iPads are USEFUL for patients awake during surgery:
"iPads relieve stress and anxiety" - PiF news http://www.pifonline.org.uk/index.aspx?o=1097&newsitem=5351
And secondly - Banzi, R., et al. Speed of updating online evidence based point of care summaries: prospective cohort analysis. BMJ 2011; 343:d5856 http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d5856.short?
This is a blog written by a medical librarian used to discuss library issues, 23 Things projects, and cats.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Thursday, 22 September 2011
CPD23: Thing 16 - Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published
Let's address the publication issue first.
I am a published author. I have published... wait for it while I have a think... the following articles recently, as a professional librarian:
I have no current publications planned. I don't have the time or the energy. I'm sure I can think of something though. I really enjoyed writing the book review last year, as I was thinking about promotion and publicity methods for my dissertation at the time and the book I reviewed was extremely helpful.
As for advocacy: I attended a brilliant meeting in the Oxford Town Hall last year to SAVE OUR LIBRARIES! I've also started to use our Central Library a lot more heavily, making the most of the resources while I can. But apart from signing petitions to KEEP OUR LIBRARIES OPEN, and keeping track of the campaigns via the CILIP publications, I haven't done much advocacy in terms of the public library campaign. I promote our own library service to (potential) users all the time with my Outreach Librarian hat on, and with my Knowledge Centre Manager hat on I try to find out how we can improve the service we already provide, so that people know that we are actively seeking to make improvements, keep the service relevant and make the world a happier place.
Thank you, CPD23 team, for pointing this out in the Thing 16 post:
"In addition to all the skills you pick up when engaging in advocacy (public speaking, constructing arguments, communicating with different stakeholders, using social media effectively, designing online and print materials etc.), there is the opportunity to write and get published. "
These skills are all excellent ones to have, and are all skills I need to develop. I'm happy with the designing online and print materials bit, and OK on the social media front, although I fear that I fail on the public speaking front because I am naturally shy and am an anxious bunny at the best of times, unless fortified by finest ale. I will have a think about what I can do and will get back to you on this topic!
I am a published author. I have published... wait for it while I have a think... the following articles recently, as a professional librarian:
- Bastin, E. (2011) ‘Using the Delphi technique to gather expert recommendations about promoting and evaluating healthcare library outreach services’, Journal of EAHIL, 7 (1), pp.3-7 [Online]. Available at: http://www.eahil.net/journal/journal_2011_vol7_n1.pdf (Accessed: 28 June 2011).
- Bastin, E. (2010) ‘Freely available online resources for renal nurses’, Journal of Renal Nursing, 2 (1), pp. 36 - 37.
- O'Brien, E. and Bastin, E. (2010) ‘Introducing the NHS Evidence specialist collections’, CILIP Health Libraries Group Newsletter, 27 (4), pp. 9-10 [Online]. Available HERE [because the link doesn't want to work properly] http://www.cilip.org.uk/filedownloadslibrary/groups/health/hlg%20newsletter%20dec%202010.pdf (Accessed 07/01/11).
- O'Brien, E. and Bastin, E. (2010) ‘Introducing the NHS Evidence specialist collections’, CILIP Libraries for Nursing Bulletin, 30 (3-4), pp. 15-19.
- Bastin, E. (2010) NHS Evidence – Kidney Diseases and Male Urogenital Disorders: search strategies for Annual Evidence Updates [Online]. Available at: http://www.apdis.pt/eahil2010/en/images/stories/docs/fulltexts/a1_02_bastin_full.pdf (Accessed: 28 June 2011).
- Bastin, E. (2010) 'Book Review: Dowd N et al. Bite-sized marketing: realistic solutions for the overworked librarian', CILIP Health Libraries Group Newsletter, 27 (3), pp.25-6 [Online]. Available at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/filedownloadslibrary/groups/health/hlg%20newsletter%20dec%202010.pdf (Accessed: 28 June 2011).
- Bastin, E. (2010) ‘Freely available online resources for renal nurses’, Journal of Renal Nursing, 2(1); pp.36-37.
I have no current publications planned. I don't have the time or the energy. I'm sure I can think of something though. I really enjoyed writing the book review last year, as I was thinking about promotion and publicity methods for my dissertation at the time and the book I reviewed was extremely helpful.
As for advocacy: I attended a brilliant meeting in the Oxford Town Hall last year to SAVE OUR LIBRARIES! I've also started to use our Central Library a lot more heavily, making the most of the resources while I can. But apart from signing petitions to KEEP OUR LIBRARIES OPEN, and keeping track of the campaigns via the CILIP publications, I haven't done much advocacy in terms of the public library campaign. I promote our own library service to (potential) users all the time with my Outreach Librarian hat on, and with my Knowledge Centre Manager hat on I try to find out how we can improve the service we already provide, so that people know that we are actively seeking to make improvements, keep the service relevant and make the world a happier place.
