DLnet

Launch of the NLH Gastroenterology & Liver Diseases Specialist Library

2006-02-09T11:27:00.000Z

Dear colleagues,

Please use the following text to alert your users to this new resource.
Many thanks

National Library for Health
Gastroenterology & Liver Diseases Specialist Library

The National Library for Health Gastroenterology & Liver Diseases Specialist Library (GLDSL) will be launched at the British Society of Gastroenterology annual conference Tuesday, 21st March 2006. The GLDSL will be available via http://www.library.nhs.uk/gastroliver/ after this date.

The Specialist Libraries are an integral part of the National Library for Health (NLH), a library and information service for the NHS, aiming to deliver a range of services on a 24x7 basis to support patient care, staff development and research. For further information visit http://www.library.nhs.uk/about/.The NLH Gastroenterology & Liver Diseases Specialist Library (GLDSL) draws together resources and information that is relevant, best evidence and current within these specialties. Although targeted at health professionals it also serves to inform patients and their carers.

The GLDSL project team is based at the Royal Free Hospital. It is led by Dr Martyn Caplin and supported by information specialists from the Royal Free Hospital Medical Library, UCL Library Services. The project team works closely with an editorial board, topic leads and key stakeholders, including the BSG.

The GLDSL relies on feedback from its users to help it develop. If you would like to contribute to the GLDSL or would like further information please email gastroliver@medsch.ucl.ac.uk.

Map of Medicine - new website

2005-12-09T14:55:00.000Z

Many of you will have looked at the Map of Medicine website in the last 18 months and left it wanting more information. I am pleased to tell you that a new and much improved site is now available. This site offers: new samples in the latest version of the product; provenance information (editorial methodology and sources; and list of pathway content. Although the sample doesn't show integrated use of the NLH, because this website is for use internationally, it does offer links to the NLH throughout. Go to www.medictomedic.com

Migration of DLNet Content to NLH

2005-12-01T09:59:00.000Z

Over the next few months NeLH is migrating to NLH. The DLNet pages will no longer be updated. Up to date content will begin appearing on the 'For Librarians' pages of NLH in the near future.

SSE Downtime

2005-11-17T16:07:00.000Z

NLH Single Search Environment temporarily unavailable 25th to 28th November
The NLH Single Search Environment (SSE) will be down for essential upgrades over these four days. During this period NLH users will be redirected to a temporary page which will allow them to access all other NLH resources and to the NeLH search as an alternative. SSE will be available again on 29th November. We are very sorry for any inconvenience that this will cause.

Please direct any queries via the NLH Feedback button

Regards

Sharon

Department of Health Promotes Health Libraries Week

2005-11-17T15:56:00.000Z

We have managed to get items in a number of Dept of Health Bulletins this month promoting Health Libraries Week and NLH . Click on the links to view:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/12/33/19/04123319.pdf (AHPs)

http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/12/25/40/04122540.pdf (Emergency Care)

http://www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Bulletins/MedicalDirectorsBulletin/BulletinMD/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4122407&chk=rEhWh7 (then follow recent news link - Medical directors)

Regards

Sharon

Spreading the message about the 'Evidence in Practice' DOAS Training Project

2005-11-03T12:48:00.000Z

Dear colleagues
Apologies for any cross-posting.
United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust, Severn & Wessex Deanery, and Avon Gloucestershire Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority are working together on a six month project to develop e-learning materials for newly qualified doctors. Our project specifically addresses the evidence-based practice and clinical guidelines elements of their 'Foundation Curriculum'.
The project is under the umbrella of the NHS 'Do Once And Share' programme - and so naturally we want to provide an opportunity for you to give us feedback - by registering with our 'Extended Reference Group'. We have established the ERG to inform, support, nudge, cajole, praise and (gently) criticise the project team - and crucially - to comment on pilot materials as they are developed. Your participation is entirely electronic, and is open to anyone interested.
To register with the ERG, please visit the following URL on our website;
http://www.ubht.nhs.uk/evidence-in-practice/erg.htm
Many thanks for reading this far...and we hope to hear from you.

James Osborne and Julie Smith
Do Once & Share Project
Education Centre
United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust
Bristol
BS2 8AE
UK
Tel 0117 342 0134
http://www.ubht.nhs.uk/evidence-in-practice/

Librarians With Class

2005-11-02T00:07:00.000Z

A blog for librarians who facilitate training. Librarians With Class their feed is at http://libswithclass.blogspot.com/atom.xml.

