Library Opening Hours (RHH)

1st February 2010 - 25th June 2010

Monday - Thursday 9am - 7pm  staffed, 7pm - 9pm  unstaffed.
Friday   10am- 7pm  staffed, 7pm - 9pm  unstaffed.
Saturday/Sunday  2pm - 6pm  unstaffed.

Summer Vacation: 26th June 2010 - 26th September 2010

Monday - Thursday 9am - 7pm  staffed
Friday  10am - 7pm  staffed
Saturday  2pm - 6pm  unstaffed
Sunday  Closed

Exception: The library will be closed on Monday, 30th August 2010

10 of the best: 6 Information skills tutorials

9-13 November 2009 is information literacy week

How do you know that?
How do you know it is right?
How are you going to use that information?
Will you act ethically?

How highly would you rank your information literacy skills?

Did you know that students who can demonstrate the skills of information literacy not only perform better academically but also have better career prospects? In the field of health care information literacy skills are the key to becoming an effective evidence based practitioner.
Many students learn these skills from the University of Sheffield Library’s online tutorials.

Be an information literate graduate by learning how to:
Define a search question
Search for information
Evaluate information
Synthesise information
Cite and reference information

Visit the tutorials at:
www.librarydevelopment.group.shef.ac.uk
Vic

Drop-In Clinic

Medline or CINAHL causing you problems?
Successful literature searching rather elusive?
What is WOK, who is Cochrane?

Come along to the Drop-In Clinic:

1pm-2pm every Tuesday - NHS IT room
(Through the double doors, on the right, just past the university's computer rooms).

Fancy winning an iPod Touch?

The image on the right is a QR or 'quick response' code. Originating in Japan they were initially used by companies as tracking devices. Unlike traditional barcodes QR codes are two dimensional and are able to store both alpha and numerical content (up to 7000 numerical or 4300 alpha-numerical characters long). The information stored within these codes can be anything from urls, to telephone numbers, to addresses or even entire poems.

The QR code above converts into the Library homepage. For you to be able to read this you’ll need a mobile camera phone and reader software. Some of the later Nokia phones already have the software installed and for iPhones it’s easy to pick something up from the app store, like BeeTagg or Quickmark. You could try Googling your phone’s make and model to find out what software you need or alternatively try some of the following:

• Kaywa ;


• Upcode ;


• Quickmark;


• BeeTagg.

To read the code you just need to take a photograph with your phone’s camera and allow the reader software to do the rest. For those of you with Internet enabled phones you’ll be directed straight to the URL via your mobile browser. To find out more about QR codes visit the library news page and for details on connecting your phone to the university’s wireless network have a look at the instructions via CiCS.

The University Library is currently piloting the use of QR codes and we are keen to discuss your ideas on how we could be making use of this technology to support our library services. Some suggestions have included codes which link to the library catalogue and our library blogs for mobile bookmarking purposes or the inclusion of codes on catalogue records to save bibliographic details. We are also working on attaching QR codes to a sample of our paper journal runs to link users to their electronic equivalents via Find it @ Sheffield.

If you have any ideas about how we can use QR codes in the Library we'd like to hear them. By leaving a comment against this blog post you'll automatically be entered into our competition to win a brand spanking new iPod Touch.

The deadline for entries is 30 November and the competition is open to all University of Sheffield students, via the four library blogs:

• Science & Engineering;


• Arts;


• Social Sciences;


• Medicine, Dentistry and Health.

Important Customer Services Notice

Change to Library loan periods September 2009

The Library constantly reviews its practices with regard to loans, and recent modifications to the reservations system have prompted us to try to further improve the way in which material is circulated. We have changed the lending service so that Library material ‘manages itself’. An in-demand item automatically has a shorter loan period which then reverts back to a normal loan period once the demand has been satisfied.

Why change the system?

• In the past when you requested a book it was arbitrary which item you received – it may have been a normal loan or a short loan. You’ve told us this is unfair.


• Short loan items were not in-demand all the time, and it was difficult to understand why you couldn’t have items for longer if no-one else needed them. Also, you had to remember to renew short loans every other day and it was easy to build up large fines.


• Part-time and distance-learning students found it difficult to borrow short loan items.

With the new system what will happen when I borrow a book?

All items in stock in the Library now have a ‘normal’ loan period, the length of which is determined by the type of student, as previously. So, if you’re a full-time undergraduate or a postgraduate on a taught course books are issued for 1 week, if you’re a part-time student books are issued for 2 weeks, and if you’re a research student books are issued for 4 weeks.

If no-one else wants the book you can keep renewing it and each time it will be issued for the standard loan period.

We have also increased the number of self-renewals to 20, so staff don’t need to renew items for you until you reach that limit.

