World Aids Day 2014

Today is World Aids Day, an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV.

RCSI Library has acess to a number of HIV/AIDS resources. Of particular interest may be the Cochrane Library special collection on HIV/AIDS, a selection of Cochrane Reviews on the subject.The focus of this collection is on antiretroviral therapy and many of these reviews formed the basis for the World Health Organisation's 2013 guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV/AIDS infection.

You can access the Cochrane Library through the database section of the library website at www.rcsi.ie/library and the link to the HIV/AIDS special collection can be found on the Cochrane homepage.

Other useful HIV/AIDS information services:

Information about HIV/AIDS in Ireland: http://www.hpsc.ie/A-Z/HIVSTIs/HIVandAIDS/

Worldwide HIV/AIDS stats and trends:   http://www.who.int/gho/hiv/en/

HIV/AIDS in the United States including guidelines, Clinical Trials
and drug information: http://aidsinfo.nih.gov


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New Journal Subscription

RCSI library has subscribed to Science Translational Medicine. The focus of the journal is original, peer-reviewed, science-based research that successfully advances clinical medicine toward the goal of improving patients' lives.

Examples of content in the journal include:

• Research and commentary on models of human disease with significant implications for disease treatment
• Investigative studies of human biology with an emphasis on disease, including small clinical trials
• Commentary on policy, funding, education and regulatory issues

        

You can find the journal in the e-journal portal on our website -  www.rcsi.ie.library

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Medline Plus Mobile

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has released a new version of the MedlinePlus mobile site - access it at http://m.medlineplus.gov

The newly developed site is optimised for use with mobile phones and tablets and, while the original mobile site contained only a subset of the information available on MedlinePlus, the new site contains all of the content available there.

Key features of the redesigned mobile site include:

• Access to all the content available on MedlinePlus
• Improved navigation using 'Menu' and 'Search' menus to access search and major areas of the site
• Updated look and feel with a new design

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PubMed Video Tutorial

RCSI library has a new video tutorial on our YouTube channel;
PubMed - advanced search techniques.

This tutorial looks at searching the PubMed database and covers areas such as using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), methods of broadening and narrowing results, setting up alerts and more.

RCSI Library has a number of other video tutorials on YouTube; these can all be viewed through our YouTube Channel.

 

 

 

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New Library Database

RCSI Library has just subscribed to a new database - Health Business Elite.

This database provides comprehensive journal content detailing all aspects of healthcare administration and other non-clinical aspects of healthcare institution management. Topics covered include Hospital Management, Hospital Administration, Marketing, Human Resources, Computer Technology, Facilities Management and Insurance.

Health Business Elite contains full text content from more than 480 journals such as H&HN: Hospitals and Health Networks, Harvard Business Review (available back to 1922) , Health Facilities Management, Health Management Technology, Healthcare Financial Management, Marketing Health Services, Materials Management in Health Care, Modern Healthcare and many more.

Subject coverage includes:

• Hospital Management
• Hospital Administration
• Marketing
• Human Resources
• Computer Technology
• Facilities Management
• Insurance

Health Business Elite is supplied by Ebsco.


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New ebooks at RCSI Library

RCSI Library has acquired a number of new ebooks which we hope will be of particular use to our undergraduate students. The new titles include Behavioral Science in Medicine, Clinically Oriented Anatomy, Grant's Dissector, Physiology: Cases and Problems and many more. You can search our entire collection of ebooks using our catalogue





Search our ebooks


 

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Literature searching in evidence based reviews

The Library's recent presentation for RCSI researchers entitled "Literature searching in evidence based reviews and in systematic reviews" is now up on YouTube.

This is a comprehensive description of the stages and standards involved in designing, testing and executing search strategies for evidence based literature reviews.


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Trial of ClinicalKey

The Library is running a trial of ClinicalKey until 28^th September and we’d  like to invite staff and students to evaluate  it as a potential new subscription for RCSI.

ClinicalKey is an advanced online search tool aimed at clinicians, researchers, academics and students which contains all of Elsevier’s medical and surgical content. The content includes over 500 electronic books some of which are core undergraduate texts and over 900 journals as well as procedural videos and millions of copyright cleared images.

In addition to providing high quality content, ClinicalKey also offers a search facility and a point of care tool (like UptoDate) called First Consult.

We’d be very grateful if you could spend a few minutes to look at it and let us know what you think of the content and the search functionality. Is it a product that you can see a use for, would you recommend it to students and/or colleagues and would you add your voice in support of a subscription?

