Would you like to start a blog for your library in the new year? It's a great way to promote your services and connect with fellow libraries and librarians around the world.
Setting up a blog needn't be daunting and Starr Sackstein's post on how she started is a very, encouraging read.
We also love this list by Cochrane on why blogging is good for sharing evidence and for those who like a wider read, check out this list of articles on science blogging at Citeulike.org.
Here are five top tips from us too!
1. Keep your layout simple, so that it is easy to navigate.
2. Always include an About and Contact page. These are two of the most popular pages as everyone wants to know what your blog is about and how to contact you.
3. Blog regularly to keep your readers coming back for more. A blogging schedule is an excellent way to manage this.
4. Blog posts needn't be an essay. In fact, shorter posts are more likely to be read.
5. Readers love links to external resources, so do include them as much as possible.
Happy blogging and don't forget to come say hi to us on Twitter too!
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Monday, December 21, 2015
Rapid Reviews - sources, articles and background information
There's a wealth of information out there on rapid reviews, so we thought we'd put a list together of some useful sources, articles and background information that we've found.
Rapid.Reviews.info
Reviews: Rapid! Rapid! Rapid! …and systematic
HLWIKI's page on Rapid Reviews
Evidence summaries: the evolution of a rapid review approach
National Collaboration Centre for Methods and Tools - Rapid reviews: Methods and implications
What is a rapid review? A methodological exploration of rapid reviews in Health Technology Assessments
Rapid.Reviews.info
Reviews: Rapid! Rapid! Rapid! …and systematic
HLWIKI's page on Rapid Reviews
Evidence summaries: the evolution of a rapid review approach
National Collaboration Centre for Methods and Tools - Rapid reviews: Methods and implications
What is a rapid review? A methodological exploration of rapid reviews in Health Technology Assessments
Feel free to add any sources / articles that you know of. This list doesn't capture everything but it may help if you want to know more about the topic.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Recently published Evidence Updates
The following Evidence Updates have recently been published, detailing the latest evidence and literature.
Anaesthesia and Critical Care
Children's Health
Clinical Genetics
Diabetes
Emergency Medicine
Endocrinology
Gastroenterology
Hepatobiliary
Ophthalmology
Pain Management
Patient Safety & Risk
Rheumatology
Strategy
Stroke
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to find out when an evidence update is hot off the press!
Anaesthesia and Critical Care
Children's Health
Clinical Genetics
Diabetes
Emergency Medicine
Endocrinology
Gastroenterology
Hepatobiliary
Ophthalmology
Pain Management
Patient Safety & Risk
Rheumatology
Strategy
Stroke
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to find out when an evidence update is hot off the press!
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Please complete this survey on Clinical Librarian provision in the UK
In 2004 and 2005 Linda Ward conducted a survey of the provision of UK Clinical Librarians, this new survey is intended to update our view of Clinical Librarians in the UK and to see what new and similar roles are now in place. All the information you send to us will be kept confidential unless you agree otherwise.
Here's a link to the survey https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/WQW9RLH and please do share with your colleagues!
Here's a link to the survey https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/WQW9RLH and please do share with your colleagues!
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
HDAS improvement project feedback required by 27th November
Work has begun to improve the HDAS service, specifically its performance and stability. NICE have created a space to share information and provide feedback.
FAQs about this project and an early prototype are available to view here: http://labs.nice.org.uk/hdas-redevelopment
Feedback can also be given at the above link but the deadline for the first round of comments closes on Friday 27th November, so be quick!
Project updates will be posted regularly on the above link and will also be shared on the library email lists.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Literature search tips: saving those search blocks
This week's literature search tip comes from our Clinical Librarian Service Manager, Pip Divall:
If you run literature searches that include a regular topic or block of terms, for example, all terms relating to paediatrics, save those terms or block of the search to use next time. Also, don't forget to share those search strategies with colleagues too!
There's a great article on saving search here: http://eahil.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/11-14-de-Jonge.pdf
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page and catch up on our previous literature search tips here.
If you run literature searches that include a regular topic or block of terms, for example, all terms relating to paediatrics, save those terms or block of the search to use next time. Also, don't forget to share those search strategies with colleagues too!
