Archive for the 'Technology' Category

Monday Morning’s Frequently Asked Question

Monday, October 12th, 2009

It’s once again time for our weekly feature, “Monday Morning’s Frequently Asked Question (FAQ).” All of these FAQs and their answers can be found on the Biomedical Library web site. Our goal is to make our blog readers more familiar with the Biomedical Library, its services, and policies.

This week’s question is:

“How do I get online with my personal laptop or PDA?”

You can connect your laptop or PDA to our wireless network which covers the entire Biomedical Library (except for stack levels 1-3). To do so, launch a web browser and you will be taken automatically to the wireless logon page to input your UCLA Logon ID and password.

If you have questions about your UCLA Logon ID, contact the Bruin OnLine Help Desk at 310.825.7452 or use the UCLA Logon ID web page.

<submitted by Paul Camp>

ScienceDirect Problems Reported

Monday, September 21st, 2009

ScienceDirect is currently experiencing problems when connecting from UC-eLinks or catalog records. Users encounter this error: “Sorry, your request can’t be processed due to a system problem. Contact the Help Desk if the problem persists. [SD-008]”

Elsevier is working to fix this problem, and currently expect to have it fixed by tomorrow morning.

<originally posted to CDLALERT-L, the CDL Alert List by Alison Ray>

New PubMed Special Queries: Electronic Health Record

Friday, September 4th, 2009

The importance of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) to the health care field is evident. But keeping on top of the current research can be a difficult task. There are so many variant keywords one can use to search – EHR, EMR, electronic data, etc.

PubMed recently expanded its Special Queries feature to include a search for articles on the Electronic Health Record. The Electronic Health Record search focuses on all aspects of the Electronic Health Record. Subjects include: implementation, attitudes, beliefs and use, data privacy, health data standards and consumer access to the EHR and personal health records (PHRs).
To access this feature, follow these steps:

  • Access PubMed at UCLA through the Biomedical Library homepage and click on PubMed at UCLA. Following the PubMed at UCLA link will enable your access to full-text articles through the UC-eLinks button.
  • On the PubMed website, click Special Queries under the heading PubMed Services the left, blue navigation bar.
  • Under “Queries Targeted for Clinicians and Health Services Researchers” click Electronic Health Records which will lead you to a page describing the search query.
  • Under MEDLINE/PubMed Search, click electronic health record search in PubMed to perform a concentrated search for articles dealing specifically with electronic health records.

Use this resource to stay up-to-date on EHRs, learn what is being done in the field, and for current, relevant literature that can be incorporated into future practice.

<submitted by Susan Camina>

ScienceDirect and Scopus will be unavailable on Saturday, August 29th

Friday, August 28th, 2009

ScienceDirect and Scopus will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance from approximately 11:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m tomorrow, Saturday, August 29th 2009.

Is there a Doctor in the House? No, but there’s a Computer and a Chat Room…

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

A few years ago, I was co-teaching a consumer health class to library school students. In addition to the traditional health websites, my colleague presented a few examples of user-generated content—sites where ordinary people were posting stories about their own health conditions on discussion lists or on their personal blogs for anyone to see. One particular example involved a young woman who had a suspicious mole that turned out to be a type of skin cancer. She posted her story and pictures on her blog, which elicited a flood of responses from people with their own stories. Another example was Ronda’s Migraine page, a support community that offers a journal area where people can post their own stories, a live chat area and discussion forums. This site was started in 1996 and is still going strong!

The adoption of social tools and technologies by patients and health consumers began over a decade ago, long before the term Web 2.0 was coined. The trend of using social networking sites for health information is examined in a June 2009 report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, The Social Life of Health Information by Susannah Fox and Sydney Jones. This report updates past research and highlights trends that have not been studied until now, including the use (or avoidance) of various social networking venues to seek health information, publish personal stories or contribute to discussions.