You can access ClinicalKey on and off campus at this link: http://proxy.library.rcsi.ie/login?url=http://www.clinicalkey.com

Please send any feedback, comments etc. to library@rcsi.ie

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Anywhere Systematic Review

Wiley has announced the launch of a new enhanced HTML format for viewing systematic review articles. Called Anywhere Systematic Review it aims to enhance the reading experience of articles on Wiley Online Library in four ways:

Readability - Superfluous information and clutter have been removed so that readers can focus on the article.

Navigation - The new layout and Sidebar tray allows readers easy access to important information, such as references, at any point in the reading experience, without losing their place on the page.

Functionality - As well as viewing items such as figure, tables and references in context, readers can use new tools to browse through all these items in one place, and quickly navigate to their context in the article.

Mobility - The responsive HTML article will adapt to any device -desktop, tablet or mobile - to give the optimal reading experience.


You can view an article in the new 'Anywhere Article' format wherever you see this link:

The Cochrane Library is a collection of healthcare databases. It contains over 5,000 Cochrane Reviews; these are systematic reviews of primary research in healthcare and health policy.

You can access the Cochrane Library through the RCSI library website at http://www.rcsi.ie/library/databases

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RCSI Heritage Collections Unveils Previously Unseen Surgery and Medical Education Records

The RCSI Library today announced it has unveiled the College’s prized Heritage Collections. These extensive collections comprise archives, manuscripts and antiquarian books relating to the teaching and practice of surgery and medicine in Ireland.

Ms Kate Kelly, RCSI Chief Librarian said “RCSI holds a unique place in the history of surgery and medical education in Ireland since the late 1700s. The opening up of these collections to students, staff, researchers, academics and the general public for the first time will lead to new discoveries and anyone with an interest in the history of medicine in Ireland will find these collections rich with fresh and unique historical facts.”

The RCSI Heritage Collections include records relating to College correspondence and meetings, student registers, examinations, fees, fellows and licentiates. The archive also houses collections of a large number of prominent individuals including Abraham Colles (1773-1843), William Wallace (1791-1837), Sir Charles A. Cameron (1830-1921), Thomas Heazle Parke (1857 – 1893) and Emily Winifred Dickson (1866 – 1944). The materials are in a variety of formats including casebooks, diaries, lecture notes, published papers, photographs and clinical illustrations. 

Antiquarian books in surgery, medicine and allied topics are also part of the RCSI Heritage Collections. Works by Irish surgeons and doctors, especially those associated with RCSI over its 230 year history are a great source of information and will add greatly to the depth of RCSI’s history and the study of the history of medicine. There are more than 6000 pamphlets, with a particular focus on local eighteenth and nineteenth century issues. The collection also includes commemorative and memorial literature from various members of the medical profession.

The RCSI Heritage Collections includes the largest medical instrument collection in Ireland, with more than 1500 instruments including William Wilde’s aural snare, Robert McDonnell’s blood transfusion apparatus and surgical instruments from the Battle of Victoria 1813. Pioneers, founders and inventors of new surgical techniques and instruments walked the halls of RCSI. These individuals helped to forge medical advancements that benefit patients daily. 

Through a major cataloguing initiative within the RCSI Library, parts of these collections are now available to search online.   

Anybody interested in viewing the collection can visit the Widdess Reading Room in the Mercer Library. Viewing is by appointment only every Thursday from 10 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 4.30 pm. To view any records held by the RCSI Heritage Collections an appointment must be made in advance by emailing the Archivist.

See the Heritage Blog for more.

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Guide to academic and scientific publication

How To Get Your Writing Published In Scholarly Journals

A comprehensive guide written by Linda Olson with advice for authors discussing the success factors in scholarly publishing, presentation matters and communication with editors.


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New Library Video on YouTube

                                                
The latest library video on our YouTube channel looks at searching the CINAHL database using limits. Have a look at it, and at all our videos, at www.youtube.com/rcsilibrary

 

 

Finding Irish information: ISSDA & IQDA

Following on from last week's post, these two archives may be of interest.

The Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA) is Ireland's leading centre for quantitative data acquisition, preservation and dissemination. Based at, and managed by, UCD Library, it is a national service that provides free access to a wide range of data in the social sciences, for research and teaching purposes. Data is acquired from academic, research bodies and public sector sources.

Key datasets in health include:

• All Ireland Traveller Health Study
• Children's Sport Participation and Physical Activity (CSPPA)
• Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)
• National Psychological Wellbeing and Distress Study (NPWDS)

The Irish Qualitative Data Archive (IQDA) is a central access point for qualitative social science data generated in or about Ireland. Based in NUI Maynooth, it is a national programme and qualitative datasets interviews, pictures and other non-numerical material.

