Finally, MY area! Here are my thoughts on Health Source - Consumer. It's a good idea to ask people to take a look at the list of publications because they are ALL OVER THE PLACE. There are lots of pamphlets with outdated information and the sources are not the best (doitnow.org?). I would much prefer users (both librarians and patrons) go to MedlinePlus for pamphlet info. But there are also some great sources: Harvard Mental Health Letter (and other Harvard pubs), Mayo Clinic consumer pubs, as well as some EXTREMELY TECHNICAL full-text journals. I did a subject search for parkinson's disease and the most recent full-text article is from Nutrition Reviews. It is highly technical; here is a paragraph:
Mechanisms of action. Different mechanisms have been
proposed for the neuroprotective activity of EGCG in PD.
The study conducted by Levites et al. 75 was the first to
demonstrate the neuroprotective activity of both green
tea extract (0.5 and 1 mg/kg) and EGCG (2 and 10 mg/
kg) on MPTP-induced parkinsonism in animal models. It
is possible that the neuroprotective effects are mediated
by iron-chelating activities and free-radical-scavenging
activities possessed by the catechol group. Since green tea
catechins can pass through the blood-brain barrier, they
can act as both ROS scavengers and iron chelators to clear
the redox active ferrous iron deposited in the SN, reducing
the iron-induced oxidative stress that can lead to neuronal
death.
Clearly, this is not appropriate for 99% of public library users. It helps to limit to source type: magazine; then you will not get the scholarly articles.
Thank you so much for sending people to MedlinePlus for the second part of this assignment! At the EMMC library, this is our top choice for consumer health questions. This resource started out somewhat skimpy but has developed over the years into a robust source of trusted, authoritative, and understandable information. It is much better than Health Source: Consumer for answering consumers' requests for information. As you have pointed out via your questions, it is useful for current topics in the news, detailed information about drugs (side note: please do NOT refer people to the PDR), links to websites (all vetted by the National Library of Medicine) on health topics, diseases and conditions. And the videos are amazing. We get lots of questions by telephone, asking if we have a video of x procedure and we refer them to MedlinePlus. Just make sure most folks know many of these videos are graphic and last for an hour.
FYI - it is also possible to get information about providers from MedlinePlus. On the botton of the home screen, click on "Directories" and you will get a list of links to the various societies that credential physicians, hospitals, etc. We also get this question alot at EMMC.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Thinking about Business
I think I should stop leaving these assignments for the end of the work day. But it's too late now...
Business Source Complete looks like any of the other Ebsco databases in MARVEL and I'm pretty familiar with them. The search for FM radio brought up a lot of information. It's interesting that you can find market research reports which are usually (I thought) hard to find, at least for free. But these are old, 2004 and earlier and some aren't really what I would call market research. The articles under the type of "product review" are good, also.
I tried the visual search option and, perhaps because of my age and comfort zone, did not like it too much. I'd like to know what others thought (and their ages!).
Using EconLit for the various searches, I learned that the SmartText option helps to garner a few extra citations when you aren't coming up with much. This got a few additional citations when searching for small business and the EPA. This database is much more academically or scholarly oriented; it includes dissertations, research articles, working papers. I would want to be careful about who I recommended it to.
I can see how the Regional Business News would be a useful database. I searched for Apple and found 30,000+ items, most of them from the news wires. Then I searched for the Jackson Laboratory and found 27 items. It was interesting in that about one-third were obits for people who were on the JKL board. I wouldn't have thought of that. But this search picked up a lot about the lab and what's happening with it, not only in ME, but also in FL and CT, areas where expansion is/was in the works or is being considered.
Value Line: I was, at one time, the "business librarian" at Fogler and I remember the gazillions of questions from the business students about Value Line. So I'm always amazed that we have access to it via MARVEL. It is an amazing resource and worth learning...when you have a lot of time... I used the public library version and think this could be quite confusing to someone who had never seen the print version. I looked at the 4 pdfs listed for this week and I found some of them confusing. The index lists page numbers for companies, but I couldn't find all of those pages in the pdfs. Then I did a search by putting Tim Hortons in the search box and found a number of articles. In the first one, I clicked on the stock symbol to get the one-page summary of financial data. On the article, there was a button offering the full research report; however, clicking on it led to a request for a full subscription at a cost of $598. I assume the academic version of Value Line would let you have the full report.