NHS Connecting for Health toolkit for communicators

2005-10-24T13:09:00.000+01:00

For info, the NHS Connecting for Health toolkit for communicators includes NLH materials and a syndicated article for use locally.
http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/publications/toolkitoct05/
Includes electronic versions of the A4 leaflet (folds out to A3) and the foldout business card.

Health Libraries Week toolkit

2005-10-20T10:40:00.000+01:00

The Health Libraries Week toolkit is now available on www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet. This includes a list of the materials you can order but PLEASE NOTE materials aren't ready just yet so please don't try ordering yet. We've been assured most materials will be ready for 31st October, and the internal mail envelopes and folders will be ready on 7th November. We appreciate this doesn't give you a great deal of time to get hold of materials - unavoidable delays were caused by awaiting new visual identity guidelines.

You'll also see a link to a syndicated article - this is included in the NHS Connecting for Health toolkit for communicators. You may wish to use the article and add in quotes from your local champions.

We'll be following Health Libraries Week with a short evaluation this year - we'll be in touch to ask you how it went, what worked well, what didn't ...

Best of luck with your Health Libraries Week activities and events - would be good if you could share here some of the things you have planned!

Study Day: E-learning and information literacy: initiatives and challenges, Leeds - 14 Nov 2005

2005-10-18T14:51:00.000+01:00

Joint IFM Healthcare and Libraries for Nursing Study Day

Lifelong learning is part of all healthcare professionals' lives, and e-learning and information literacy have important roles to play within it. This study day will be an opportunity to share experiences and gain ideas. It will consist of a mix of presentations, group discussions and opportunities to explore some on-line resources.

Presentations

Present and future challenges of information literacy (includes the question: how will Google scholar and metasearch engines change our lives?)
Peter Godwin, Academic Services Manager, London South Bank University
Implementing an information literacy audit in the context of nurse education
Alison Lahlafi, Faculty Team Librarian, and David Clarke, School of Healthcare, Leeds University
Key e-learning themes and developments
David Peacock, Knowledge Service Manager, Northumberland Tyne & Wear SHA
Creating multiple choice questions for a virtual learning environment for nurses
Karen Smith, York University
E-learning for health librarians
FOLIO Team, Sheffield University

Hands-on

RCN e-learning resources
Caroline Lynch and Angela Perrett, Royal College of Nursing

Workshop

How do we asses the effectiveness of information skills training?
Alison Brettle, Salford University, and Joanne Greenhalgh, Leeds University
This is an update of the extremely popular workshop held at the HLG conference in 2004

Booking form and provisional programme details are available on the IFM Healthcare Web site: http://www.ifmh.org.uk/studyday1105.html

If you require any further information, please contact:
Booking: Heather Williamson
Programme content: Jane Shelley or Susan Mottram
Venue and catering: Susan Mottram

Making an impact at meetings

2005-10-06T10:55:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Kieran over at FADE in Liverpool for highlighting this article from the BMJ careers section on how to make an impact at meetings - some tips to add to your list of ways to influence and negotiate with people!

Cheers
Fran

Tips for email success

2005-09-09T15:29:00.000+01:00

This article gives Ten copywriting tips for email success - might be useful for making sure any email newsletters, etc, you send, actually get read!

Fran

NLH RSS Directory - Preview

2005-08-15T14:03:00.000+01:00

Dear all
We're now pleased to be able to offer you the preview version of the NLH RSS Directory, available from the Preview link on the right hand side of the NLH homepage - www.library.nhs.uk.
The directory is designed to be both browsable by categories, and searchable. For those who are new to RSS, there are help files and tutorials to get you started, available from the right hand column of the directory itself.
The directory is still being populated with feeds - if you would like to submit a feed for inclusion, you can use the link on the right hand side of the page.
We'd be grateful for your feedback and comments on the directory before we go for a full launch later in the year - these can be sent to nelh@cfh.nhs.uk

Best wishes
Fran

Evaluating training

2005-08-12T17:11:00.000+01:00

Hi all
This week's Training Zone has an interesting article about evaluating training - the whole thing's at http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=143940&d=680&h=608&f=626

To summarise, the article talks about Kirkpatrick's 4 levels of evaluation - level 1 being the type of "happy sheet" that's often given out at the end of a session to see how satisfied people are with the session. It goes on to say:

"Whenever I am involved in an evaluation project, I advocate getting rid of the smile sheet completely, and replacing that tortured questionnaire with one closed question, plus an open follow-up to encourage respondents to reveal what really matters to them: “Would you recommend this course to a friend or colleague? Why or why not?” The response tells you unambiguously about the level of satisfaction of the learner, and any clarification offered tells you about the issues that really matter to that learner. That’s more than is called for at Level 1."