Data collections include:

• Growing Up in Ireland
• Life Histories and Social Change
• New Urban Living

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Finding Irish healthcare information

Directory of Irish Resources

Finding information on Irish healthcare topics can be challenging as there are a limited number of Irish published sources. Information may be widely scattered across a range of institutions, academic centres, clinical bodies, official and voluntary agencies. Formats may include reports, book chapters, official publications, EU documentation, theses and documents resident on any number of websites. No one index or search engine is likely to discover all relevant information. To search systematically, each resource / website should be interrogated using the website search box.    

RCSI Library continues to point to sources of Irish healthcare information on our webpages:  additional suggestions are welcome. 


Paul Murphy

Open Access

We have seen the success of green open access with direct author self deposit of journal papers to repositories increasing all the time. Ease of access and funder mandates have sharply increased both deposit and readership and subsequent impact. In our own document repository epublications@rcsi   900 papers and dissertations by RCSI authors have been downloaded over 293,000 times.

There is a corresponding increase in publication in gold open access journals, the access model where authors pre-pay publication fees but readers view without charge. There has been a measurable increase in citation impact from gold open access publishing. The BioMedNet Central   suite of journals is a well known example of gold publishing in medicine and over 300 papers by RCSI authors are freely available in BioMedNet BMC titles.

There are many other gold open access (OA) journals in clinical medicine, molecular biology, pharmacology and psychiatry. You can use the DOAJ directory, Directory of Open Access Journals  to find all OA journals in a category.  The growth of gold OA, plus a listing of the highest impact OA titles, is presented in a recent article, itself open access.  On the impact of Gold Open Access journals  Gumpenberger, C. et al 2013  Scientometrics  96 (1), pp. 221-238 

Connect to   epublications@rcsi   for more information about research funder mandates and green open access deposit.


Paul Murphy

Comparison of reference management software

EndNote      CiteULike      Mendeley      Zotero 

There is seemingly an ever growing choice in web based and device based reference and citation mangers with various different options in operating systems, export formats and citation styles.

Wikipedia has a good comparative table which seems to capture all the options out there for you.


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Additional databases and indexes on Web of Science

The Irish Research Electronic Library IReL has expanded the range of databases available through the Web of Science service with additional indexes to chemistry, patents, animal studies and data repositories.


• Science Citation Index Expanded --1945-
• Social Sciences Citation Index --1956-
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index --1975-
• Conference Proceedings Citation Index--1990-
• Book Citation Index - 2005-

• Current Chemical Reactions --1985-
• Index Chemicus --1993-

• Current Contents Connect  -- 1998-
• Data Citation Index -- 1900-
• Derwent Innovations Index -- 1963-
• MEDLINE -- 1950-
• SciELO Citation Index -- 1997-
• Zoological Record -- 1864-

Connect via our databases page. You can adjust search settings to search all indexes together or to make your own selection. Further information from Paul Murphy.

RCSI Library on YouTube

The RCSI Library is on YouTube.

Need some help exploring library resources?

We have a number of instructional videos, looking at topics including Searching the Library Catalogue, Finding a Full text Journal Article on our e-journal portal, using Clinical Summaries, exploring the CINAHL database, accessing and navigating e-books and more.

Watch them here.

Guides to health statistics

The US National Library of Medicine have compiled a series of subject guides, including a guide to health statistics and numerical data. The guide is principally US orientated, but includes some international sources as well. 

Click on image to see it in full size.

Other useful sources of statistics are:

• WHO Global Health Observatory
• OECD ILibrary
• Eurostat - European Commission
• and closer to home, the Irish Central Statistics Office

Check out the Library's subject pages on Global Health and Irish Resources for more links.

Digital Commons Network - an institutional repository network

The Digital Commons Network brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.

The RCSI institutional repository, e-publications@RCSI, is part of the Digital Commons Network, so aiding the dissemination of RCSI and related research work to a worldwide audience.
For further information on submitting material to the RCSI repository, please see the repository web pages or contact epubs@rcsi.ie

RCSI Library Guide to Searching for Studies for Systematic Reviews

Are you carrying out a systematic review?  Or a literature review for a thesis or paper?

Then check out the Library's Guide to Searching for Studies for Systematic Reviews. 

The guide covers:

• Searching databases
• Searching grey literature
• Scoping your topic
• Identifying search terms
• Testing your strategies
• Documenting your strategies
• ....and more.

Go to Moodle (vle.rcsi.ie), to the Information Seeking & Library Skills Module and scroll down to the Evidence-based Healthcare Reviews section.

Irish healthcare information

Tracing Irish healthcare information on the web can be difficult and RCSI Library has a dedicated web guide to Irish resources and agencies.

A new Irish resource is the online library and research service of the Oireachtas  This service captures all documentation and reports available to the Irish houses of parliament with coverage of Irish public healthcare material from many official organizations.


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