Full details of the new lending service can be found on the Library website under using the library. Remember - it’s essential to check myLibrary Account via MUSE regularly to avoid fines and check no-one has reserved the items you have on loan.

Summer reading

Before you leave for the summer have a look at our check list for a quick reminder about what you need to do and where you can access information:

Get your library accounts up-to-date - Why not pay off your debts (remember final year students will not be allowed to graduate with outstanding debts), return all the books you won’t be needing and cancel any outstanding reservations (give your fellow students a chance of getting what they need too);

- Check all your books have been renewed and that you KNOW YOUR PIN to access your account online - Longer vacation loans begin at 9am on Monday 8 June for standard loans and Thursday 11 June for short loans;
Ring the renewals hotline on 0114 222 7201 if you’re unable to access the Internet;

Practice your information skills with our online tutorials and screencasts;

Follow our Twitter feed to be kept in the loop about what’s going on whilst you’re away;

And remember - we’re always here to help! Contact the library if you’re having any problems accessing information or alternatively get in touch with either Frances or myself for subject specific help.

Vic

v.grant@sheffield.ac.uk
f.ludlow@sheffield.ac.uk

Looking for a swine flu information finder? Intute could be your best provider. 10 of the best 5: Intute

Looking for a swine flu information finder? Intute could be your best provider .

10 of the best: 5 Intute http://www.intute.ac.uk/healthandlifesciences/



So that's how it started ...

Intute: Health and life sciences   is a free online service providing access to the very best web resources for education and research, evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists.

It has links to major information sources on the developing swine influenza A (H1N1) situation.

These sources include the World Health Organization (monitoring the global situation), the Health Protection Agency (UK advice), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (for the situation in the United States), and the Royal College of General Practitioners, which has issued Pandemic Flu Guidance jointly with the British Medical Association.

As the situation develops Intute will add any significant new resources to its collection.

For all current links please see http://www.intute.ac.uk/healthandlifesciences/cgi-bin/search.pl?term1=swine+influenza&limit=0&subject=healthandlifesciences


Vic

EXAM REVISION: late night opening at HSL-RHH

The Health Sciences Library at RHH is opening late for exam revision. Details below.



EXAM REVISION: late night opening at HSL-RHH

The importance to students of late-night opening of the Health Sciences Library at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital has been raised by many Medical and Dental Students and in particular by your MedSoc Student Reps. As a result, the Library is extending the opening hours of HSL-RHH, over the coming examination period, as follows:

Tuesday 5 May to Friday 8 May, open till 21.30
Monday 11 May to Friday 15 , open till 21.30
Tuesday 26 May to Friday 29 May, open till 21.30

The Library will open 09.00-17.00 on both May bank holidays (4 and 25 May)

On all other weekdays the Library will close at 19.00; Saturday and Sunday opening is unchanged.

The periods are offered as ‘revision opening’, providing access to books, journals and computers. The Library will be unstaffed apart from a porter.

We will monitor usage of the Library at these times.

Good luck in your exams

Vic

Jade Goody: Depraved or deprived?

Jade Goody: depraved or deprived?
Famous for merely being famous, Jade Goody has been a part of our everyday culture since she was catapulted to fame by the Big Brother series in 2002. Her death this week, at the tragically young age of 27 made headline news in every national paper. Love her, loath her or have an insistent indifference, it is difficult not to have a view.

It is easy to pass judgment on Jade's lifestyle, her antics have had parents the length and breadth of the country shuddering with disbelief. But, would any of us actually have been all that different if we had been exposed to the social circumstances which dominated Jade's young life?

Jade's hugely public death from cervical cancer has increased health checks amongst young people in our society in a way that most clinicians or politicians can only dream about.

It is indeed good news that Pap smears have risen by 20% since Jade used her case to promote uptake. However, if it is a truism that there is no more powerful therapy than prevention perhaps what we, as a society, might do is to look at the research evidence on aetiological (causation) factors of Jade's ill-health and use this in a non-judgmental way to help the young and vulnerable people in our society.

To retrieve best evidence on the aetiology of disease search Medline and use the term 'risk' in combination with a MeSH search of your disease.

The screenshots below show you how.

For someone who has been dismissed repeatedly as an uncouth, uneducated non-entity Jade Goody has had more influence on the health of the nation in her short lifetime than whole teams of healthcare workers seem able to achieve in their entire careers. Jade Goody: depraved or deprived? But for the grace of God go I ...

Vic

Retrieving evidence on the aetiology of disease

1. Connect to Ovid Medline via MUSE-Library-Subject databases-alphabetical list-O-OvidSP-Connect-Medline 1950-2009 (for the full archive)


2. Select Advanced Ovid search to facilitate MeSH searching, enter the condition and click on search. MeSH (thesaurus) searching is recommended because of the increased recall facilitated by the inclusion of all synonyms.