I think the article has a point - and it makes collating your evaluations a lot easier too!
Any thoughts, ideas, or examples of other useful questions that could be used to get an idea of how your sessions are being received?

Fran

Health Libraries Week (14 - 18 November 2005)

2005-08-01T11:03:00.000+01:00

For Health Libraries Week this year, we’re planning a national media campaign to complement the local awareness-raising campaigns that you undertake within your organisations.

We’re able to make use of the NHS Connecting for Health Media Relations team, who have suggested that the best way to sell a story to the media is to use case studies that demonstrate how library services (both electronic and physical) are used by frontline staff, and are ultimately benefiting patients.

We will use case studies in our communications materials including newsletters, leaflets, web copy, articles and some media relations activity. We will also build a database of case studies that you will be able to draw on for use in your own organisation’s publications, newsletter, etc.

The template has been designed to help us to gather the key information we need from you and your library users. However, we may contact the individuals concerned to gather further information, hence the need to ask for contact details.

If you have local champions, library users, trainees or other examples of people who would be willing to share their experiences of how they use library services and how they have helped benefit patients, please ask them to fill in the template, and either email back to nelh@cfh.nhs.uk or post to Fran Wilkie, NLH, Aqueous 2, Rocky Lane, Aston Cross, Birmingham, B6 5RQ.

In order to get articles into journals for November, we need to have responses back by 31st August, please (although responses returned after that time can be added to the database).

The template can be found at www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet/casestudytemplate.doc or follow the link from www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet

CASPuk Training Week 2005

2005-07-15T11:22:00.000+01:00

CASPuk Training Week 2005
In association with the CASP International Network and the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine

CASPuk Training Week 2005 is taking place from 5th - 9th September 2005. This popular week supports health and social care professionals from across the UK and around the world who wish to disseminate evidence-based practice and decision-making within their organisation or locality. The CASP model promotes a user-friendly, sustainable and cost-effective teaching approach, which has already been implemented in several countries.

This year, as in previous years, the CASPuk team will be joined by international trainers from the CASP International Network, who will facilitate the week's training and share their experience of evidence-based practice

New for 2005
This year, CASPuk Training Week will be run in parallel with the 11th Oxford Workshop on Teaching Evidence-Based Practice. The format of the week will be unchanged, but participants will have the added benefit of attending plenaries by some of the leading exponents of Evidence-Based Practice

Comments from previous participants
"I now feel more confident and feel I have the skills to facilitate CASP more comprehensively and creatively in my organisation"
"I'm pleased with wonderful teachers and so many useful materials"
"[The] course is excellent - met all my needs. The trainers were very helpful"
"I am now going to develop on-line and live journal club in my organisation. Also look at how CASP can facilitate clinical effectiveness and other groups in Trust"
"I understand a lot more than I did previously and I now feel confident that I could successfully run a critical appraisal workshop"

For more information, including the aims and objectives, programme, training team, costs, flyer and booking form, please go to http://www.phru.nhs.uk/casp/trweek05.htm

User Needs Study

2005-07-14T13:14:00.000+01:00

This has just been published on the NLH - For Librarians page http://www.library.nhs.uk/forLibrarians/ under Relevant Documents

Regards

Andy Richardson

Things you can do with RSS

2005-07-12T10:54:00.000+01:00

An interesting article that has some useful (and some daft) ideas for convincing people to start using RSS - http://timyang.com/wiki/doku.php?id=lists:thingsyoucandowithrss - if you've not had a go with RSS yet, you can download the workbook I wrote for the RSS Workshops we ran from the DLnet training materials page.

Any questions, do get in touch.

Fran

Pubmed, RSS and CAS

2005-07-08T07:58:00.000+01:00

The other day at Wrightington I offered my utopian vision of CAS services at a meeting of the LIHNN eResources network, subject specific material from selected journals or direct to full text. Pubmed offers us the ability to do this now. I have three test feeds out with a critical friend right now so I'll let you know how it goes.