There's a great article on saving search here: http://eahil.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/11-14-de-Jonge.pdf
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page and catch up on our previous literature search tips here.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Literature search tips: Yale MeSH Analyzer for ninja systematic review librarians
This week's literature search tip comes from our Clinical Librarian, Sarah Sutton:
Yale have created a MeSH Analyzer, which allows you to design and refine searches. It shows you how key articles are indexed by retrieving the article metadata and presenting it in an easy-to-read grid.
To use the tool, paste up to 20 PubMed identifier/PMIDs into the text box and click on, "Go". MeSH Analyzer will retrieve the article data from PubMed and present it in a grid in either HTML or Excel.
There are options to customise the tool and you can also do the analysis in one step by installing a browser on your toolbar.
This tool is great for finding MeSH terms, term variants and give you an insight into why some articles are retrieved and others are not.
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page and catch up on our previous literature search tips here.
Yale have created a MeSH Analyzer, which allows you to design and refine searches. It shows you how key articles are indexed by retrieving the article metadata and presenting it in an easy-to-read grid.
To use the tool, paste up to 20 PubMed identifier/PMIDs into the text box and click on, "Go". MeSH Analyzer will retrieve the article data from PubMed and present it in a grid in either HTML or Excel.
There are options to customise the tool and you can also do the analysis in one step by installing a browser on your toolbar.
This tool is great for finding MeSH terms, term variants and give you an insight into why some articles are retrieved and others are not.
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page and catch up on our previous literature search tips here.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Free subscription to MLA discussion list!
Did you know that there is a MLA special interest medical libraries discussion list? It is free and available to all, including non MLA members.
Before subscribing you must read the discussion list guidelines first, which are available here: http://www.mlanet.org/p/cm/ld/fid=377 Online subscription is available here: http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=MEDLIB-L&A=1
This is great for those who are not currently a member of MLA but would like to be kept in the loop of medical library discussions.
Also, don't forget anyone can join the clinical librarian mailing list for free too!
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=CLIN-LIB
Before subscribing you must read the discussion list guidelines first, which are available here: http://www.mlanet.org/p/cm/ld/fid=377 Online subscription is available here: http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=MEDLIB-L&A=1
This is great for those who are not currently a member of MLA but would like to be kept in the loop of medical library discussions.
Also, don't forget anyone can join the clinical librarian mailing list for free too!
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=CLIN-LIB
Thursday, November 5, 2015
PROSPERO: international prospective register of systematic reviews
PROSPERO is an international register of systematic reviews. It is produced by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) at the University of York and it holds over 10,000 published records.
PROSPERO increases transparency and helps reduce unplanned duplication by allowing readers to compare published research and prospectively submit systematic review protocol details first.
Find out more here: http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/
PROSPERO increases transparency and helps reduce unplanned duplication by allowing readers to compare published research and prospectively submit systematic review protocol details first.
Find out more here: http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Literature search tips: how to translate from OVID to EBSCO
This week's literature search tip comes from our Clinical Librarian Service Manager, Pip Divall:
Use this handy help sheet for translating a search from OVID to EBSCO:
http://support.ebsco.com/downloads/printeddocs/en_cinahl_ehosttransition_helpsheet.pdf
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page and catch up on our previous literature search tips here.
Use this handy help sheet for translating a search from OVID to EBSCO:
http://support.ebsco.com/downloads/printeddocs/en_cinahl_ehosttransition_helpsheet.pdf
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page and catch up on our previous literature search tips here.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Literature search tips: HDAS de duping
This week's literature search tip comes from our Clinical Librarian, Sarah Sutton:
As the HDAS de duping isn’t working, you can either export your search results into reference management software and then dedupe in that (with the drawback that it takes out most of the nice links to full text etc that HDAS includes). Or my plan b. You copy your results onto the HDAS clipboard, then sort it by title (clipboard still lets you do that) and then whiz down the list selecting any duplicates and then remove them by clicking remove from clipboard. Make sure you set the results to not show the abstracts and to have 50 results per page, to make this a bit less appallingly boring at least. I don’t mind doing this for 250 results but more than that would involve me being very devoted to the clinician in question.
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page. Catch up on all our literature search tips here.
