Library users will have the opportunity to print free copies of such public domain classics as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain, “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and “Songs of Innocence” by William Blake, as well as appropriately themed in-copyright titles as Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” and Jason Epstein’s own “Book Business.” The public domain titles were provided by the Open Content Alliance (“OCA”), a non-profit organization with a database of over 200,000 titles. The OCA and ODB are working closely to offer this digital content free of charge to libraries across the country. Both organizations have received partial funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The Espresso Book Machine will be available to the public at SIBL through August, and will operate Monday- Saturday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The New York Public Library’s Science, Industry and Business Library is located at 188 Madison Avenue (at 34th Street).

Read more on the Press Release Newswire

(Left to right: C.Ferber, Library Assistant; T.Bardyn, Librarian; C.Janick, Social Worker; and D.Elleman, Social Worker, promoting the Winter 2007 issue of NIH MedlinePlus at Bellevue Hospital Center on April 26, 2007 in the Bellevue Hospital Center Atrium in New York City)

On April 22, 2007, in observance of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week and Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the staff of the Bellevue Medical Library joined the New York State Attorney General and the Downstate Coalition for Crime Victims for the 22nd Annual Crime Victims’ Candlelight Vigil. For over twenty years, this event has brought together hundreds of survivors, service providers, law enforcement practitioners, first responders and families of survivors.The Vigil pays tribute to all victims of homicide, assault, abuse, stalking, rape, trafficking, torture, DWI and the World Trade Center attacks.

Bellevue Library’s exhibit, STIR—Survivors of Trauma Information and Resources, presents an information empowerment experience to survivors and their families and connects them to support services available through the local, regional, and federal healthcare system.

Bellevue Library works closely with the Crime Victims Program at Bellevue Hospital Center to provide coordinated and comprehensive medical and supportive social services in New York City. Together, social workers and librarians provided demonstrations of appropriate, Internet-based information resources, including MedlinePlus, National Women’s Health Information Center and NOAH.

A decade ago, British writer J. K. Rowling published Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in a series of seven books about a boy wizard who is the only known survivor of a “Killing Curse.” A year later the book was released in the United States with the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Ms. Rowling’s books were soon breaking publishing records and “the boy who lived” became entrenched in the popular imagination.

But, there is more to the Harry Potter series than a child hero or a fantasy adventure-many characters, plants, and creatures are based in history, medicine, and magical lore. Ms Rowling has drawn on important works of alchemy and herbology in shaping her stories. In a special temporary exhibition, the History of Medicine Division showcases some of the treasures in its collection that are mentioned in Harry Potter.

When: Opening Tuesday July 24 2007 closing November 30 2007 Available

8:30am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday

Where: History of Medicine Division Reading Room

Search Clinic: Chemicals & Drugs in PubMed®

Learn how to find articles about a chemical or drug of interest. The U.S. National Library of Medicine is hosting a 45-minute online clinic on how the NLM MeSH vocabulary is used to describe substance concepts and how to search PubMed for relevant articles.

The clinic is designed for librarians and other information specialists with little to moderate experience in searching for articles about chemicals or drugs in PubMed. Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of how to search PubMed.

The clinic is limited to 150 attendees, so please register early.

Date: Thursday, August 23rd
Time: 2:00 - 2:45pm EDT

For information and registration, see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/clinics/chem.html
The clinic will be recorded . Those unable to participate “live” may view it at a later time at this address.

(Front Row, left to right: Lia Sabbagh, Patti May, Robin Siegel, Jenny Pierce, and Erica Moncrief;  Back Row, left to right:  Michelle Brewer, Jeannine Creazzo, Robb Mackes, and Jan Skica)

The Health Sciences Library Association of New Jersey (HSLANJ) sponsored a table display at the Organization of Nursing Executives of New Jersey (ONE/NJ) Research Day held on June 22, 2007. This was possible thanks to an exhibit grant awarded to HSLANJ from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Middle Atlantic Region. The conference highlighted the results of the statewide Readiness of New Jersey Nurses for Evidence-Based Practice survey. This survey was done to replicate the study conducted by Dr. Diane Pravikoff, who was the keynote speaker that day, and reported on in the September, 2005 issue of the American Journal of Nursing. Health Sciences Librarians were dismayed to read the results of the survey. We discovered that many nurses either did not know there was a library in their hospital or did know and thought it was only available for physician use. HSLANJ considered this conference to be a perfect opportunity to speak with nurses regarding what is available to them through NNLM/MAR, the National Library of Medicine and their own hospital libraries and librarians.