What a tweet

What a tweet

The University Library's Customer Services Department is using twitter to communicate news and views to our staff and students.

Find out what I am twittering on about by following UniSheffieldLib



Vic

Find it @ Sheffield

The University Library has a new platform for our eJournals. To help you search ejournals using Find it @ Sheffield we've compiled a list of ten search tips and included illustrations to demonstrate. If you have any feedback please comment or email me directly for further help.

1. If you know exactly what you're looking for you can use the 'starts with' button to be prompted with predictive text:

2. Alternatively, you may want to browse titles that contain a particular keyword:

iComment iPod competition is drawn!

iComment iPod competition is drawn



Last week it was Faculty of Medicine Library Committee and top of the agenda was to draw the Dental School iPod iComment competition. Chris Stokes, the FLC staff rep and student reps Clare Morris and Katharina Ahlert did the honours (see pic).

and the winners are (drum roll) …

1st prize 8gb iPod Nano Adam Mowatt

2nd prize Oxford Handbook of Clinical Dentistry Letty Hancock

3rd prize Memory stick Neeraj Pattni

Thank you for everyone who has posted comments and taken part. I hope you will continue to find this blog a useful resource.

Vic

Struggling to get hold of the books you need?

Struggling to get hold of the books you need? Ange Greenwood, Counter Coordinator in the IC and the Library’s Resident Reservations Reporter tells us how in seven simple steps …

The University Library has a very effective system in place for ensuring you get the books you need, and we normally supply material within a few days. Here’s how:

1. Check Star, the catalogue available on the Library tab in MUSE, to find the book you want


2. Make a note of whether or not it’s out on loan


3. If it’s not, write down the shelfmark and go to look for it on the shelves at the appropriate Library site


4. If the book is on loan to someone or you can’t find it on the shelves click on ‘request’ and follow the on-screen instructions (please note that if you choose Information Commons, St Georges Library or Western Bank Library as your collection site, in order to make your item available quickly you may be asked to collect it from any one of these sites)


5. If you are unable to get to the Library, find the book on Star, click on ‘request’ and follow the instructions


6. We will email you when your book is ready for collection and tell you which site you should collect it from


7. Don’t forget that staff are there to help

Remember it’s always quicker to check the shelves yourself rather than place a request, and be aware that if someone else finds the book first they can borrow it.

Ange :-)

Revise in the Health Sciences Library

A quick reminder that the Health Sciences Library at RHH is open late every night this week for revision purposes. Details below.



EXAM REVISION: late night opening at HSL-RHH

The importance to students of late-night opening of the Health Sciences Library at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital has been raised by many Medical and Dental Students and in particular by your MedSoc Student Reps. As a result, the Library is extending the opening hours of HSL-RHH, over the coming examination period, as follows:

Monday 1 December to Friday 5 December, open till 21.30
Monday 5 January 2009 to Friday 9 January, open till 21.30
Monday 26 January 2009 to Friday 30 January, open till 21.30.

On all other weekdays the Library will close at 19.00; Saturday and Sunday opening is unchanged.

The periods are offered as ‘revision opening’, providing access to books, journals and computers. The Library will be unstaffed apart from a porter.

We will monitor usage of the Library at these times.

Good luck in your exams

Vic

Exclusive interview with Sir Muir Gray, Chief Knowledge Officer for the NHS

'Knowledge is as important as antibiotics' claims Sir Muir Gray, Chief Knowledge Officer for the NHS. He tells us why in an exclusive interview for the UoS Librarians' Blog.






Just before Christmas Vic had the privilege to interview Sir Muir Gray, Chief Knowledge Officer for the NHS. Sir Muir trained initially as a surgeon before working in public health and more recently in R&D. He is a passionate advocate of patient empowerment and has written extensively on this topic. Currently Director of the National Knowledge Service and responsible for the National Library for Health, Sir Muir was knighted for his services to the NHS in 2005.

Vic: Congratulations on your knighthood. Would you like to see a return to the days when all doctors were addressed as Sir?

SM: Even the female ones?! What’s more important is how doctors address patients. The evidence suggests that patients like to be greeted by their clinician and like to be addressed by name. So not dear or love or what do you say in Sheffield?

Vic: Duck or Mi Love!

SM: Well down with 'Ducks' and 'Mi Loves', patients like to be called by name.

Vic: A new edition of Evidence Based Healthcare is to arrive in our bookshops imminently. What’s new for the new edition?

SM: There will be more about public health and also a focus on how evidence based healthcare should be taught. I’ll send you a signed copy for the University of Sheffield Library. (Vic lands a freebie again!)

Vic: Evidence based medicine is sometimes defined as doing the right thing right. How often in healthcare do you think we don’t do the right things right?