As the HDAS de duping isn’t working, you can either export your search results into reference management software and then dedupe in that (with the drawback that it takes out most of the nice links to full text etc that HDAS includes). Or my plan b. You copy your results onto the HDAS clipboard, then sort it by title (clipboard still lets you do that) and then whiz down the list selecting any duplicates and then remove them by clicking remove from clipboard. Make sure you set the results to not show the abstracts and to have 50 results per page, to make this a bit less appallingly boring at least. I don’t mind doing this for 250 results but more than that would involve me being very devoted to the clinician in question.
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page. Catch up on all our literature search tips here.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
A day in the life of a clinical librarian
Hello and welcome to 'A day in the life of a clinical librarian' blog series. This is a monthly series sharing what a day at work for those working in clinical librarianship actually looks like and finding out about the person behind the job.
This month we're interviewing our Clinical Librarian Services Manager.
This month we're interviewing our Clinical Librarian Services Manager.
Who are you and where do you work?
I’m Pip Divall and I work as the Clinical Librarian Service Manager at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. I’m mainly based at the Glenfield Hospital Library, but I work across all three hospital sites in Leicester. I manage the team of Clinical Librarians and CISS Officers, as well as providing a service to my dedicated clinical teams.
How long have you been there?
I started as a Clinical Librarian at UHL in October 2004, but had been in a clinical librarian role at George Eliot Hospital for 7 months prior to taking up the post in Leicester. Before that, my first professional role was an Assistant Librarian in a mental health trust in Staffordshire.
What attracted you to Clinical Librarianship?
I first learned of Clinical Librarianship while I was writing my MA dissertation at Loughborough University. A friend was doing her project on the topic and it sounded like a really exciting and inspiring job to do. I didn’t really think much more of it until it came to applying for jobs when the course ended, and I was lucky enough to find myself in the NHS and found that I really enjoyed enquiry work and literature searching. I realised later I’d been doing Clinical Librarianship-lite anyway, as I always sent a summary of my results along with the actual results.
What does an average day at work involve?
An average day involves meeting with clinicians, either for training or project work. I’m involved in several systematic reviews for the orthopaedic team at the moment. As I manage the team, there are often one-to-ones and working on “managery” things. I’m now on the Knowledge for Healthcare Workforce Development Working Group, so that adds to the “managery” thinking. I’m also heavily involved with the training programme for the library and education department. I’m really enjoying the use of games to teach information literacy at the moment. Most days I’ll be squeezing in a literature search!
If you weren’t a Librarian, what would you be?
I’m fascinated by perfumes, so if I weren’t a librarian, I would love to be a perfumer.
Tell us a joke or a non-work fact about yourself
You can have both:
I was once on an episode of Bargain Hunt.
I do a great line in cheese related humour:
What kind of cheese do you use to hide a horse?
Mascarpone.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Recently published evidence updates
The following Evidence Updates have recently been published, detailing the latest evidence and literature.
Breast Cancer
Cardiac Surgery
Children's Health
Colorectal Surgery
Corporate Nursing
Emergency Medicine
Infection Control
Musculoskeletal
Older People's Health
Palliative Care
Renal Services
Respiratory Medicine
Urology
Vascular Surgery
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to find out when an evidence update is hot off the press!
Breast Cancer
Cardiac Surgery
Children's Health
Colorectal Surgery
Corporate Nursing
Emergency Medicine
Infection Control
Musculoskeletal
Older People's Health
Palliative Care
Renal Services
Respiratory Medicine
Urology
Vascular Surgery
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to find out when an evidence update is hot off the press!
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
EAHIL+ICAHIS+ICLC Report, 10-12th June 2015 Edinburgh
Wednesday 10th June
ICLC
Our conference was held on the morning before EAHIL proper started, in one of the lecture theatres in Appleton Tower, which was the main base for the Workshop.
See here for links to presentations - https://eahil2015.wordpress.com/iclc-session/
*** Main take home messages – if you are running a conference elsewhere make sure that everything is working from a IT/technical point of view and ensure all PPTs are loaded to the system before you start.***
EAHIL Workshop
It started with a plenary from Professor Hazel Hall on the topic of introducing a research-minded approach to professional practice. She discussed the DREaM project which aimed to develop a formal UK-wide network of Library and Information Science (LIS) researchers. See here for link to her presentation - http://www.slideshare.net/HazelHall/incorporating-a-researchminded-approach-to-professional-practice. She then formally declared that EAHIL 2015 Workshop was open by ringing a bell.
