PMC (PubMed Central) launches new PubReader

PMC is the US National Institutes of Health free digital archive of articles in the biomedical and life sciences.   They have just released the PubReader, designed particularly to enhance the readability of PMC articles on tablet and other small screen devices.

Find out more about the PubReader and PMC.

YouTube tutorials



Check out our RCSI Library YouTube Channel



You will find tutorials on :

Searching the Library catalogue
How to place a hold on a book
Renewing your books and using your Library account
Finding a full-text article using the Ejournal Portal





Europe PubMed Central

Europe PubMed Central is the rebranded open access repository previously known as UK PubMedCentral. It now includes all the free full text of PubMed in addition to the full Medline index. Of significant added value is that Europe PubMedCentral includes important content not indexed in PubMed, especially biological patents, clinical guidelines, PhD theses and research reports.

Doing an advanced search for "RCSI" or "Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland" retrieves over 1,870 publications by RCSI researchers.



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Irish Research Council Open Access Policy

Irish Research Council

The IRC was established in March 2012, merging the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) and the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET).  The IRC will enable the Irish research community to contribute to the body of global knowledge across the diversity of disciplines, recognising the importance of research and scholarship for all aspects of cultural, economic and societal development (www.research.ie).

In July 2012 the European Commission issued a number of recommendations relating to access and preservation of scientific information for member states and it is following on from this that a National Open Access policy has now been developed.

In line with developing updated policies and procedures for the new IRC, it is timely to adopt an up to date Open Access Policy.  The draft IRC Open Access Policy is based on the IRCSET Open Access Policy (effective 2008) but has been updated to incorporate recent Open Access developments and to make sure that it addresses all aspects of the wider research community now covered.


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National Open Access Policy Statement

National Open Access Policy Statement

Open Access adds value to research, to the economy and to society. The outputs from publicly-funded research should be publicly available to researchers, but also to potential users in education, business, charitable and public sectors, and to the general public.

National Steering Committee on Open Access Policy
A Committee of Irish research organisations is working in partnership to coordinate activities and to combine expertise at a national level to promote unrestricted, online access to outputs1 which result from research that is wholly or partially funded by the State.

Ireland already has considerable expertise in developing Open Access to publicly funded research, aligned with international thinking and initiatives, and is now seeking to strengthen its approach to support international developments on Open Access led by the European Commission, Science Europe and other international agencies.

Irish Repositories

e-publications at RCSI

Lenus at HSE

Rian  IUA / HEA



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Citation Indexes - what's in a name?

RCSI Researchers
Are there different versions of your name on your published works? It is important to use a consistent version of your name as most databases index an author’s name based on the information they receive from journal publishers. Because publishers and databases do not always match your name with other papers you publish, this may result in inaccuracies when collating your published work, your citations or your h-index.

If there are different versions of your name, it is recommended that you merge your articles and papers in the two large citation databases, Scopus and Web of Science. Both citation indexes provide several ways for authors to correct information or variants in the databases.

Web of Knowledge
Search for yourself as author by name.
View the "Distinct Author Record Sets"
Click to open items with variant forms of your name 
Use the " Suggest a correction" option to request Web of Knowledge to amend your name.

Scopus
Do an author search for yourself.
If presented with variant forms of your name, select "Request to merge authours" and request a correction.


Please contact Paul Murphy for more information.

Evidence Based Review of Stroke Rehabilitation

The EBRSR was designed to be an up-to-date review of the current evidence in stroke rehabilitation, related to the effectiveness of both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. It continues to expand as the stroke rehabilitation literature continues to grow at a seemingly exponential rate.  The EBRSR website continues to do well with visits from 139 countries over the past two years.  The EBRSR now includes in-depth reviews of well over 2000 studies including 1,078 randomized controlled trials.

http://www.ebrsr.com/


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Open Access OA: publishing and self archiving.

The Open Access movement has tremendous potential to transform access to clinical and scientific research. BioMedCentral, PubMedCentral and e-publications@RCSI have all had an immediate and positive impact on access to publications.

Open Access Week, a global event now entering its sixth year, is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.

Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year. Open Access Week is a key opportunity for all members of the community to take action to keep this momentum moving forward.

More on Open Access Week

OA resources here

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RCSI Library, Beaumont Hospital

RCSI Library Beaumont Library has re-opened with full service after extensive renovations.