Thank you, CPD23 team, for pointing this out in the Thing 16 post:
"In addition to all the skills you pick up when engaging in advocacy (public speaking, constructing arguments, communicating with different stakeholders, using social media effectively, designing online and print materials etc.), there is the opportunity to write and get published. "
These skills are all excellent ones to have, and are all skills I need to develop. I'm happy with the designing online and print materials bit, and OK on the social media front, although I fear that I fail on the public speaking front because I am naturally shy and am an anxious bunny at the best of times, unless fortified by finest ale. I will have a think about what I can do and will get back to you on this topic!
CPD23: Thing 15 - Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events
I have had the great honour of being able to attend three conferences for medical/healthcare librarians in the last... 18 months:
- European Association of Health Information Librarians 2010 - in PORTUGAL! Estoril! Which was beautiful and wonderful... *dream*... 14-18 June. http://www.apdis.pt/eahil2010/en/index.html
- CILIP Health Libraries Group conference 2010 - Salford Quays 19-20 July. See http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/special-interest-groups/health/events/conferences/pages/conference-2010.aspx
- 2011 International Clinical Librarians Conference - Birmingham Botanical Gardens 13-14 June. See links on this page http://www.uhl-library.nhs.uk/cl_studydays.html
I was really nervous at EAHIL. I was also cold, standing in a huge auditorium in front of 90 people (I had time to count them). I therefore gave off "negative body language" according to TP, who was in the audience taking photos of me. Let's try to find one such photo... I look terrified. I had a script. I kept to the script. I spoke too fast (to a European audience!). On the plus side, as I was presenting, I was able to tell the 90 people in the room that I had two posters outside in the exhibition area and encouraged them to go and have a look. I got lots of attention from people who came up to me afterwards to ask questions. I felt more involved and engaged with the conference, with the 350+ delegates from all over Europe and the rest of the world. And it meant that I got to go to Portugal!
I stuck, mainly, to a script again at Birmingham this year, as I don't trust myself not to get horribly nervous, again speaking in front of a captive audience of 90 people. I enjoyed myself though. I enjoyed talking about the particular subject, and the Q&A session was useful too. The fact remains: I definitely need to work on my presentation skills.
I enjoy going to conferences: I get to learn new things, think about how to apply them to my work situation, think about other people and their jobs, and meet friends and new people. I'm sure that I could organise a conference, if I needed to, but I think I would need a lot of support from colleagues. It's hard to think of a good subject, too, for medical/outreach/clinical/healthcare librarians. I've run journal club sessions before in the past, organised meetings, even chaired a few, but never a conference.
Monday, 19 September 2011
A bit more on ipads
I still haven't found it to be very useful. Not impressed by this £600-bit of kit. Couldn't use it for outreach purposes last week, so consigned it to my locker at work for now.
Post: Krafty Librarian 15/09/11 Apple Makes Finding Medical Apps for Professional A Little Easier
Reminder of this post: Krafty Librarian 16/06/10 iPad Use in the Hospital and IT Departments
We are so far behind the times that I wonder if there's any point in trying to catch up?
Post: Krafty Librarian 15/09/11 Apple Makes Finding Medical Apps for Professional A Little Easier
Reminder of this post: Krafty Librarian 16/06/10 iPad Use in the Hospital and IT Departments
We are so far behind the times that I wonder if there's any point in trying to catch up?
Friday, 16 September 2011
Presentations
My colleague Amanda came to work after lunch raving about the great training session she'd had this morning with one Nick Davies on how to give better presentations.
Links!!!
- Think about YOU, YOUR AUDIENCE, and the CONTENT.
- Don't use powerpoint if you can help it (rats).
- Include anecdotes, props, anything to make the presentation more lively, engaging, energetic.
Links!!!
- See videos on his website: http://www.reallygreattraining.co.uk/videopage.html
- Download the PDF of his booklet on this topic: http://www.reallygreattraining.co.uk/RGT_BookofPublicSpeaking.pdf
- See his blog!: http://nick67davies.wordpress.com/
CPD23: Thing 14 - Trying out Mendeley
My reader is using Mendeley to manage her references for a systematic review AND MSc thesis. I therefore have... not much time to learn how to use Mendeley in order to export the 7793 references from my Endnote Library what I've spent about 8 hours working on this week... as an appropriate file for her to import into her Mendeley account. I am on a Mission.
I've already noticed though, being iPad-aware at the moment, that the Mendeley homepage mentions something about iPhone and iPad apps... Which sounds good, doesn't it!?