I then attended a workshop session ran by Margaret J. Foster entitled Introduction to systematic reviews and the role of the librarian. This was a really useful and inspiring session and she talked in great depth about her work supporting researchers with systematic reviews. There wasn’t all that much hands on work and we ran out of time, but she gave us quite a good overview of her SR methods and how she works with researchers.
See link to her slides here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ymm48glouvdf98h/AADLetMMEKdah7RCqDlK8s1Za?dl=0#
The day ended with the welcome reception (cheese, biscuits and prosecco) held in the beautiful Playfair Library Hall of Old College, University of Edinburgh. We heard a number of speeches from various colleagues of the organisers, and felt warmly welcomed to a very sunny Edinburgh.
Thursday 11th June
The second day began with plenary talks from Dr Alison Brettle and Dr Johanna Rivano Eckerdal, who both discussed research methods.
The first workshop I attended was on Social network analysis – what, where and how? Louise Cooke from Loughborough University ran the session which I found really interesting. She talked about how networks exist and form within groups and gave details of free software that you can download to play around with analysing networks.
Link to slides here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/orlwb6f2ebit1f8/AACLMGkqkrWgnWGWu0MRY49Va?dl=0
I then went to the Using action research in practice workshop ran by Hannah Spring. What she described seemed a bit like reflection, but more formal. They discussed it in terms of making sense of your own practice to gain a deeper understanding and justification of what you are doing.
The afternoon was taken up with the session on Sharing literature search blocks: help develop a cooperative solution. I’m not sure how much I really got out of this. It did raise an interesting question though in terms of whether we as a team should or could save some search blocks on some of our regular topics.
Link to slides here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2gvl3okbaltadwy/AAC1GPHaR5vM1SDj0ZImlT3Aa?dl=0
The Gala dinner was held in the evening at the National Museum of Scotland. It was a lovely meal and then a ceilidh, which I managed to avoid getting involved in thankfully.
Friday 12th June
The last workshop session I attended was run by an external company called Seeing Stones, headed up by Iain Davison on Communicating with hard to reach audiences. This was really useful, very interactive and I could really relate it to my everyday work in terms of communicating with non-traditional library users. It touched on finding out what your core values are as a first point of call, as when you know what you believe in decisions become a lot easier.
Link to slides here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y6yjvxwvy4c1gic/AAAu1PSOcOSYMK3urWU5p_oWa?dl=0
Other useful links:
• JEAHIL – Memories from Edinburgh issue - http://eahil.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/journal-3-2015-link-web1.pdf
• EAHIL Workshop website with presentations to download - https://eahil2015.wordpress.com/workshop-presentations-for-download/
Friday, October 2, 2015
Handy website by the US National Cancer Institute
Check out this very handy website prepared by the US National Cancer Institute. It has information for patients and professionals. Only thing to look out for is that it shows you only one section of each article at a time, so don’t think “oh that’s a bit brief”, there is a navigation list on the left of each article and you can go on to the next section by clicking that or by clicking on an arrow at the bottom of the page. Here is the section on Palliative or supportive care:
http://www.cancer.gov/publications/pdq/information-summaries/supportive-care
http://www.cancer.gov/publications/pdq/information-summaries/supportive-care
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
A day in the life of a clinical librarian
Hello and welcome to 'A day in the life of a clinical librarian' blog series. This is a monthly series sharing what a day at work for those working in clinical librarianship actually looks like and finding out about the person behind the job.
This month we're interviewing Lisa Lawrence from Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Who are you and where do you work?
I'm Lisa Lawrence and I work as a Clinical Librarian at Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. I'm based at the Royal Derby Hospital, but work cross-site, particularly as one of my CL departments, Dermatology, is based at our other site, London Road Community Hospital.
How long have you been there?
