools”: Communicating in the age of the Social Web

Presenter: Karen Neves

Tuesday 13 November 12:00-1:00, Tupper Building, Theater D

Feeling lost in the sea of new communication technologies? Just don’t get it? Come on in for an introduction to Web 2.0, you just might want to join in. Tools covered will be:

  • Facebook / MySpace
  • Libguides
  • Blogs / Wikis
  • Ning

Keeping up-to-date …is it getting easier?

Presenter: Shelley McKibbon

Tuesday 20 November 12:00-1:00, Tupper Building, Theater D

Wondering what all the fuss is about RSS feeds, Podcasts and all those other new tools? Come for an introduction to these new technologies and see how they can help you keep up to date in your subject areas. Tools covered will be:

  • RSS feeds (NEJM and more)
  • Podcasts (from sources like Nature etc.)
  • Blogs (from big names in health care)

Journal Citation Reports – or, what’s all the hoopla about impact factors?

Presenter: Ann Barrett

Tuesday 27 November 12:00-1:00, Tupper Building, Theater D

Come and learn about new library access to the Journal Citation Reports from ISI. Topics covered will include:

  • A one minute history of citation analysis
  • What are impact factors – why do I want to know and should I care?
  • Web of Science journal analysis
  • Open Source publishing and impact factors – does one affect the other

Registration is not required. The room is wireless if you wish to bring your own laptop or pda to follow along. For further details email us at

Kellogg.library@dal.ca

Writing Centre Returns to Kellogg Library

We are very pleased to announce the renewed partnership between The Writing Centre and the Kellogg Health Sciences Library. Starting September 11, a tutor from the Writing Centre will be in residence at the Kellogg Library two afternoons a week (Tuesday and Thursday, 1:00-4:00). Students are encouraged to drop in for writing assistance or make an appointment by emailing writingk@dal.ca .

The Writing Centre provides writing support services to students at Dalhousie and Kings. This includes help with intellectual property Issues (avoiding plagiarism), evaluating and citing sources, creating bibliographies, writing assignments, and much much more.

Evaluation of EBM Tools for Point-of-Care

The Texas Health Science Libraries Consortium conducted a Systematic Evaluation of Evidence Based Medicine Tools for Point-of-Care.

It rates 10 top EBM tools in several different categories. ACP’s PIER comes out as number one in all categories, with Cochrane Library and Clinical Evidence holding down the number two and three spots.

View the whole PowerPoint presentation by going to STATRef on the Kellogg Library’s website and clicking on the link for “Systematic Evaluation for Evidence-Based Medicine Tools for Point-of-Care”.

InfoRetriever/InfoPOEMS Free Trial

InfoRetriever/InfoPOEMS – trial ends Aug. 25, 2007

InfoPOEMs® highlight the progression of clinically-applicable evidence, one study at a time. InfoRetriever® uniquely enables rapid point-of-care access to the best available filtered, graded, synopsized evidence and evidence-derived tools.

InfoRetriever®, by presenting the best evidence and not just expert opinion, provides clinicians the information needed to make the best clinical decisions. By focusing on “Patient-Oriented Evidence that Matters” (POEMs), it avoids the wrong decisions too often associated with expert opinion in recent years. For example – doxazosin for hypertension, vitamin E for heart disease, beta-carotene to prevent cancer, arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee, hormone replacement therapy to prevent heart disease, patching corneal abrasions, using encainide for post-infarction arrhythmias, and sleeping infants on their sides or stomach
– were all recommended by experts yet all worsened patient outcomes.

InfoPOEMs® are synopses of new evidence, relevant to patient care, from a continuous review, grading, and critical appraisal of 1200+ studies published monthly in 100 journals. Each study is filtered for relevance and then for validity, using criteria from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (Oxford). About 1 in 40 studies qualify as an InfoPOEM, and 20-30 InfoPOEMs are identified
monthly.

Take a tour of InfoRetriever at http://www.infopoems.com/product/tour.cfm

Begin a trial now!

Please send your comments to Patrick Ellis

Journal Citation Reports (Impact Factors) Online

The Dalhousie Libraries recently acquired Journal Citation Reports (JCR) Online. JCR, an ISI Web of Knowledge publication, is a comprehensive and unique resource that allows you to evaluate and compare journals using citation data drawn from over 8,400 scholarly and technical journals from more than 3,300 publishers in over 60 countries. It is the only source of citation data on journals, and includes virtually all areas of science, technology, and social sciences. JCR can show you:

  • the most frequently cited journals in a field
  • the highest impact journals in a field
  • the largest journals in a field

Citation and article counts are important indicators of how frequently current researchers are using individual journals. By tabulating and aggregating citation and article counts, JCR offers a unique perspective for journal evaluation and comparison.

JCR Online is available via the database search on the Libraries website and also in Novanet, our online catalogue.

Pre-1970 Journals to Storage

In order to free up much needed space, the Kellogg Library is in the process of moving its pre-1970 journals into storage. To obtain a copy of an article from our pre-1970 journals, simply go to our document request form on our website and place your request there. Please count on 3 business days for these requests to be filled. This service is free for Dalhousie users.

If you require assistance please drop into the Library or call our reference desk at 494-2482.

StatRef E-book Presentation

The Kellogg Library will be hosting a presentation by Stat Ref representative Karen Ennis in Theatre E, Tupper Bldg. on July 24th from 1300 – 1500 hrs.
Stat Ref is a highly regarded electronic resource for health care professionals that includes
— a searchable database of electronic textbooks,
— Anatomy TV : an interactive Anatomy tool
— Med Calc 3000: encompasses a wide array of pertinent medical formulae, clinical criteria sets and decision tree analysis tools used everyday by clinicians, medical educators, nurses and health care students of all types.
All are welcome to attend.

Welcome Message from the Health Sciences Librarian

Welcome to the news blog for the W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library at Dalhousie University.

This new initiative is part of our overall plan to keep you better informed on news and events at the Kellogg Library. Here, we’ll keep you up-to-date on new acquisitions, changes to our services, changes in access to electronic resources, events, tutorials, important announcements, and more. In addition, this blog gives you an easy way to send us your comments, and we encourage you to do so.

Over the past several years, the Kellogg Library has transformed its journal collection from being predominantly in-house and print-based to one which is electronically available anytime, and from anywhere. This past year has seen a marked shift to purchasing more electronic books than ever. See the notices in this blog relating to major new e-book collections that have been recently acquired. This shift to electronic resources helps us better deliver content to our distant user populations.

The most comprehensive way to access to our e-books and e-journals is through the Novanet Catalogue found in many places on our website. Novanet will lead you to all Dalhousie Libraries resources, both print and electronic. You may also check our e-journals and e-books pages on our website.

To search for electronic resources only in the Novanet Catalogue, try the following:
Go to the Novanet Catalogue Webpage
Select A Library
DAL Network Resources
Search for electronic books by subject, author, journal name, etc.

Subscribe to our blog to ensure you are always up-to-date. We look forward to receiving your comments.

Sincerely,

Patrick Ellis
Health Sciences Librarian

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