(more…)

Phase out of plug-in ports at Biomedical Library

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Effective Friday, March 13, 2009 plug-in Ethernet ports have been disabled for the Biomedical Library Stack Levels 6, 7, 8 and the 3rd Floor Graduate Study Room. In room 32-080C there are (4) four tables with (3) three power/data pods on them for medical, nursing and public health student use.

Table 1 & Table 2  (the pods on the end of each table) port 8 & port 11  —  port 14 & port 17
Table 3 & Table 4  (the pods on one end and middle of each table) port 19 & port 22  —  port 27 & port 30

The plug-in ports on the main floor of the Biomedical Library and other areas have not been disabled. Library Computing Services (LCS) will begin disabling plug-ins in other areas of the Biomedical Library soon. Updates will be posted to the Biomedical Library Blog at: http://blogs.library.ucla.edu/biomedical/

Essential Evidence Plus for PDAs: renew your registration now

Monday, January 5th, 2009

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.

Tips and Tricks: Citation Management Tools

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Do you use EndNote? If so, read on for some of my tips and tricks for this tool and another tool that might fit your needs better.

If you don’t use EndNote, use the comments to indicate what tools you use for keeping track of your citations. Then, we will post some tips and tricks for those tools too!

EndNote

Do you enter each reference by hand? Believe me…there is a better way. Let your favorite databases work for you! There are options in PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Global Health, and most other databases where you can either import the search results directly into your EndNote library or save them and import them. Either way, you are saving keystrokes and headaches. Need help with this? Just schedule a research consultation appointment with us.

Did you know you could link your PDF file for the article to the reference in your EndNote Library? You can! Depending on your version of the software, look for a Link to or File Attachments field in a record, then navigate to the PDF file and voila! EndNote is nifty…it organizes your references and some of those files on your computer too. Now, if only EndNote would organize my desk!

EndNote Web

Do you find yourself hopping from one computer to the next when you are doing your research? Okay…well I have a tool for you…EndNote Web! It is free for current UCLA students, faculty, and staff and, if you work with others, you can share specific references with them by using the Manage Sharing feature for that group of citations.

Want to know more about these and other citation management tools (such as Procite, Ref Works, or Reference Manager)? Check out our page on Citation Management Tools.

Do you have tips and tricks that you’d like to share for these and other citation managment tools? Please share them by leaving a comment below.

Papers: organize and store your PDFs

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

Store PDF files with Papers and create a customized, searchable library. Click and drag  PDFs on your computer into Papers and use Papers’ integrated search feature to look for new papers in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and more.  The Papers interface integrates features of other popular software packages to add value to the way you use scientific literature:

  • Create smart folders that automatically update as you import new articles into your library.
  • Use folders to organize related articles, and assign keywords to articles.
  • Select, highlight, and write notes on articles or figures.
  • Rate individual papers with a series of stars. 
  • Use tabbed browsing to view and compare multiple articles simultaneously.

Individuals must purchase a license for Papers, and it is only available for Mac OS X 10.4 and higher.

Who is citing you? Find out with Web of Knowledge!

Friday, July 11th, 2008

Set up a free account at Web of Knowledge to be notified when articles are cited. This can alert you to potential collaborators who are working on similar topics, assist you with locating articles on similar topics, and help you know how widely your work is being disseminated.

 The Web of Knowledge database (containing Science Citation Index and more) is interdisciplinary and includes citations to materials in the health and life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities.  Personalized accounts are free. Create one, and sign in on subsequent visits, by clicking the signin.jpg button at the top of any page inside the Web of Knowledge database.

You can set up citation alerts to send you an email or subscribe to an RSS feed.  To set up an alert, search Web of Knowledge for the paper you wish to use as the subject of the alert. Click on the title of the paper to view the full record (see screenshot below of a full record). chatfield3.jpg 

Click on the citationalertbutton.jpg button on the right-hand side of the page to set up an alert, which will be active for one year from the date of creation. You will receive an email whenever your article is cited by another article in the Web of Knowledge database.

To view all your alerts, subscribe to an RSS feed for a citation alert, or renew an alert for another year, click the mycitationalerts.jpg link at the top of any page inside the Web of Knowledge database.