Longer than I care to remember! I've been in this post for nearly 10 years, and have worked for the Library & Knowledge Service here for 13 years. Before that I worked in a further education library, and before that I was in public libraries... (and have the storytime for the under 5s dressing up pictures to prove it!) I started in libraries after completing my undergraduate degree in Literature and History, and I guess I developed a taste for it, so have stayed in the profession, since qualifying with a Masters degree in Library & Information Studies.
What attracted you to Clinical Librarianship?
Never a dull moment! Every day is different. You never know what you're going to be asked, you get to meet so many people and learn so much - I enjoy searching for information and like to find answers to questions... I also get real job satisfaction in doing my bit to ensure that our patients get the best evidenced care. You're part of great multidisciplinary teams, where eveyone is valued for their specific skillsets. We all contribute to providing the best quality healthcare for our patients. There's real people, with real outcomes on the end of everything we do. You can't really get better than finding out that something you've done has assisted one of your clinical colleagues to improve the treatment of a patient...
What does an average day at work involve?
Erm... no such thing as an average day! Usually it will involve checking emails, doing some literature searching, going to a clinic or an MDT/education meeting, catching up with curent awareness, doing some more literature searching, checking emails again, providing some training or going to journal club, doing some more literature searching, answering an urgent telephone enquiry, and of course, doing some more literature searching...
If you weren’t a Librarian, what would you be?
Lottery winner!! Feet up - cocktail in hand!
But seriously - I've always had a bit of a hankering to be a novelist...
Tell us a joke or a non-work fact about yourself
My jokes are generally awful, so a non-work fact it is!
I'm a committee member of the Derbyshire Amphibian and Reptile Group - we're dedicated to doing our best for native amphibians and reptiles in our area. I've previously been scared of snakes and I never ever thought I'd take a liking towards toads, newts, lizards and snakes, but now I can't seem to get enough of them! Every spring you'll find me working hard on Toads on Roads crossing patrols, getting toads safely to their breeding ponds. I've got a real soft spot for our toads...
This month we're interviewing Lisa Lawrence from Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
I'm Lisa Lawrence and I work as a Clinical Librarian at Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. I'm based at the Royal Derby Hospital, but work cross-site, particularly as one of my CL departments, Dermatology, is based at our other site, London Road Community Hospital.
How long have you been there?
Longer than I care to remember! I've been in this post for nearly 10 years, and have worked for the Library & Knowledge Service here for 13 years. Before that I worked in a further education library, and before that I was in public libraries... (and have the storytime for the under 5s dressing up pictures to prove it!) I started in libraries after completing my undergraduate degree in Literature and History, and I guess I developed a taste for it, so have stayed in the profession, since qualifying with a Masters degree in Library & Information Studies.
What attracted you to Clinical Librarianship?
Never a dull moment! Every day is different. You never know what you're going to be asked, you get to meet so many people and learn so much - I enjoy searching for information and like to find answers to questions... I also get real job satisfaction in doing my bit to ensure that our patients get the best evidenced care. You're part of great multidisciplinary teams, where eveyone is valued for their specific skillsets. We all contribute to providing the best quality healthcare for our patients. There's real people, with real outcomes on the end of everything we do. You can't really get better than finding out that something you've done has assisted one of your clinical colleagues to improve the treatment of a patient...
What does an average day at work involve?
Erm... no such thing as an average day! Usually it will involve checking emails, doing some literature searching, going to a clinic or an MDT/education meeting, catching up with curent awareness, doing some more literature searching, checking emails again, providing some training or going to journal club, doing some more literature searching, answering an urgent telephone enquiry, and of course, doing some more literature searching...
If you weren’t a Librarian, what would you be?
Lottery winner!! Feet up - cocktail in hand!
But seriously - I've always had a bit of a hankering to be a novelist...
Tell us a joke or a non-work fact about yourself
My jokes are generally awful, so a non-work fact it is!
I'm a committee member of the Derbyshire Amphibian and Reptile Group - we're dedicated to doing our best for native amphibians and reptiles in our area. I've previously been scared of snakes and I never ever thought I'd take a liking towards toads, newts, lizards and snakes, but now I can't seem to get enough of them! Every spring you'll find me working hard on Toads on Roads crossing patrols, getting toads safely to their breeding ponds. I've got a real soft spot for our toads...
Friday, September 11, 2015
Call for abstracts at the joint meeting of medical librarians and health information professionals!
