Reminder: Applications are due next Monday, December 15 for two awards, Electronic Access/Document Delivery Access to Health Information and Outreach Training. See below for more information.

Electronic Access/Document Delivery Access to Health Information Awards
For Full Network members to encourage and facilitate access to the biomedical literature by unaffiliated health professionals, including the use of Loansome Doc, development of a web portal, and establishment of partnerships between libraries and unaffiliated health professionals or health professions groups. Three awards up to $10,000 each are available. Deadline is December 15, 2008.

More details: http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/docdelivery.html

Outreach Training Awards
For Full and Affiliate Network members to train and promote awareness of the products and services of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and NN/LM. Two awards up to $10,000 each are available. Deadline is December 15, 2008.

More details: http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/outreachtraining.html

In late October, the Gretchen and James Johnson Medical Library at the Matheny Medical and Educational Center added two new patron-access computer workstations to its one existing workstation with funds from an NNLM/MAR grant. These workstations are an important new resource for our hospital’s nurses, therapists, teachers, personal care assistants, and other direct care staff who otherwise might not have easy access to computers. The project’s beneficiaries also include many medical students, residents, nursing students, and therapies interns who are trained at our facility. Aside from providing these individuals with greater access to the hospital’s computing network, the workstations have been an excellent “draw” to bring people into the library, prompting them to consider the library’s other resources. Funds were also used to upgrade a scanner used for a Table of Contents delivery service and interlibrary loans. The Matheny Medical and Educational Center is a special school and hospital in Peapack, New Jersey, serving the healthcare and educational needs of children and adults with developmental disabilities.

Jungwon DeVone- Matheny Medical & Educational Center- Medical Library.  Peapack, NJ

A new report out by Institute of Medicine of the National Academies works within the existing standards established by the  Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education which are an 80 hour week and 30 hour limit, but calls for five hour sleep breaks after 16 hours on the job and more days off.The report also recommends more supervision for first years.

Read more with links to the report on ars technica

National Library of Medicine’s Training for You Locally!
NLM Gateway/ClinicalTrials.gov, PubMed®, and TOXNET and Beyond Training in New York City!

The National Training Center and Clearinghouse (NTCC), in conjunction with the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Middle Atlantic Region (NN/LM MAR) and New York University School of Medicine’s Frederick L. Ehrman Medical Library, is offering three FREE hands-on classes at the Frederick L. Ehrman Medical Library in New York City!

The following three classes will be taught by the staff of the NTCC:

The NLM Gateway and ClinicalTrials.gov  (3.5 MLA CE Hours)
Monday, January 26, 2009
1:00pm to 4:30pm

The NLM Gateway and ClinicalTrials.gov class is of particular
interest to public, consumer health, and medical librarians and all
health information consumers.
The NLM Gateway allows users of NLM services to initiate
searches from one Web interface, providing “one-stop searching” for many
of NLM’s information resources or databases, including: PubMed®,
MedlinePLUS, TOXNET®, Meeting Abstracts, and many more.

PubMed®  (7.5 MLA CE Hours)
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
8:30am to 5:00pm

Anyone who has used PubMed regularly has noticed some of the
many changes. This PubMed® class is of particular interest to those who
want a review of recent changes to the system, including medical
librarians, researchers, medical editors, and anyone who searches for
biomedical journal article citations.
This full-day class is designed to teach students how to use
PubMed® which includes MEDLINE citations. The class also includes an
overview of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) and its importance as a
tool to both searchers and indexers.

TOXNET® and Beyond (6 MLA CE Hours)
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
9:00am to 4:00pm
This full-day class is designed to convey the basics of
searching NLM’s TOXNET®, a Web-based system of databases in the areas of
toxicology, environmental health, and related subjects. Students learn
the content and structure of files covering toxicology data, toxicology
literature, toxic releases, and chemical searching and nomenclature.
Among the databases highlighted will be TOXLINE®, the Hazardous
Substances Data Bank, the Integrated Risk Information System, the Toxic
Release Inventory, and ChemIDplus.
All the training sessions are FREE and intended for health sciences
library staff, public librarians, health professionals, and anyone
interested in using these free National Library of Medicine (NLM)
databases.

To REGISTER for any or all of these classes, or to look for other class
locations, simply click this registration form link.

If you are not in the New York City area, consider registering for the
PubMed or the NLM Gateway/ClinicalTrials.gov class in Philadelphia at
Thomas Jefferson University in April of 2009! NLM
Gateway/ClinicalTrials.gov will be offered on Monday April 13, 2009 at
1:00pm, and two days of PubMed will be offered on Tuesday April 14, 2009
and Wednesday April 15, 2009, both from 8:30am-5:00pm.

We hope to see you there.

Join a demonstration of the Valuing Library Services and Cost Benefit/ROI Calculators on Monday, December 8, 2008 at 2pm Eastern Time, 1pm Central. Barb Jones and Betsy Kelly from the MidContinental Region, NN/LM will reprise their MLA presentation on these tools to enable health science librarians to determine the return on investment and cost benefit of their libraries and services. Come with some numbers and let’s discuss how you can use the online calculators to show the value your library brings to your institution. To participate, come to this url: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/libraryvalue/

This demonstration will be held via Adobe Connect. If you have not used Adobe Connect before, feel free to log into the site in advance. The system might want to install an Adobe Connect plugin, and if it does, you should allow it. When the meeting begins, the system will normally ask you for your phone number and then call it so that you can hear the audio and participate in the discussion. If the system does not call your phone, join us using this toll-free number:
1-866-548-4716
Participant Code: 243436

For an advance peek at these great calculator tools, go to http://nnlm.gov/mcr/evaluation/calculator.html and http://nnlm.gov/mcr/evaluation/roi.html and see how you might be able to express your value in monetary terms!

