Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library Blog

UCLA Library reference service is now available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

The Library is partnering with other UC campuses and librarians around the world to provide this newly enhanced service.  Because it is staffed by external as well as UCLA  librarians, your question may be referred for follow up to the UCLA Library, in which case a UCLA Library staff member will contact you within twenty-four hours.

Online reference can be accessed from all library Web pages through the “Questions? Ask Us!” graphic on the right-hand side of the banner.

To add a link to this service to a course Web site or department homepage, copy and paste this HTML code: <http://www2.library.ucla.edu/questions/qwidget_code.html>. This will produce a live chat box (Qwidget).

If you have questions about the new expanded hours of online reference or any other Library services, please contact us.

A new funding opportunity for our undergraduate researchers is available through the UCLA Library. The inspiration for the UCLA Library Prize for Undergraduate Research came from Ruth Simon, lover of books and libraries. This new prize has been established:

• to encourage undergraduate students to reflect on the research process in the pursuit of excellence in their academic course work;
• to recognize the significance of information literacy as it relates to academic learning; and
• to reward undergraduate students who incorporate the collections of the UCLA Library into their research.

All applications are due by 4 p.m. on Monday, April 6, 2009. Two awards will be given: first place receives an award of $750, and honorable mention receives an award of $300.

For complete details, such as eligibility and the application process, visit the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research web page.  If you have questions, please contact Alison Armstrong, director of Undergraduate Initiatives.

PubMed is constantly improved by teams at the National Library of Medicine and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). These improvements are based on user feedback and information on how the system is used. Over the last several months, PubMed has undergone a variety of changes. Below you will find a list of some of those changes. There may be some updates that you may have noticed recently while you’ve been using PubMed for your research and practice. We thought it was important to cover both the highly visible and the more hidden changes.

Recent PubMed Changes

• The order of the article title and authors has been switched in the Summary display, which is the default display once a search has been performed in PubMed. The title is now first followed by the list of authors.
• A link to the Clipboard has been added to the right of the PubMed search box. This link appears once you’ve added items to the Clipboard for easier access to those items. If you don’t currently use the Clipboard, find out more about how to use the Clipboard and the benefits of doing so.
• The Related Articles box now includes a special red “Review” tag for review articles. This displays when looking at the AbstractPlus view.
• Recent Activity box, containing recent searches and applied limits, can be maximized, minimized, turned on and turned off.
• My NCBI Collection amount increased to 5,000 from 500. Collections are a way for My NCBI users to keep track of important items found in PubMed and other NCBI databases. If you don’t currently use My NCBI to customize and personalize PubMed and other NCBI databases, find out more about the benefits for doing so here.
• Advanced Search has been added to the right of the PubMed search box. The advanced search includes the same options currently available on the limits and history tabs.

Additional Information 

If you have questions, comments, and/or other thoughts about the recent and future changes in PubMed, please leave us a comment. We’d like to hear what you think of this resource and the ways you are using it.

UCLA affiliates who have installed Essential Evidence Plus (EEP) on Pocket PC or Palm OS need to renew their registration for 2009. If you use the Essential Evidence Plus Updater application to sync your handheld device to a desktop PC, your registration will automatically be updated when you sync for the first time in 2009. If you do not use the Updater application, or your sync fails, download and read How to re-register EEP (Adobe PDF document) to obtain step-by-step instructions for requesting a new serial number or updating your current serial number. Please be aware that you must use an email address including “ucla.edu”  (such as @mednet.ucla.edu, or @ucla.edu) in order to successfully register your handheld device with EEP.

Essential Evidence Plus is a decision support tool provided to all UCLA affiliates by the UCLA Library, and can be used online or downloaded onto your PDA. Browse or search for a variety of conditions or therapies to locate peer-reviewed evidence to support clinical decisions.

MD Consult has one of the largest Patient Education sections of any of the UCLA Library-subscribed health sciences resources.  With close to 10,000 patient education handouts, MD Consult provides educational materials from four major sources: McKesson’s Clinical Reference System, American Academy of Family Physicians, DynoMed.com and A.D.A.M., Inc. Approximately 30% of handouts have Spanish-language translations.  For your convenience, MD Consult has grouped handouts in four major categories: “Conditions and Treatments,” “Medication,” “Specialty,” and “Spanish.”  Handouts are linked off of the top bar in MD Consult and also appear in the search results of a general search in MD Consult.