It's abstract submission time for the largest gathering of medical librarians and health information professionals in the world at the joint meeting of the Medical Library Association (MLA), the Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada (CHLA/ABSC), and the International Clinical Librarian Conference (ICLC)! The theme of our meeting is:
You can submit a presentation, lightning talk or poster, on any research you have done or project you have worked on. We are keeping the submission process very open so that any interesting topic can be included. You don’t need to include finished results in your abstract, those can follow later.
Please submit your abstract by September 15th 2015, guidance and a lot of other helpful information below:
You can submit a presentation, lightning talk or poster, on any research you have done or project you have worked on. We are keeping the submission process very open so that any interesting topic can be included. You don’t need to include finished results in your abstract, those can follow later.
Please submit your abstract by September 15th 2015, guidance and a lot of other helpful information below:
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Clinical Librarian Vacancy
Opportunity to join the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (Part Time)
We have a wonderful team and the role is hugely rewarding.
A chance to join University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust's ground-breaking Clinical Librarian Service. Become a part of one of the UK's longest running Clinical Librarian teams in this part time role, working 22.5 hours per week, supporting a variety of clinical areas and providing the best available evidence to assist patient care and world class research.
Further details available here: NHS Jobs Clinical Librarian Vacancy
Monday, September 7, 2015
STUDY DAY: Guidelines – what’s new and the librarian’s role.
A study day for health librarians on what’s new in supporting the production and management of guidelines for your organisation and how librarians can contribute.
Do you want to make your service indispensable to your organisation - supporting guideline production and management is a good area where libraries can extend their influence and value to their organisations. We are running a study day for Health Librarians on Tuesday 3rdNovember 2015 on Guidelines – what’s new and the librarian’s role.
To be held at The Clinical Education Centre, Glenfield Hospital, Groby Road, Leicester, LE3 9QP, United Kingdom.
Booking forms and further information available here
Friday, August 21, 2015
Recently published evidence updates
The following Evidence Updates have been published this month, detailing the latest evidence and literature.
Anaesthesia & critical care
Cancer & Haematology
Cardiac Surgery
Cardiology
Emergency Medicine
Gastroenterology
Hepatobiliary
Ophthalmology
Pain Management
Patient and Public Involvement
Patient Safety & Risk
Rheumatology
Strategy
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to find out when an evidence update is hot off the press!
Anaesthesia & critical care
Cancer & Haematology
Cardiac Surgery
Cardiology
Emergency Medicine
Gastroenterology
Hepatobiliary
Ophthalmology
Pain Management
Patient and Public Involvement
Patient Safety & Risk
Rheumatology
Strategy
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to find out when an evidence update is hot off the press!
Thursday, August 20, 2015
A day in the life of a clinical librarian
Hello and welcome to 'A day in the life of a clinical librarian' blog series. This is a monthly series sharing what a day at work for those working in clinical librarianship actually looks like and finding out about the person behind the job.
This month we're interviewing one of our Clinical Information Search Service Officers.
Who are you and where do you work?
Hi, I’m Joanna and I’m a Clinical Information Search Service (CISS) Officer at the University of Hospitals Leicester. I am part of a job share and work 3 days a week supporting the Clinical Librarian Service across the 3 UHL sites, although I'm mainly based at the Royal Infirmary and Glenfield hospitals.
How long have you been there?
I have been here for 2 ½ years. Previously I was an Assistant Librarian at a corporate law firm in London for 5 ½ years.
What attracted you to Clinical Librarianship?
I have worked in various sectors before moving to the NHS, including a university, government department and several law firms. What attracted me to clinical librarianship was the variety of work involved and knowing that the work we do feeds back into furthering medical knowledge and improving patient care.
What does an average day at work involve?
Starting with a strong cup of tea, I usually look through my emails first and prioritise jobs for the day. These jobs can range from locating articles to producing and circulating Evidence Updates on various topics to managing our blog, website and twitter profile and taking minutes at our team meetings. As my role is aimed at providing support to the clinical librarians, I also often pick up any literature searches when the team is inundated with requests and help organise study days too.
If you weren’t a Librarian, what would you be?