Key issues so far:

Time to identify full text in MyNCBI, not a task to be taken lightly does take a while and is the capital city of Dullsville. Just think of the end result.

Search strategies have to take into account you are really after pre-medline records and therefore title words are the key.

First subscription to the feed will be scary, lots dragged back but once the user has handled that first batch I anticipate new stuff will be manageable.
Feeds if you want to see how it works or add constructive criticism are:

Obesity

Bipolar

Bariatric Surgery

I've also put links to the Fade Health News feeds at the bottom for any of you RSS heads out there.

Kieran

Kieran Lamb
Head of Library Services
Fade Library
Central Liverpool PCT
Hamilton House
24 Pall Mall
Liverpool
L3 6AL

0151 2852353
www.fade.nhs.uk

News Feeds from FADE

National and International Health News

Cheshire and Merseyside Health News

Cumbria and Lancashire Health News

Greater Manchester Health News

"Marketing Treasures"

2005-06-21T13:43:00.000+01:00

June issue now available at http://www.chrisolson.com/marketingtreasures/vol14/Vol14N6JUNE05.html

Assertive Communication and Influencing Workshops

2005-06-20T11:56:00.000+01:00

Dear all,
Further to the email that Alison sent on the 7th June, here are more details about the Assertive Communication Workshops she mentioned, which are designed to help you think about how to promote your services effectively and get your messages across to the right people. Places are limited to 30 for each workshop, and the London one on 6th September in particular is booking up quickly. The workshops will be very participative, and will give you the opportunity to look at your own workplace situations.

Times: Each event will start at 10am, and will finish by 4pm - lunch will be provided.

Dates and venues:
Wednesday 6th July - Leeds - Leeds Park Plaza hotel
Tuesday 26th July - London - Thistle Euston hotel
Thursday 28th July - Nottingham - Holiday Inn Nottingham
Tuesday 6th September - London - Radisson Grafton
Thursday 8th September - Wolverhampton - Novotel Wolverhampton
Monday 12th September - Manchester - Palace hotel, Manchester
Friday 16th September - Bristol - Novotel Bristol
Tuesday 27th September - Newcastle - Thistle Newcastle

To book a place, go to http://www.insitefulsurveys.com/Survey.asp?SI=287933310475 - you will receive a confirmation email, and more details will be sent nearer the time.

Overall Aim - to explore the different ways people can be influenced and to identify ways to develop assertive communication techniques

Objectives - at the end of the session delegates will have:

examined ways to increase their ability to influence in a range of situations
explored the difference between agressive, submissive and assertive behaviours
reviewed a number of assertive communication techniques
applied those techniques to a range of workplace situations

Course Content

Who do you need to influence and why?
identifying the underlying sources of power when influencing
building effective relationships
recognising the effect different forms of behaviour have on the outcome of a situation
assertive communication techniques, including choosing the right words, positive body language and saying no

Map of Medicine

2005-06-17T20:13:00.000+01:00

Medic-to-Medic, producers of the Map of Medicine, is now a trading division of T&F Informa UK Limited http://www.tfinforma.com

I hope to post further progress with the LSPs over the summer.

PRODIGY on NLH

2005-06-16T10:43:00.000+01:00

Hi all
Please note that there is now a link to PRODIGY from the National Library for Health homepage - www.library.nhs.uk - under the Guidance section.
PRODIGY guidance is included in the NLH search engine.

Fran

Get ready for Health Libraries Week

2005-06-07T15:12:00.000+01:00

Following feedback from librarians, it has been decided to re-run Health Libraries Week this Autumn, from 14-18 November. Like last year, the campaign will be a mix of locally and nationally organised events and activities. Within NLH, we're starting to produce a range of general purpose and more specific promotional materials (based on ideas sent in to us). Feedback from earlier campaigns suggest that the most difficult aspect of promotion is being able to talk to the most influential people, so we are running a series of "Assertive Communication" workshops around the country during July and September. The programme is yet to be finalised but it is likely each workshop will run from around 10am to 4pm. - booking form now available at http://www.insitefulsurveys.com/Survey.asp?SI=287933310475. Over the coming weeks, a web page for Health Libraries Week will be published - an announcement will be made here when it's available.