The California Digital Library has recently licensed the electronic version of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) for all 10 campuses in the UC system. UCLA researchers have had access to these reports since 2001. JCR provides quantifiable, statistical information based on citation data, measures research influence and impact at the journal and category levels, and shows the relationship between citing and cited journals.

JCR is available for the sciences and the social sciences and can be helpful when selecting journals to publish your writing or locating impact factors for peer review documentation or grant applications.

Note that the JCR data only goes through 2007 at this point. JCR’s methods require a full calendar year of data be collected. 2008 data will be analyzed beginning in 2009, and the information on 2008 journals will likely be available in fall 2009.

Access quality, easy-to-read patient education handouts for over 1,000 conditions and drugs in the CareNotes system, part of the Micromedex Health Care Series. CareNotes provides a one or two-page handout, with images when appropriate, formatted to indicate the most important information. Handouts are available in English and Spanish. Most topics are covered from a variety of perspectives, and provide separate handouts for each area of care: general information, pre-care, inpatient care, discharge care, and drug information. There is even a special section of handouts covering post-emergency room visit care.  To access CareNotes, click on the CareNotes icon on the Thomson Healthcare Products page, or click on the tab labeled “Patient Ed.” at the top of any Micromedex page.

Clinicians can personalize handouts before printing: change text sizes, add the clinician’s name and contact information and the patient’s name, or type special instructions to be printed on the handout. When a handout is printed, a second copy of the handout can also be printed, making it easier to keep records up-to-date.

UCLA affiliates who have questions about using CareNotes, or want a personalized introduction to this resource, can contact the Biomedical Library reference desk staff at biomed-ref@library.ucla.edu. CareNotes is one of several resources that UCLA clinicians can use to retrieve quality patient education information; continue reading the Biomedical Library Blog over the next few weeks to learn about others.

MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine’s consumer health Web site, is celebrating its ten year anniversary.

MedlinePlus provides free, reputable information on health topics, drugs and supplements, the latest medical news, a medical dictionary, an encyclopedia, surgery videos, interactive educational material, information specifically for older Americans, and links to other sites to locate clinical trials and get more information on genetic conditions. Materials included on the site cover a variety of reading levels and languages, including Spanish.

For more information, see the NLM’s press release.

A recent study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine found that over 75% of patients did not understand at least one part of their discharge instructions. Many other articles talk about the same issues related to a variety of settings and conditions.

Although there is not a single magic bullet to instantly solve all comprehension issues, there are a variety of materials available to help you provide the most effective patient care. Some of these are available to you as a part of library resource subscriptions, and some are available for free from government sources. A few places to start are MedlinePlus, the Micromedex CareNotes™ System, MD Consult, and Access Medicine.

When deciding which resource is best for a particular situation, some points to think about are:

• What grade level is it written at? Most experts recommend 4th grade or lower.
• Does it print out well? If you want to hand it out, you want something brief that prints effectively. You may also want a print-out for documentation purposes.
• Does it give your patient the option to get more information? Your patient may have further questions, or need terms defined.
• Does it come in multiple languages? Even if your patient speaks enough English to get through an appointment, he or she may still understand highly complex instructions or descriptions better in another language.
• Who wrote it? 

Stayed tuned — we will be discussing specific patient education resources in further detail in future posts!

Do you have a research project and have searched PubMed for the evidence to bolster your arguments and provide a review of the literature, but want to make sure you covered your area completely and haven’t missed anything?

Do you have a systematic review you are thinking about, and need to talk to an information expert for what databases to search and what terms to use for your search strategy?

Do you have some questions about a particular resource, like CINAHL Plus, or need assistance with using it effectively? Want to know more about the services and resources provided by the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library?

If you’ve answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, schedule some one-on-one time with one of our information experts. Research consultation appointments with a librarian can be scheduled for about an hour and can take place in your office or favorite working space, or you can come in to the Biomedical Library. Consultations are only available for current UCLA students, staff, and faculty.

Ready to schedule? Please visit our online form or email us at biomed-ref@library.ucla.edu.