Term Time Opening Hours:
Monday-Thursday 9am-9pm
Friday 9am-7pm
Saturday 9am-1pm

We would like to thank all staff who have contributed to this work, and to thank students for their patience while the library was closed.

Please email the librarian if you have any queries:

Breffni Smith  breffnismith@rcsi.ie

We'd like to thank & acknowledge the work of Estates, Building Services, the IT Department and Media Services in improving the quality of library spaces in Mercer and Beaumont.

Mercer Library Refurbishment

The refurbishment is complete and and all facilities and services will be fully available from Monday 1 October.

All reading rooms, PC Labs and Group Study Rooms are now open

We thank you for your understanding and patience during the refurbishment.

We'd like to thank & acknowledge the work of Estates, Building Services, the IT Department and Media Services in improving the quality of library spaces in Mercer and Beaumont

 

Safer Better Healthcare

National Standards for Safer Better Healthcare  have been announced by HIQUA, the Health Information and Quality Authority.

The Standards are intended to place patients at the heart of the healthcare process and to ensure clarity of expectations for all in the drive to improve the quality of services.

There are specific themes on the importance of quality information management in patient care and access to evidence based information in clinical decision making. Appropriate information governance in healthcare services is recommended to provide a framework to bring together all the legislation, guidance and best available evidence that applies to the handling of information.


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PubMed and Google Scholar compared for clinical questions

A recent paper published in Health Information and Libraries Journal compares the performance of PubMed and Google Scholar in retrieving studies to answer clinical questions. Both systems identified unique and relevant studies in the initial set of results. Google Scholar tends to present highly cited studies first while PubMed presents results in chronological order. The authors conclude that both systems should be used in a complementary manner.


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Setup your Google Scholar to link to RCSI Library

When you search Google Scholar on campus, you can link to subscribed journal articles available via RCSI Library. You can also set this up to work at home:

1. Go to Google Scholar and click on "Settings" top right.
2. Select "Library Links"
3. Enter Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in the Library links box and click "Find Library"
4. “Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – Full-text @ RCSI Library” will appear in the list, simply check the box and click Save.

When you search Google Scholar from home you will be able to link to RCSI full-text journal articles by entering your network username and password when prompted.

 http://scholar.google.com

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PubMed citations into Endnote

PubMed has changed the way citations are exported to Endnote. It is now simplified via  the "Send to" menu box in the results display screen - now simply select the option for citation manager and then click on the create file button. This will save a file called citations.nbib to your local drive. The contents of this file can then be imported using the PubMed (NLM) import filter in the EndNote import menu.

Up to 200 PubMed references can be exported this way. If you want to export more than 200 references, use "Send To File" and import them from that file into EndNote.

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Integrating information skills into the curriculum

• Are your students over -reliant on general web sources to complete assignment tasks?
• Do you want your students to be able to find and use peer reviewed reference, data and journal sources?
• Can your students competently compile an up to date bibliography on a topic?

Irish university libraries have collaborated to produce guides outlining the wide range of information skills training incorporated into courses in many different academic disciplines. See our Information Literacy page for more.

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Need a Library book over the summer?

From Monday 21 May, you can get a vacation loan for most items from RCSI Library - please ask at the Service Desk when taking out the book.

Please note:

• Vacation loans are due on Monday 1 October 2012 
• A vacation loan is subject to certain conditions - if there are requests for the item over the summer months, then we may need to recall the item. In this case, you must agree to return the item (by post etc.) and are responsible for the item until its return. 
• Exceptions: USMLE and MCQ books and DVDs are exempt from vacation loans as these are required over the summer. 

Please ask at the Library Service Desks if you have any queries about vacation loans.

Wolfram Alpha - compute and search

The Wolfram | Alpha computational knowledge engine:

Answer questions, do drug calculations, chemical formula, do math, get facts, create plots, calculators, unit conversions, scientific data and statistics.

compute body mass index
compute mean plasma glucose from HbA1c level
compute estimated risk of heart disease
compute life expectancy and survival probabilities
get data on deaths from a specific cause
get information about a test result
get an overview of health care costs in a country



Categories and Examples

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Mendeley: web based reference management with storage

Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your work, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research.

There are a number of different open access citation managers with various search, import and export features.  See the Wikipedia entry for a comparison of of features.