All in all, I'm glad I don't have to navigate and understand Value Line. I think I would assign one person the job of delving into this database and refer all questions to him/her.
I use the Wall Street Journal quite a bit because administrators often hear about a story in the WSJ and want the full text. It is another huge benefit of MARVEL to my library. I limited the search on small business and health care reform to health care policy because I think owners of small businesses would be interested in reading about how the ACA is going to affect them. Then I changed the display so that the most recent articles (rather than relevancy) were listed first and there were a number of useful items. Someone could set an an alert so that new articles on this topic would be emailed to them each week/month/whatever. I'm late in getting to this assignment so I know that Obama won the election, but if I had done it when it came out, the election would not have happened yet and the alert would be even more meaningful.
Phew...this was a LONG assignment!
Business Source Complete looks like any of the other Ebsco databases in MARVEL and I'm pretty familiar with them. The search for FM radio brought up a lot of information. It's interesting that you can find market research reports which are usually (I thought) hard to find, at least for free. But these are old, 2004 and earlier and some aren't really what I would call market research. The articles under the type of "product review" are good, also.
I tried the visual search option and, perhaps because of my age and comfort zone, did not like it too much. I'd like to know what others thought (and their ages!).
Using EconLit for the various searches, I learned that the SmartText option helps to garner a few extra citations when you aren't coming up with much. This got a few additional citations when searching for small business and the EPA. This database is much more academically or scholarly oriented; it includes dissertations, research articles, working papers. I would want to be careful about who I recommended it to.
I can see how the Regional Business News would be a useful database. I searched for Apple and found 30,000+ items, most of them from the news wires. Then I searched for the Jackson Laboratory and found 27 items. It was interesting in that about one-third were obits for people who were on the JKL board. I wouldn't have thought of that. But this search picked up a lot about the lab and what's happening with it, not only in ME, but also in FL and CT, areas where expansion is/was in the works or is being considered.
Value Line: I was, at one time, the "business librarian" at Fogler and I remember the gazillions of questions from the business students about Value Line. So I'm always amazed that we have access to it via MARVEL. It is an amazing resource and worth learning...when you have a lot of time... I used the public library version and think this could be quite confusing to someone who had never seen the print version. I looked at the 4 pdfs listed for this week and I found some of them confusing. The index lists page numbers for companies, but I couldn't find all of those pages in the pdfs. Then I did a search by putting Tim Hortons in the search box and found a number of articles. In the first one, I clicked on the stock symbol to get the one-page summary of financial data. On the article, there was a button offering the full research report; however, clicking on it led to a request for a full subscription at a cost of $598. I assume the academic version of Value Line would let you have the full report.
All in all, I'm glad I don't have to navigate and understand Value Line. I think I would assign one person the job of delving into this database and refer all questions to him/her.
I use the Wall Street Journal quite a bit because administrators often hear about a story in the WSJ and want the full text. It is another huge benefit of MARVEL to my library. I limited the search on small business and health care reform to health care policy because I think owners of small businesses would be interested in reading about how the ACA is going to affect them. Then I changed the display so that the most recent articles (rather than relevancy) were listed first and there were a number of useful items. Someone could set an an alert so that new articles on this topic would be emailed to them each week/month/whatever. I'm late in getting to this assignment so I know that Obama won the election, but if I had done it when it came out, the election would not have happened yet and the alert would be even more meaningful.
Phew...this was a LONG assignment!
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Novelist Deserves a Plus, Novelist Plus Not so Much
First off, I'm the director of a hospital library and we don't buy fiction so I did a lot of this assignment using nonfiction authors and titles. Thus, my assessment of the Novelist databases.
For the initial part of the assignment, I searched for "Jane Rizzoli" and could definitely see how using the view option would help when showing this database to patrons. I liked the "grid" view where the patron basically sees the book jackets and some minimal information. This would make browsing a long list easier, not to mention printing.