Right. Downloaded the programme onto my PC. Next up: read the (frigging) manual - http://s3.amazonaws.com/mendeley-desktop-download/Getting_Started_Guide.pdf I think I shall treat myself by printing it off, instead of trying to do the inevitable two-things-at-once-or-more.
While that prints, can I just say that in my short career as an information scientist, information specialist, and now Librarian, I have used the following reference management software progs: ProCite (i liked this one); Endnote (my favourite); Refworks (grrr sums up my experiences); and ReferenceManager (yucky). I will probably need to start teaching PAs who work in my building how to use and make the most of Endnote, which will involve providing 1-2hr group training sessions for 4-6 people in our group study room at some point when the Oncology Dept have decided that they like me. I would also like to know how to use the Oxford-based Colwiz, as well as Mendeley, so let us proceed.
I've opened my Mendeley programme on my PC, uploaded some test PDFs, and followed the instructions for exporting from Endnote, importing into Mendeley.
At this point, a) the Endnote file mysteriously now has 7799 refs instead of the desired 7793, and b) the whole thing has crashed.
Whoops.
I'll see if my reader can open the Endnote file (XML document), or if she wants to wait until she's purchased the Mac version of Endnote for just over £80 from the Ox Uni Computing Services shop (as advised by me just now in an email...), and wants an Endnote-compatible file, I'll send her big files after lunch.
I like Mendeley so far, apart from causing it to crash with too many references to import.
I really should try out Zotero, as we've mentioned it in the past in training sessions for evidence-based people as a good free reference management tool and I've never tried it!
That's it for now. More later. If the programme un-crashes.
(10 mins later, on KC help desk) -
It works! I can analyse my references in my Mendeley account from another PC! But will it work for my reader?
(several hours later...)
The reader has reported that Mendeley is too annoying to work with. It is unstable with Word. So she has bought Endnote x4 for her mac, and I have sent her the files as Endnote import text files for her to import herself, along with instructions for Endnote and Macs.
A mixed result. We are both happy that the references (7793, don't forget) can be imported into a Library, but have concluded that Endnote is better for people doing systematic reviews than a free product such as Mendeley.
I've already noticed though, being iPad-aware at the moment, that the Mendeley homepage mentions something about iPhone and iPad apps... Which sounds good, doesn't it!?
Right. Downloaded the programme onto my PC. Next up: read the (frigging) manual - http://s3.amazonaws.com/mendeley-desktop-download/Getting_Started_Guide.pdf I think I shall treat myself by printing it off, instead of trying to do the inevitable two-things-at-once-or-more.
While that prints, can I just say that in my short career as an information scientist, information specialist, and now Librarian, I have used the following reference management software progs: ProCite (i liked this one); Endnote (my favourite); Refworks (grrr sums up my experiences); and ReferenceManager (yucky). I will probably need to start teaching PAs who work in my building how to use and make the most of Endnote, which will involve providing 1-2hr group training sessions for 4-6 people in our group study room at some point when the Oncology Dept have decided that they like me. I would also like to know how to use the Oxford-based Colwiz, as well as Mendeley, so let us proceed.
I've opened my Mendeley programme on my PC, uploaded some test PDFs, and followed the instructions for exporting from Endnote, importing into Mendeley.
At this point, a) the Endnote file mysteriously now has 7799 refs instead of the desired 7793, and b) the whole thing has crashed.
Whoops.
I'll see if my reader can open the Endnote file (XML document), or if she wants to wait until she's purchased the Mac version of Endnote for just over £80 from the Ox Uni Computing Services shop (as advised by me just now in an email...), and wants an Endnote-compatible file, I'll send her big files after lunch.
I like Mendeley so far, apart from causing it to crash with too many references to import.
I really should try out Zotero, as we've mentioned it in the past in training sessions for evidence-based people as a good free reference management tool and I've never tried it!
That's it for now. More later. If the programme un-crashes.
(10 mins later, on KC help desk) -
It works! I can analyse my references in my Mendeley account from another PC! But will it work for my reader?
(several hours later...)
The reader has reported that Mendeley is too annoying to work with. It is unstable with Word. So she has bought Endnote x4 for her mac, and I have sent her the files as Endnote import text files for her to import herself, along with instructions for Endnote and Macs.
A mixed result. We are both happy that the references (7793, don't forget) can be imported into a Library, but have concluded that Endnote is better for people doing systematic reviews than a free product such as Mendeley.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Useful links from the latest HLG newsletter!!