NLH Promotional Materials

2005-05-24T14:48:00.000+01:00

Hello all
We've had several requests recently for NLH promotional materials, so I thought I should let you know the situation.
Stock levels are very low at the moment, for a number of reasons, not least of which is that our budget was frozen while we transferred from the NHSIA to NHS Connecting for Health. We're now at the stage of being able to design, commission and re-order materials, although the new processes for the new organisation mean that this may take a little longer. Our plan is to re-order some items quickly, but to concentrate on getting stocks of materials in place over the summer, in time for Health Libraries Week (14th-18th November - more info coming soon). We're using the information from the recent survey that many of you filled in to choose items for this year. I'll keep you updated on what will be available as I have more news.

In the meantime, I've put a temporary page up on DLnet to show what items are currently available in what quantities. You can find the page at http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet/publicitymaterials.asp (it's also linked from the Promote page within DLnet).

Cheers
Fran

NeLH Migration to NLH

2005-05-10T14:56:00.000+01:00

Dear all
As you'll be aware, the National Library for Health website (www.library.nhs.uk) is up and running, and will continue to grow in the services it offers to users over the coming months and years. There is a lot of development work going on within the NeLH team, to ensure that services from NeLH are incorporated into the National Library for Health successfully. This posting is intended to be the first in a series of communications to keep you informed of developments, so that you can plan training sessions and inform end-users accordingly

Key messages

The NeLH web address and home page will not disappear for some time to come, and certainly not before March 2006.
You will see changes to both the NeLH home page and the NLH site as more services migrate to the NLH site and branding. However, not all of the NeLH content will migrate, as we intend to re-configure some services for the NLH site.Certain content will migrate to www.library.nhs.uk and be re-branded or re-configured as new services.
For example:
· The National Service Framework Zones will be reconfigured. Specialist Libraries will have a role in cataloguing key resources, reducing the need for the NSF portal pages. There will also be current awareness services on NSF topics offered as RSS feeds. The existing full-text html section will be taken down. An NLH NSF gateway will direct users to these new services.
· Specialist Libraries will be re-designed to take on the look of NLH and will migrate to www.library.nhs.uk. The links on the NeLH home page will be re-directed to these updated versions of the Specialist Libraries.

Some content will be wound down on NeLH and will not be replaced on NLH, for example:
· Some of the Editorial Resources on the home page will be archived, whilst some will be taken up by the Knowledge Management Specialist Library
· Professional Portals as they appear on the NeLH site will be wound down, but replaced with current awareness and other services in conjunction with professional bodies, societies, etc

Key milestones
The migration will occur in three distinct phases, with warning and details of changes circulated in advance, so that you will be able to plan for changes. The precise changes to service will be discussed with providers such as Specialist Libraries, but are likely to be in:

July 2005
Sept 2005
Jan 2006
March 2006

News and information about Migration
Details of each phase will be emailed, and will appear within the “For Librarians” section of NLH at www.library.nhs.uk/forlibrarians

Contact for individual queries and feedback
If you have any queries, comments or suggestions, please contact me in the first instance -

Best wishes

Fran

NLH news on primary care

2005-04-25T10:14:00.000+01:00

Sue Lacey-Bryant has been commissioned by NLH to lead a project on support for primary care and public health librarians. Sue will focus on ways to share good practice and support collaborative working, as well as promoting the value and contribution of library and information services. This work incorporates the development of a Primary Care Current Awareness Service and contributing to wider NLH developments.

Test for RSS

2005-04-12T11:51:00.000+01:00

Test posting for the RSS training taking place today!

Fran

New NLH site demo

2005-04-11T16:28:00.000+01:00

Hello all

Just to let you know that I've made a new robodemo of the NLH site, in case anyone wants it for showing what the site looks like.
It's available from the DLnet robodemos page.
If you want to download and run it on your own computers, use the bottom links to the zip files.
There are 2 versions - one that runs once and stops, and a rolling one for use on stands, etc.

Let me know if you have any problems - drop me an email.

Fran

IFM Healthcare Study Day - 19 April 2005

2005-04-06T17:53:00.000+01:00

- Good news: it's not too late to book - places are still available!

*******************************************************************
Meeting the challenge of evidence-based health management: the information professional's role
King's Fund, London

Tuesday 19 April 2005
*******************************************************************

By popular demand IFM Healthcare is holding a Study Day on the information professional's role in evidence based practice for health and social care managers.

The study day will be looking at:

how information professionals can better communicate with managers: taking a professional approach
an example of a "real life" approach - the challenges faced by information professionals providing information services for managers
how health managers make decisions
their use of the evidence base to influence practice
can information professionals' experience of supporting clinicians in evidence-based practice be transferred to managers? If so, how?