For the second part, using the David Baldacci example, I thought the "Read-Alikes from NoveList" feature was great. I love the way it gives you so much detailed information and really helps you decide which author and title is the best book for you. If your library doesn't have the book the patron was looking for when they came into the library, I would think you should be able to find a successful substitution using this database. It's like having a million brains at your fingertips.
Next, I spent time exploring Novelist Plus from my perspective (although I will say in almost 20 years I have never encountered anyone who has come into my library and said, "I've read Susan Love's Breast Book," can you recommend something else?") I put in a few well-known popular medical writers (Susan Love, Andrew Weil, Atul Gawande) and either did not find much for read-alikes or found the read-alikes to be a bit off. They seemed to be mainly selected based on genre more than anything else and there was nowhere near the detail of the fiction entries. Then I started trying some older fiction from my youth (Monkey Wrench Gang, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and those had, IMHO, iffy read-alikes as well. I wonder what others think?
For the initial part of the assignment, I searched for "Jane Rizzoli" and could definitely see how using the view option would help when showing this database to patrons. I liked the "grid" view where the patron basically sees the book jackets and some minimal information. This would make browsing a long list easier, not to mention printing.
For the second part, using the David Baldacci example, I thought the "Read-Alikes from NoveList" feature was great. I love the way it gives you so much detailed information and really helps you decide which author and title is the best book for you. If your library doesn't have the book the patron was looking for when they came into the library, I would think you should be able to find a successful substitution using this database. It's like having a million brains at your fingertips.
Next, I spent time exploring Novelist Plus from my perspective (although I will say in almost 20 years I have never encountered anyone who has come into my library and said, "I've read Susan Love's Breast Book," can you recommend something else?") I put in a few well-known popular medical writers (Susan Love, Andrew Weil, Atul Gawande) and either did not find much for read-alikes or found the read-alikes to be a bit off. They seemed to be mainly selected based on genre more than anything else and there was nowhere near the detail of the fiction entries. Then I started trying some older fiction from my youth (Monkey Wrench Gang, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and those had, IMHO, iffy read-alikes as well. I wonder what others think?
Friday, October 26, 2012
Never thought I'd use this database!
I've never been crafty. My mother didn't have a sewing machine and I was traumatized by home ec in junior high school. However, I discovered that I LOVE the Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center. What a surprise!
I'm a birder, I keep a life list of sorts. I never go on a trip without my binoculars. So, of course, I looked at Bird Watching, under Outdoors and Nature. Needless to say, the EMMC library doesn't subscribe to any of these journals, nor do I. So it's good to know I can read them here. There were 50 projects and I'm not inspired to do any of them. I'm not sure "serious" birders are necessarily the type to do projects (birdhouse switch plate covers? whimsical garden shower curtain?).
But all was not in vain. I switched to Cooking, specifically vegetarian, and discovered my favorite magazine, Cooking Light. I stopped subscribing about 5 years ago in a fit of frugality. Woo hoo! I quickly found and saved some great recipes. Now, I'm a convert.
One thing I don't like about this (and all of the Ebsco databases in Marvel) is that when you email articles to yourself, they arrive 1 article per email. I wish they could come all attached to one email. I looked in the help to see if this was something that could be modified but I don't think it can. Also, the help section says you can do a "visual search" and has a screen shot but this option does not show up in our database. Too bad, I wanted to use it in the Bird Watching sub-category.
I'm a birder, I keep a life list of sorts. I never go on a trip without my binoculars. So, of course, I looked at Bird Watching, under Outdoors and Nature. Needless to say, the EMMC library doesn't subscribe to any of these journals, nor do I. So it's good to know I can read them here. There were 50 projects and I'm not inspired to do any of them. I'm not sure "serious" birders are necessarily the type to do projects (birdhouse switch plate covers? whimsical garden shower curtain?).
But all was not in vain. I switched to Cooking, specifically vegetarian, and discovered my favorite magazine, Cooking Light. I stopped subscribing about 5 years ago in a fit of frugality. Woo hoo! I quickly found and saved some great recipes. Now, I'm a convert.