 

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RCSI Library services for researchers

We have updated our information page with our services for researchers: More about our open access repository (e-publications at RCSI), ResearcherID and Publish or Perish.

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Google Scholar Metrics

Many researchers are using Google Scholar to find their own citation impact and h-indexes and indeed many are also creating their own personal citation profile.  See Albert Einstein as an example.

Now Google Scholar Metrics has been introduced to enable a similiar type of analysis at the journal level. Buit how valid are these emerging metrics based on Google Scholar? Over in The Scholarly Kitichen, they are cooking up a critique: 
Google’s New “Scholar Metrics” Have Potential, But Also Prove Problematic

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Papers belonging to first female Fellow of RCSI donated to the College

Papers belonging to Dr. Emily Winifred Dickson, the first female Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) have been donated to the College by her family. The papers which include certificates, medals, testimonials, correspondence and photographs dating from the 1880s-1920s were donated by Dr EW Dickson's grandson Dr. Niall Martin to Prof. Eilis McGovern, RCSI President. The papers will be catalogued in the RCSI Library and will be made available to researchers and for display in due course. See further details on the RCSI website.

PubMed tutorial and Quick Tour update

The PubMed interface changed quite a bit in 2011 and both the main tutorials and the Quick Tours have been updated.

Tutorial:

• PubMed's scope and content.

• Understand how the MeSH vocabulary is used to describe and retrieve citations.

• Build a search using MeSH and PubMed tools (Details, Limits, History, Search Builder.)

• Manage results: display, sort, the Clipboard, save, print, e-mail and My NCBI filters.

• Save your search strategies.

• Link to full-text articles and other resources.

• Use special queries and other PubMed/NCBI tools.

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Medical Heritage Digital Library

The US Medical Heritage Library Project is a cooperative venture to digitize historical materials from the collections of the National Library of Medicine, the Countway Library at Harvard, the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Library at Yale, the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University, and the New York Public Library.

The goal of the project is to digitize books and journals that document the evolution of American medicine from 17th century colonial medicine to 20th century research hospitals. The whole of NLM's contribution of over 6,000 books will be available through NLM's Digital Collections repository.

www.medicalheritage.org

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Cochrane Reviews now podcast

Some Cochrane Library reviews from Jan 2012 now podcast

• Cognitive stimulation to improve cognitive functioning in people with dementia
• Cold-water immersion (cryotherapy) for preventing and treating muscle soreness after exercise
• Disposable surgical face masks for preventing surgical wound infection in clean surgery
• Exercise interventions for smoking cessation
• Intracutaneous or subcutaneous sterile water injection for relieving pain in labour
• Neuraminidase inhibitors for preventing and treating influenza in healthy adults and children
• Self-monitoring of blood glucose in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who are not using insulin

http://www.cochrane.org/podcasts/

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The latest ebook added to our collection is...

Lecture notes general surgery by Harold Ellis

Irish health libraries: new directions.

Launch of Irish health libraries: new directions. Report of the status of health librarianship and libraries in Ireland (SHELLI) January 2012.

60 new electronic books 24/7

The Library has a new subscription to Access Medicine, a collection of 60 electronic books.

To ensure you can connect on or off campus, use the link to Access Medicine on the Digests and EBooks page on the Library website.

About Access Medicine

AccessMedicine^® from McGraw-Hill is an innovative online resource that provides access to more than 60 medical titles from the best minds in medicine, updated content, thousands of images and illustrations, interactive self-assessment, case files, time-saving diagnostic and point-of-care tools, a comprehensive search platform, and the ability to view from and download content to a mobile device.

Some of the ebooks included in Access Medicine are:

· Harrison's Online

· CURRENT Medical Diagnosis & Treatment 2012

· Hurst's The Heart, 13e

· Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology, 9e

· DeGowin's Diagnostic Examination, 9e

· Fitzpatrick's Color Atlas & Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology, 6e

· Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine, 7e

· Goodman & Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, 12e

· Hazzard's Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, 6e

· Lichtman's Atlas of Hematology

· Principles of Critical Care, 3e

· Schwartz's Principles of Surgery, 9e

· Sherris Medical Microbiology, 5e

· Tintinalli's Emergency Medicine: A Comprehensive Study Guide, 7e

· Williams Gynecology

· Williams Hematology, 8e

· Harper's Illustrated Biochemistry, 28e

· Smith's General Urology, 17e

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