The study day will be a mix of presentations, group discussions and practical workshops.

Speakers include:

Lynette Cawthra, Manager, Information & Library Service, Kings Fund, London
David Naylor, Programme Director, Leadership & Development Programme, Kings Fund, London
Suzette Woodward, National Patient Safety Agency
Andrew Booth, Director of Information Resources, School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield
Jacqueline Verschuere, Clinical Librarian, Clinical Sciences Library, University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire
Sue Lacey Bryant, Independent Information Specialist

Cost:
Members/students £65+VAT (£76.37)
Non members £80+VAT (£94.00)
Non members + IFM Healthcare membership for 2005 £85+VAT (£99.87)

For more details see: http://www.ifmh.org.uk/studyday0405.html
Online booking form http://www.ifmh.org.uk/bookform0405.html
Word version of booking form: http://www.ifmh.org.uk/bookform0405.doc

If you have any queries about the Study Day, please contact the IfMH Study Day coordinators:

Heather Williamson heather.williamson@npfit.nhs.uk, tel: 07879414391
Susan Mottram s.j.mottram@leeds.ac.uk, tel: 0113 343 6974

Change requests for Cochrane on Wiley InterScience

2005-03-21T12:02:00.000Z

This message was sent to the Cochrane Library User Group:

At it's February 2004 meeting, the Steering Group approved the procedure for introducing new developments / changes to The Cochrane Library on Wiley InterScience. This involves an annual introduction of new features or enhancements, with Issue 1 of every year.

In a nutshell, the process is...
1. All requests for new functionality, features, corrections, changes to the way information is displayed, additional content or services must be submitted no later than April 2005.
2. Change request forms are to be used to submit requests. This greatly helps in the evaluation and prioritisation of developments. While all requests will be considered, we cannot guarantee
that they can be implemented.
3. Publication Policy Group (PPG) will review all requests and prioritise for consideration and review by Wiley.
4. PPG and Wiley will together agree the developments for implementation.
5. Requirements documents, wireframes, information architecture and functional specifications prepared for review between June and September 2005.
6. Development and testing will take place in latter half of 2005.
7. The October Colloquium in Melbourne will provide an opportunity to showcase forthcoming enhancements.
8. Enhancements will appear in Issue 1, January 2006 (or as per an agreed schedule)

To request changes, you must use the Change Request form, and send them in by 30th April 2005.
I've put a copy of the form up in the box on the right hand side of the DLnet homepage

Fran

NLH CPD study

2005-03-18T12:03:00.000Z

As you may know, NLH commissioned a study into learning and development needs of library staff. The study has been carried out by Christine Urquhart and colleagues at University of Wales Aberystwyth and will report shortly. The report will be shared online on the NLH website.

To mark the final report of the study and to talk about how we take forward some of the recommendations, NLH is running an event on 5 May. The venue is yet to be confirmed but it will be in Birmingham. The day will start at around 10.30-11.00 and finish at 3.00. The day will include a presentation from Christine, group discussion, panel discussion and of course, lunch!

If you're interested in attending, please can you email me alison.turner@nhsia.nhs.uk. Details are a bit vague but in order to get the date in busy diaries, I thought it would be best to at least get the date to you now!

"Blogs And Podcasts Can Harm Your Job Prospects"

2005-03-15T19:56:00.000Z

An interesting article warning bloggers of the hazards of ill considered blogs. The comments at the bottom of the article contain several links to related websites. The article can be found on the Health Informatics Community website. This is the summary from last weeks HIC e-bulletin:

"Commenting on your working life in blogs and podcasts over the internet could cost you your job. A British employee faced losing his job in January for gross misconduct for criticising his employer in a blog."

Click here to read the article

Advertising campaign

2005-03-11T12:44:00.000Z

In response to Andy's earlier question, here's some more information about the current advertising campaign.

It grew out of the UK-wide collaboration from Health Libraries Week. As journals cover the whole UK, it was felt a campaign advertising all 4 electronic libraries (and promoting local library services) was appropriate.

The idea of an ad campaign was mentioned back at the roadshows last summer but we were unable to get the adverts placed in time for HLW, so didn't subsequently mention it in our plans for the week. We appreciate this wasn't sufficient information and advance notice for library services would have been preferable.