One thing I don't like about this (and all of the Ebsco databases in Marvel) is that when you email articles to yourself, they arrive 1 article per email. I wish they could come all attached to one email. I looked in the help to see if this was something that could be modified but I don't think it can. Also, the help section says you can do a "visual search" and has a screen shot but this option does not show up in our database. Too bad, I wanted to use it in the Bird Watching sub-category.
Monday, October 22, 2012
What's New(s)
This lesson is about Maine Newstand which I have never used. I do mention the Proquest Newspapers (general) database to med students and new providers because they are coming to Bangor from other parts of the country and I think that maybe they might want to read their local newspaper while they are here. I also use it as an opportunity to point out MARVEL as a resource.
I did a basic search on Alan White (my husband) because he had a book published this past summer and there have been a few local events and I wondered if any newspapers had picked them up. The search pulled up 2899 items, 99% of which were what we in the info business call "false drops," nothing to do with my Alan White. The problem was that I needed to be able to do a phrase search. So I went into the search tips and discovered that I should search "Alan White." That worked much better. But there are quite a few Alan Whites (a number of whom appear to be criminals) and no mention of the book. I did another search on Hosmer Pond in Camden (of interest to me) and saved it. I discovered that articles can easily be translated into other languages. Also, when you click for the entire article you get full-text, not pdf which is often not good enough for patrons, at least in my setting. I don't see any way to search for images. I tried searching Eastern Maine Medical Center strike and looking for images and couldn't find any and I know there were several in the BDN. I must be doing something wrong.
I haven't had any occasion to show patrons how to use MARVEL this week. But, if any of the consultants should read this, I want to say that I think the tutorials on the MSL website are great! I talked about them at our staff meeting this week and sent out the link to all my staff.
I did a basic search on Alan White (my husband) because he had a book published this past summer and there have been a few local events and I wondered if any newspapers had picked them up. The search pulled up 2899 items, 99% of which were what we in the info business call "false drops," nothing to do with my Alan White. The problem was that I needed to be able to do a phrase search. So I went into the search tips and discovered that I should search "Alan White." That worked much better. But there are quite a few Alan Whites (a number of whom appear to be criminals) and no mention of the book. I did another search on Hosmer Pond in Camden (of interest to me) and saved it. I discovered that articles can easily be translated into other languages. Also, when you click for the entire article you get full-text, not pdf which is often not good enough for patrons, at least in my setting. I don't see any way to search for images. I tried searching Eastern Maine Medical Center strike and looking for images and couldn't find any and I know there were several in the BDN. I must be doing something wrong.
I haven't had any occasion to show patrons how to use MARVEL this week. But, if any of the consultants should read this, I want to say that I think the tutorials on the MSL website are great! I talked about them at our staff meeting this week and sent out the link to all my staff.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
All Hail Britannica
I searched for "Obamacare" and it mapped to Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Very good. The initial screen showed only the Encyclopedia entries (not what the Discovery exercise indicated). I clicked on the Articles tab and got to the articles, then saw the 3 sections as described. I opened one of the articles but could not find any display of citation style choices. It's a good thing I don't have to write a paper. Once I was inside the article content, there was no way back except the browser back button. Only after going back, could I get to a screen displaying the Academic edition logo.
Not too impressed with this database but I think that is to be expected.
I have created a workspace and will play around with it. I could use this to create a fancy handout. I'll see what I can do.
Now I see I could use the workspace to work on a project. It would be useful for a collaboration. I'd like to see an example of this.
Not too impressed with this database but I think that is to be expected.
I have created a workspace and will play around with it. I could use this to create a fancy handout. I'll see what I can do.
Now I see I could use the workspace to work on a project. It would be useful for a collaboration. I'd like to see an example of this.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Playing with the design
Here I am hard at work on the MMI assignment. 
I'm practicing adding an image. It's easy, but making it fit into the overall design seems to be the hard part. And the word wrap does really funky things! Looks "right" when composing but not when "live."
I'm practicing adding an image. It's easy, but making it fit into the overall design seems to be the hard part. And the word wrap does really funky things! Looks "right" when composing but not when "live."
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