More than 100 members of ONE/NJ attended the conference and stopped by our table display. HSLANJ members Michelle Brewer, Jeannine Creazzo, Robb Mackes, Patti May, Erica Moncrief, Jenny Pierce, Lia Sabbagh, Robin Siegel and Jan Skica staffed the table, answered questions and gave out bookmarks with contact information stickers attached so that the attendees would know how to reach the librarian at their institution. Laptop computers were used to demonstrate the various databases that are available to New Jersey’s hospital libraries via the National Library of Medicine, HSLANJ’s Group Purchasing program and the New Jersey State Library.

Additional handouts included Fact Sheets created by HSLANJ members describing the evidence-based nursing resources available for demonstration at the booth. These included CINAHL, Joanna Briggs Institute, Mosby’s Nursing Consult, EBSCO’s Nursing and Allied Health Collection and Biomedical Reference Collection, National Guideline Clearinghouse and The Cochrane Library

In addition, the HSLANJ exhibitors participated in the Research Day ‘breakout sessions,’ that were part of the conference. The nine health sciences librarians each worked with one breakout group of nurse executives. Together, we created working documents for use by ONE/NJ that developed strategies for improvement in New Jersey of evidence-based nursing research and practice in the hospital setting, and for the improvement of nurses’ knowledge of, access and use of hospital library services and evidence-based information resources.

The entire day gave us a wonderful opportunity to interact with nursing executives from around the state. It was gratifying to hear so many of them express how much they appreciate all the work their hospital librarians do for them. We hope that HSLANJ can be involved in the ONE/NJ Research Day again next year, on an even bigger scale.

ccLearn is a division of Creative Commons which is dedicated to realizing the full potential of the Internet to support open learning and open educational resources (OER). Their mission is to minimize barriers to sharing and reuse of educational materials — legal barriers, technical barriers, and social barriers.

This is a brand new project from Creative Commons so there isn’t much there now. Keep checking back on the ccLearn site for resources as they become available, though.

Don’t know much about Creative Commons? We have an online class on it! Also be sure to check out our CC resources page.

Medical Chinese: English-Mandarin & English-Cantonese Parallel Texts is a user-friendly book with the English phrases on the left and the Chinese translation and phonetics on the right column. The text can be used as a lesson book for medical Chinese classes or used as a reference. Chapters on pronunciation and cultural responsiveness are included as well. Developed and written by New York University School of Medicine students, the text is accompanied by a web site: http://edinfo.med.nyu.edu/mc/ which has audio files and other resources. Published in May 2007, the book is available from the NYU Health Sciences Bookstore: email health.books@nyu.edu or call 212-998-9990 (ask for Bruno or Herb).

The Middle Atlantic Region (MAR) of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) announces the availability of awards that support access to health information for libraries, consumers, health professionals and in particular reaching underserved populations; enhance the capacity of libraries to share resources, strengthen network member librarians’ skills in the use of NLM databases and increase the visibility of the NN/LM and NLM products and services.

Awards are for network members to conduct or obtain training, host conferences, and conduct outreach that raises the awareness of health information resources available to health professionals, consumers and librarians.

Rolling deadline for applications. Applicants will be notified within 10 days of receipt of application.

Exhibit Awards

For members’ participation at venues that promote health information resources. Funds support registration and fees, travel, and related expenses. Members can promote their local library resources while promoting the National Library of Medicine.

MicroAwards

For Full Network members to enhance their services as well as promote NLM products and services; and provide seed money for ongoing or one-time projects through the purchase of displays, brochures, presentations, materials, equipment, supplies or presentation of small programs.

For more information, or to apply for an award go to: http://nnlm.gov/mar/funding/

WISER 3.1 is now available (http://wiser.nlm.nih.gov/) from the National Library of Medicine. This release applies to WISER for Windows, WISER for Pocket PC, and WebWISER (http://webwiser.nlm.nih.gov).

WISER 3.1 includes an enhanced substance printing capability in WISER for Windows. When printing WISER substance data, a wizard now provides the option of printing all or any combination of the data for a substance.

The following additional capabilities are planned for future releases:

• • Version 3 features made available in WISER for Palm OS
  • Windows Mobile Smartphone support
  • Expansion of features introduced in WISER 3.0:
    • • Additional substance category support, including more categories
      • Additional tools/reference materials for radiologicals and chemicals
  • Biological mode: biological substance data and related tools and reference materials

User feedback is important to the future direction of WISER. Please submit any comments, suggestions, ideas, etc. in the feedback page of the WISER web site: http://wiser.nlm.nih.gov/feedback.html.

Looking ahead to National Medical Librarians’ Month in October!
The National Library of Medicine would like to publicize noteworthy projects involving medical librarians on its web site.
Submissions are due by Friday, August 31, 2007, with the NLM site unveiling on October 1, 2007. Please submit by email to rml@library.med.nyu.edu:

• Name of the institution
• Title of project
• Brief summary of the project
• Name of project director
• Key staff

Last year’s notable projects can be found at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/lo/profiles06/