For the first time ever, the BruinGo Flash Pass program will be available through summer quarter 2008. Show your BruinCard and the Flash Pass and ride the Big Blue Bus (Santa Monica Transit) or Culver CityBus for free all summer long. Read more about eligibility and purchase methods for the Pass on the BruinGo Transit Program web page. Hurry, because you must purchase your pass prior to July 25th!
Learn about tools you can use to organize your academic work this summer on the Biomedical Library blog. Between June 16 and July 21, you can read articles about software to help you manage PDFs and citations, the advantages of setting up accounts at Library-provided resources, how to incorporate RSS feeds, tables of content alerts, and other special features into your daily work, and social bookmarking and networking tools.
This post will focus on the social networking site Facebook. Facebook is a free website that is very popular on college campuses. (Many UCLA Library employees have Facebook profiles!) You might be most familiar with Facebook as a place to connect with friends or play games, but many in the academic world are also using Facebook to connect with colleagues and conduct scholarly work.
One popular way to use Facebook is to form or join groups. You can use groups to meet and network with colleagues.
Librarians from all 10 University of California campuses participate in the UC Librarians Facebook group. Members use the group to set up meetings, conduct discussions on topical issues in librarianship, and share web links. You can search for existing groups in your specialty area, like the Ecological Society of America , National Nurses Organizing Committee, or the American Dental Education Association Council of Students, or create your own.
You can also add applications to your Facebook profile to help you search for and locate information, like the UCLA Library Catalog or PubMed.
Facebook can be great place to conduct discussions, meet and keep up connections with far-flung colleagues, and locate important information. Leave a comment to tell us how you’re using Facebook to support your academic work!
Featured Resource: Cancer.gov
For over 70 years, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has been promoting research, disseminating results and providing training in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Cancer.gov, the NCI Web site, is an informative resource for this work. Bringing up to date information about drugs used to treat cancer, clinical trials and research funding opportunities, this site also includes authoritative, easily understandable patient education materials for various types of cancers and the PDQ (Physician’s Data Query) NCI’s comprehensive database of peer-reviewed summaries of the cancer literature. Much of the Cancer.gov content is also available in Spanish.
The Biomedical Library wants to hear from you! Through July 11th, 2008, the Biomedical Library will be conducting a survey regarding our print services. The results of this survey will help guide the decision-making about future printing services. The survey is available online or you can fill out a paper form at any of the following locations in the Biomedical Library:
Your feedback is very important to us and we appreciate your assistance!
The Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library has print and online resources to help you prepare for the USMLE Steps 1-3. To find books available in the library, search the UCLA Library Catalog using the keywords “examination questions” plus a subject (e.g., biochemistry). Access Medicine has textbooks and several of the Lange Review series books
available anytime from anywhere. Access Medicine also contains a version of the Lange Self-Assessment Tool, also know as USMLEasy.com, containing over 3,500 USMLE-formatted questions (you must create a free personalized account in order to take advantage of this feature). Question answers also include explanations referencing online texts for further reading.
If you’re off-campus, don’t forget to set up the UCLA proxy or VPN to access resources from anywhere.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) invites you to identify and share your best resources, tools, and ideas for improving access to the EPA’s environemntal information. The online discussion is being conducted through the EPA Partner Blog. Visit the blog to learn more about the project, but hurry: comments are accepted through June 13, 2008.
The Biomedical Library has trial access to the AccessSurgery database for the month of June 2008 for the months of June and July, 2008. This database, published by McGraw-Hill, provides objective, high-quality answers to surgical questions, 105 narrated videos, and Board Review tests and study materials. Clinically relevant information can be searched in an easy-to-use format for a surgical procedure or by alphabetical browsing. The database is updated regularly, both with new surgical videos and new reference textbooks as they are available.
The AccessSurgery database is available on-campus only for this trial period.
Please send your comments about the AccessSurgery trial by June 30, 2008 July 31, 2008 to Amy Chatfield, Outreach and Communications Coordinator, at achatfie@library.ucla.edu. You may also leave a comment on this blog post.
If you have questions about any of the Biomedical Library’s licensed databases or electronic resources, contact Janet Carter, Collections Coordinator at jcarter@library.ucla.edu or Tania Bardyn, Associate Director for Public Services, at bardyn@library.ucla.edu.
The University of California Libraries have launched a pilot version of a replacement for the current Melvyl Catalog, which contains records for library holdings at all ten UC campuses. Users are encouraged to test the pilot, called Next-Generation Melvyl, and offer feedback on how well it meets their needs. The UCLA version is available at http://ucla.worldcat.org. Please provide feedback using the survey link found in the upper right-hand corner of the search page.
The pilot, which will last at least six months, features a single interface that searches holdings in all UC Libraries, those of libraries around the world, and UC books digitized by Google. It searches for U.S. government publications and incorporates information from Medline and other databases to provide citations to articles in medicine, health, psychology, and other fields.
Next-Generation Melvyl search results are displayed with local records first, then records from the other UC campuses, then records from other libraries worldwide. From the individual records, users can check circulation status, place holds on items at their home campuses, and request items held elsewhere, both within the UC system and beyond.
Other features, many of which are new with this pilot version, include the ability to easily refine searches, build and share lists of library resources, view personal ratings and reviews of items, cite items in various styles, export citations in multiple formats, and search the catalog using several languages.
Following completion of the pilot phase of Next-Generation Melvyl, a decision will be made about whether to move forward with it or to pursue other options. For more information about the pilot, view the PowerPoint presentation on the University of California, Office of the President (UCOP) website. As always, your librarians are available to answer questions and provide help.
The Biomedical Library and the Technology and Learning Center housed in the Biomedical Library will alter their hours between June 2 and June 22, 2008.
The Biomedical Library will remain open until midnight between June 2 - 12. On June 13, the Library will close at 6 p.m. and will have reduced hours of operation through June 22:
June 14: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
June 15: 1 - 5 p.m.
June 16-19th: 7:30 a.m. - 7 p.m.
June 20: 7:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.
June 21: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
June 22: 1 -5 p.m.
Summer session hours will begin on June 23.
Between June 9 - 22, reference desk hours will be reduced. During the work week, the desk will be open from 10 a.m. - noon, and 1 -5 p.m. The reference desk will be closed on the weekends.
For complete information, view a schedule of Biomedical Library hours.
The Technology and Learning Center (TLC) will be closed for maintenance between June 16 - 20. The TLC will reopen on June 21 with updated computers and software. Read the TLC web page to find out more about the closure.
The Military & Government Collection is designed to offer current news pertaining to all branches of the military. This database offers a thorough collection of periodicals, academic journals, Congressional hearings and reports, and other related content. The database indexes nearly 400 titles, including Air Force Comptroller, Army Reserve Magazine, Defence Studies, JFQ: Joint Force Quarterly, Military Technology, Combat Edge, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Foreign Affairs, and Naval Forces. Cover-to-cover full text is provided for nearly 300 journals and periodicals.
Military & Government Collection is included in the UCLA Library’s Academic Search Complete database subscription. Please note that you must follow the numbered steps below in the exact order to access this database!
1. Open the UCLA A-Z List of Databases.
2. Search for “Academic Search Complete,” and click on the link to enter this database.
3. Once inside Academic Search Complete, select Military & Government Collection from the drop-down list of databases and select “Submit” (see the screenshot below). This will automatically select the Military & Government Collection as the sole database you are searching. Now you can search Military & Government Collection by typing search terms into the search boxes.