Useful links to try out on the iPad and elsewhere:
The latest issue of the CILIP Health Libraries Group newsletter is now available online at:
http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/special-interest-groups/health/pages/newsletter.aspx
What a useful issue! Full of subjects that I've been mulling over lately, such as:
IPADS
- http://ipadscmb.pbworks.com/w/page/31492905/ipad-on-loan-:-a-project-of-the-CMB-UMCG
- See Guus van den B's article in JEAHIL 7(2) June 2011 - p.14
Educational
- MLA 2011: NLM Theater Presentations
- Presentations from EBLIP6 now online and see here too - lisresearch blog
- A PREZI presentation to get my head around
- Quertle ("relationship-driven biomedical search")
- AnatomyEXPERT
Monday, 12 September 2011
CPD23: Thing 13 - Google Docs, Dropbox, Wikis
I tried out Google Docs last year for the Oxford 23 Things project. I've just had a look in my Google documents, and find someone's Chartership portfolio, there for inspiration, and my dissertation proposal from last year. And a spreadsheet that we used nearly three years ago to organise our wedding. Why haven't I used this function since early last year?
The Science, Technology and Medicine librarians on the Technology group should really use one of these tools to share documents. I should share my word document with screenshots of interesting features of the Cambridge and Yale uni library websites, to encourage others to upload their documents comparing other uni library websites and find some common features that Oxford should really think about. Aha. I've tried to upload my word document, and it has been rejected.
Maybe one of the other tools will be more successful?
Is Dropbox secure enough? Can I access documents that I upload ... via the ipad, which is currently sitting at home not doing much (although I hope my husband isn't playing with it today, as he seems to have used it for the following Play-Not-Work functions so far: checking out football results; checking out cricket results; checking out his facebook) ??
Aha. I've registered with Dropbox, downloaded it onto this PC, and now found the link for the ipad: https://www.dropbox.com/ipad
I'll see what use it is... later on today!
I'm familiar with wikis already, as I participated in a CritApp wiki project last year. We used the wiki to try out critically appraising papers as a team of geographically dispersed librarians. It was successful at the time, but no one has taken it forward, and we haven't done anything further with the project.
Interesting - the Wolfenden report on Thing 13
The Science, Technology and Medicine librarians on the Technology group should really use one of these tools to share documents. I should share my word document with screenshots of interesting features of the Cambridge and Yale uni library websites, to encourage others to upload their documents comparing other uni library websites and find some common features that Oxford should really think about. Aha. I've tried to upload my word document, and it has been rejected.
Maybe one of the other tools will be more successful?
Is Dropbox secure enough? Can I access documents that I upload ... via the ipad, which is currently sitting at home not doing much (although I hope my husband isn't playing with it today, as he seems to have used it for the following Play-Not-Work functions so far: checking out football results; checking out cricket results; checking out his facebook) ??
Aha. I've registered with Dropbox, downloaded it onto this PC, and now found the link for the ipad: https://www.dropbox.com/ipad
I'll see what use it is... later on today!
I'm familiar with wikis already, as I participated in a CritApp wiki project last year. We used the wiki to try out critically appraising papers as a team of geographically dispersed librarians. It was successful at the time, but no one has taken it forward, and we haven't done anything further with the project.
Interesting - the Wolfenden report on Thing 13
Friday, 9 September 2011
iPads
Doing some quick ipad research: how can they be used, either for work or for play?
I googled 'libraries lending ipads' and got lots of hits... from blogs etc written in 2010. Again, it seems we are behind with the times if we've only just bought two ipads for lending in the libraries.
Useful webpages, for brevity:
The MANUAL:
I googled 'libraries lending ipads' and got lots of hits... from blogs etc written in 2010. Again, it seems we are behind with the times if we've only just bought two ipads for lending in the libraries.
Useful webpages, for brevity:
- http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/techlending/ipads.html
- http://librarienne.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/ipadtemporarylibraryloan/
- http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1415050
- http://library.binghamton.edu/services/laptops/index.html
- http://crln.acrl.org/content/72/4/212.full Eg. "Most patrons were simply curious and wanted to find out what the device was like. I have heard from other patrons that they have not checked out an iPad because they are not sure what exactly they would do with it. On the other hand, interest in the iPads has encouraged conversations on campus about ebooks and the future of textbooks, with librarians being included in the discussion."
- http://jeahil.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/ipad-lending-project-first-results/ Best sentence from this article: "Lending is a great way to whet the appetite for a new way of using library resources." Good point!
- http://jeahil.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/sex-jogging-and-the-ipad-lost-in-distraction/
- http://web.resourceshelf.com/go/resourceblog/58842
- http://view.fdu.edu/default.aspx?id=587
- http://librarienne.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/ipadtemporarylibraryloan/
- http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2010/06/may-a-library-lend-e-book-readers.html
The MANUAL:
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