If I could be both a professional, expert gardener and some kind of designer, that would be amazing. Or if money wasn’t an issue, I’d love to run a shop that runs craft courses by day and turns into a gig venue by night for all my favourite bands to play at!
Tell us a joke or a non-work fact about yourself
Way back I did a course on vinyl dj-ing and have dj’d at several venues in London. I once got so excited about getting to play the Rolling Stones (one of my favourite bands) that I managed to play the same song twice. Thankfully it went down pretty well.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Recently published evidence updates
The following Evidence Updates have been published this month, detailing the latest evidence and literature.
Anaesthesia and Critical Care
Cancer and Haematology
Cardiology
Children’s Health
Clinical Genetics
Emergency Medicine
Gastroenterology
Hepatobiliary
Ophthalmology
Pain Management
Patient and Public Involvement
Renal
Rheumatology
Stroke
Urology
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to find out when an evidence update is hot off the press!
Anaesthesia and Critical Care
Cancer and Haematology
Cardiology
Children’s Health
Clinical Genetics
Emergency Medicine
Gastroenterology
Hepatobiliary
Ophthalmology
Pain Management
Patient and Public Involvement
Renal
Rheumatology
Stroke
Urology
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to find out when an evidence update is hot off the press!
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Literature search tips: exporting references for systematic reviews
This week's literature search tip comes from our Clinical Librarian Service Manager, Pip Divall:
Quite often teams ask me for results in a spreadsheet because they are doing a systematic review. An easy way to do this is to export the references out of Refworks into Excel.
For further guidance, check out the following guidelines out and don't forget that Refworks dedupes results too!
http://refworksatunmc.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/can-i-create-excel-table-from-my.html
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page and catch up on our previous literature search tips here.
Quite often teams ask me for results in a spreadsheet because they are doing a systematic review. An easy way to do this is to export the references out of Refworks into Excel.
For further guidance, check out the following guidelines out and don't forget that Refworks dedupes results too!
http://refworksatunmc.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/can-i-create-excel-table-from-my.html
We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below or on our Twitter page and catch up on our previous literature search tips here.
Friday, June 19, 2015
UHL Writing Club, Tuesday 23rd June
The next UHL Writing Club will be looking at tips on publishing & presenting audits. The guest speaker will be Dr Amit Mistri & the Audit Team. This session would be of particular interest to Junior Doctors, but is open to all UHL staff who are interested in writing for publication.
It will be held in the Odames Library meeting room from 1-2pm on Tuesday 23rd June.
To reserve your free place, contact Pip Divall.
It will be held in the Odames Library meeting room from 1-2pm on Tuesday 23rd June.
To reserve your free place, contact Pip Divall.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
International Clinical Trials Day - 20 May 2015
As part of International Clinical Trials Day 2015 on Wednesday 20 May, the Children’s Research team (part of the Clinical Research Network: East Midlands) are promoting children’s research at Leicester's Hospitals.
The #whywedoresearch campaign will be promoted via their brand new twitter page @UHLkidsResearch.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Now Fully Booked
Medical Terminology Training
Beverley Walsh, of West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, has kindly agreed to come and run her course on “Medical Terminology” for us here at University Hospitals of Leicester. The date is set for Tuesday 30thJune, from 10.30-2.00, at the Odames Library, Victoria Building, Leicester Royal Infirmary, LE1 5WW .
The UHL Clinical Librarian Service are covering the cost of the session, and Primal Pictures (producers of Anatomy.tv) will provide a light lunch on the day.
The session will cover the basic building blocks of medical terminology, and Beverley has successfully run this course in several parts of the UK. I envisage that this session will be most useful to those staff who are new to the NHS and those less confident in the use of medical terminology.
We have 7 places to offer to our East Midlands colleagues on this session, free of charge, on a first come, first served basis. To book a place, please email pip.divall@uhl-tr.nhs.uk
Monday, May 18, 2015
MLA '16 - Press Release
Toronto, 13-18 May 2016 #mlanet16
Call for Submissions
Download the full Call for Submissions (includes both English and French).
The 2016 MLA/CHLA/ABSC/ICLC Joint Planning Committee invites submissions for papers, posters, lightning talks, and special content sessions that support the theme, “Mosaic: Be Part of the Big Picture.”