This session is hosted by the NN/LM Outreach Evaluation Resource Center. For questions, contact Susan Barnes at sjbarnes@u.washington.edu or Cindy Olney at olneyc@coevalmail.com

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM), Middle Atlantic Region (MAR), is pleased to announce the following winners for the MAR EFTS Awards.

 Trinitas Hospital- Elizabeth, New Jersey 

St. Francis Hospital Medical Center- Wilmington, Delaware

Hamot Medical Center- Erie, Pennsylvania

South Jersey Healthcare- Vineland, New Jersey

Saratoga Springs Public Library- Saratoga Springs, New York

The Commonwealth Medical College- Scranton, Pennsylvania

Robert Morris University Library- Moon Township, Pennsylvania

Jameson Health System Library- New Castle, Pennsylvania

Holy Name Hospital- Teaneck, New Jersey

New York Methodist Hospital- Brokklyn, New York

Virtua Health West Jersey- Voorhees, New Jersey

Virtua Memorial Hospital- Burlington County

Western Pennsylvania Forbes Regional Campus Health Sciences Library- Monroeville, Pennsylvania

Penn State University College of Medicine- Hershey, Pennsylvania

St. Mary’s Medical Center- Langhorne, Pennsylvania

The purpose of the EFTS award is to promote participation in EFTS among Full DOCLINE members and to improve the ease and cost-effectiveness of resource sharing throughout the region.  The EFTS award creates opportunities for non-EFTS libraries to receive initial funding to join the program and for current EFTS members to receive funding to continue their resource sharing efforts.  All funds were distributed directly from NN/LM MAR and deposited to EFTS in the name of the winners.    

We were fortunate to obtain a small projects award for our Open House on  October 7, 2008 at the VA Medical Library.  Preparation for the event involved advertising in a variety of venues. 

• We had small tabletop tent advertisements made that were put in most every staff room in the hospital.
• There was a sign that day on the electronic board in front of the medical center.
• Multiple emails announcing the event where distributed to every staff member on outlook mail. 
• The event was advertised on the front page of our library newsletter, distributed bimonthly.
• We made stickers to market the library and placed them on small pumpkins  and on individual water bottles. 
• We used grant money to purchase stress balls in the shape of apples with the theme and contact information printed on them.

Our goal was to bring staff into the newly redesigned library and, of course, advertise our resources.  Empty shelving was taken down and a large couch was donated.  We had  food purchased with funds  from our canteen service. Donations from a local apple orchard included hot mulled apple cider, a certain hit!  Decorations were autumn themed with scarecrows and hay blocks, fake mums and pumpkins, all reusable next year. Colorful balloons finished the festive look.    Large posters designed by library staff were printed inhouse.  Take home items included the pumpkins, apples, and pre-ordered apple shaped stress balls.  All the items included the “Fall into the Library” theme and contact information, including the stress balls.  A big hit with the staff was our powerpoint display projected on a large screen showing the history of the library from black and white photos of years ago when the library displayed a “smoking section” through the work done during renovation and ending with the currently redesigned library.  

Four gift certificates to the VA Canteen Store were used as incentives to visit our event along with the food, of course.  Staff was encouraged to sign up for either our remote access service or an NCBI account which enabled them to be eligible for the gift certificate.  This was probably the biggest draw along with the balloons and pumpkins outside the building hinting that something good was going on inside.  Training for pubmed was accomplished through individual instruction.   We felt once the staff were in the library, we would use this opportunity to provide a virtual tour of pubmed using mesh database. We explained the benefits of utilizing NCBI.  The medical staff was pleasantly surprised to learn how to utilize pubmed.  Training went on through out the event. 

Additionally, we did a pubmed search for any staff authoring a recent article. We gave out framed certificates to thank them for researching.   NNLM was good enough to provide computer bags and commuter cups as gifts.  The staff that received these items wer very grateful.

Fifty two candidates signed up for remote access through Athens and  about 20 staff members signed up for NCBI.  Approximately, 85 people attended in all.  Even the people that were not able to attend stopped by the next day to talk about it and get a stress ball.

Overall, the day and event was a huge success!  Staff members were amazed at the look of the library and, as always, surprised by our resources and services.  Use of the library has definitely increased and requests for reservations for use of private study and computer areas has developed directly as a result of getting staff into the library that day.  We are grateful to NNLM for this small projects award and the opportunity to market and advertise the library.

MaryLou Glazer- Northport VA Medical Library.

At Catskill Regional Medical Center, library manager Maryallison Farley used a Small Projects Award for some tried and true promotional materials.  She purchased a large quantity of profesionally designed and printed bookmarks to promote the Health Information Library’s resources and services that are available to the community.

In rural Sullivan County, residents are separated by large distances and have only a minimal public transportation system.  Enter the laminated Library bookmarks to spread the word far and wide that the hospital library is open to all community residents!  Residents have walk in access four days a week and phone reference service five days a week.  The Library provides free information packets on a selected health topic, mailed to community members at no cost.  All this information is included on the bookmarks.

In three months time, some 1,500 bookmarks have been distributed at such venues as the nine public libraries in the County, at various health fairs and at the sites visited by the Hospital’s mobile health unit.  Senior Centers and Town Centers will soon follow.  These bookmarks assist with the ongoing marketing that is required to keep a consumer health information service in the public’s eye.

MaryAllison Farley- Catskill Regional Medical Center, Harris, NY

Coming soon: To improve the look of the PubMed Summary results Web page, as well as to make it easier to scan titles, the positions of author names and the title of the article will be reversed. The article title will soon display on top and serve as the link to the AbstractPlus format. Author names will appear under the title; the rest of the citation remains the same.

Read the Technical Bulletin article.

From the “About Reference Extract”