Plan to submit your structured abstract for your research project or program description in September 2015, using the guidelines at research.mlanet.org. New to this year’s process, authors will rank how they would prefer to present their content: paper, poster, or lightning talk. Abstracts not accepted to a first choice will be considered for second and third choices.
New this year are special content sessions. Groups—such as sections, chapters, special interest groups (SIGs), or other groups—are invited to design engaging 1.5-hour-long sessions (for example, invited speakers or panel presentations). Proposals for special content sessions are due in September 2015, and these submissions should not duplicate content submitted as paper sessions, poster sessions, or lightning talks. MLA’s Research Section will award prizes for the best research-based papers and posters. Full information on the submission process, programming types, instructions for proposals for special content sessions, and criteria used to assess abstracts and proposals will be available on MLANET in May 2015.
For more information, see https://www.mlanet.org/meetings/am/mla16/index.html
Plan to attend the largest gathering of medical librarians and health information professionals in the world at the joint meeting of the Medical Library Association (MLA), the Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada (CHLA/ABSC), and the International Clinical Librarian Conference (ICLC)!
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Review of our study day
Thanks so much to Phillip Barlow from Imperial College London for his great write up of our 'Make your service visible and essential to users' study day, held on the 23rd April.
If you were unable to attend, it's worth having a read. His blog post can be found here.
We will be making the presentations from the day publicly available on our website soon, so stay tuned!
If you were unable to attend, it's worth having a read. His blog post can be found here.
We will be making the presentations from the day publicly available on our website soon, so stay tuned!
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
A day in the life of a clinical librarian
Hello and welcome to our third post in our brand new blog series, A day in the life of a clinical librarian. This is a monthly series sharing what a day at work for those working in clinical librarianship actually looks like and finding out about the person behind the job.
This month we've had the pleasure of interviewing one of our very own clinical librarians.
Who are you and where do you work?
I’m Louise Hull, a Clinical Librarian at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. My main base is Glenfield Hospital but I travel across to the other sites as needed.
How long have you been there?
I have been in this role for seven years and have worked from the Trust for nearly 13 years in total.
What attracted you to Clinical Librarianship?
I have always enjoyed searching for information and I really liked the fact that your work may have a positive impact on patient care. My role has evolved now and I support a range of staff in both clinical and managerial roles, which is really interesting.
What does an average day at work involve?
I work Wednesday – Friday, so Wednesday mornings often involve a lot of catching up on emails and prioritising my workload for the next few days. I’ll be going through my email alerts from various organisations and assigning relevant items to the evidence updates I lead on. Literature searching and various meetings are also a regular occurrence!
If you weren’t a Librarian, what would you be?
I always wanted to be a Sport’s Psychologist (my first degree was in Psychology). Or if I won the lottery I’d open an ice cream parlour or a deli.
Tell us a joke or a non-work fact about yourself
I have a two year old daughter, a three year old Labrador and a four year old son. So sometimes it is nice to come to work for a bit of peace and quiet!
This month we've had the pleasure of interviewing one of our very own clinical librarians.
Who are you and where do you work?
I’m Louise Hull, a Clinical Librarian at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. My main base is Glenfield Hospital but I travel across to the other sites as needed.
How long have you been there?
I have been in this role for seven years and have worked from the Trust for nearly 13 years in total.
What attracted you to Clinical Librarianship?
I have always enjoyed searching for information and I really liked the fact that your work may have a positive impact on patient care. My role has evolved now and I support a range of staff in both clinical and managerial roles, which is really interesting.
What does an average day at work involve?
I work Wednesday – Friday, so Wednesday mornings often involve a lot of catching up on emails and prioritising my workload for the next few days. I’ll be going through my email alerts from various organisations and assigning relevant items to the evidence updates I lead on. Literature searching and various meetings are also a regular occurrence!
If you weren’t a Librarian, what would you be?
I always wanted to be a Sport’s Psychologist (my first degree was in Psychology). Or if I won the lottery I’d open an ice cream parlour or a deli.
Tell us a joke or a non-work fact about yourself
I have a two year old daughter, a three year old Labrador and a four year old son. So sometimes it is nice to come to work for a bit of peace and quiet!
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