As Ann Wales has described in her posting to lis-medical, the term "Knowledge grid for health" was a metaphor designed to sum up seamless access to information across the UK - kind of like the National Grid. It's not a product or service, and apologies for any confusion this has caused. As all four countries have differing health agendas it was necessary to use a "neutral" and previously unused phrase to enable a joint advertising campaign.

Here are the journals which featured in the campaign:
Diabetes Digest
British Journal of Midwifery
Nursing Standard
British Journal of Psychiatry
British Journal of Dermatology
Journal of Infection
Archives of Disease in Childhood
Thorax
Airways Extra
Emergency Medicine Journal
Emergency Nurse
Ambulance UK
Dentistry
Paediatric Nursing
Pharmacy Product Guide
Geriatric Medicine
BMJ Clinical Research

These were selected on the basis of readership and advice from Specialist Library teams. The GP edition of BMJ was excluded as GPs had already received NLH resource cards with their latest issue of Clinical Evidence.

We hope this helps to clarify some of the thinking behind the campaign. We appreciate some lessons have to be learned from the campaign and these will inform preparations for Health Libraries Week 2005.

Alison and Fran

Goodbye

2005-03-08T11:34:00.000Z

Dear All

As this is my penultimate working day I thought I would blog a farewell. Been great working with DLNet and has been good meeting many of you at events.

I thank Alison and Fran for their support especially over the last year which has been... challenging.

It's been fun (mostly).

Fran and Alison will continue to support you and I hope you will support them over the next year which maybe as challenging.

Best Wishes to you all.

Nick

Free marketing newsletter

2005-03-07T08:49:00.000Z

Just came across this on an email list - Chris Olson (who does a lot of work with SLA) has a free newsletter which you can read on the web or sign up to have it sent by email. Marketing Treasures : http://www.chrisolson.com/marketingtreasures/

IT Safety site

2005-02-25T17:16:00.000Z

This looks like a good site for librarians to recommend to their users. The following appeared in today's "Government Computing weekly" e-newsletter:

"Government pushes IT safety
A new public service has been launched to help protect home computer users and micro businesses from online threats"

To read the article please click here

To visit the site please click here

Allison

National Knowledge Grid for Health

2005-02-25T11:20:00.000Z

There is an advert in this week's BMJ encouraging NHS staff in all regions of the UK to make the most of their electronic resources. There is a card with url details of how to register to get Athens access for your particular area of NHS in the UK.

So - this is to alert NHS libraries and trainers of the possible influx of interest on Athens registration and training requests over the coming week.

If I may make one comment. What could be regarded as a national advertising campaign through a high profile journal needs some sort of co-ordination - especially before the ad gets printed. Not only do we look a bit stupid if users come in brandishing cards we don't know about but we may not have the immediate capacity to properly train the initial influx of new users.

Also the phrase "National Knowledge Grid for Health" is a concept some of us have never come across before.

DLNet is presumably the ideal medium to co-ordinate such advertising campaigns and has not mentioned anything about this advert.

Library Clipart

2005-02-21T10:50:00.000Z

Hello
Just found this website, with some free library images - www.libraryclipart.com
While it is free, you can't just download them - you have to email and ask for a particular image, and then they'll email the file to you.
Lots of them are more aimed at public libraries, but you might find something of use!

Fran

"Making sense of RSS" - a pilot workshop

2005-02-16T08:29:00.000Z

Dear all

As the use of RSS and news feeds increases on the NLH website, we thought we would trial a "Making Sense of RSS" workshop, for those people who feel that they don't know much about RSS or how they could use it within their library services.

If the pilot workshops are successful and useful, we will look at running them in different locations around the country.

There are 2 dates available in Manchester, with a maximum of 12 places available on each:

Tuesday 12th April - 10am - 1pm
Monday 18th April - 1pm - 4pm

Venue: Waulk Mill, Bengal Street, Ancoats, M4 6LN (5 mins in a taxi, or about 20 mins walk from Piccadilly - map and parking info available on request!)

The objectives of the session are:

to raise awareness amongst library staff of RSS as a method of informing health professionals of clinical information
to give library staff an opportunity for guided hands-on practice with RSS feeds and readers

The sessions are being provided free of charge by the NeLH - you will have to make your own travel arrangements.

If you would like to book a place on one of the Manchester sessions, please email NeLH, stating which date you would prefer. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and you will receive confirmation of your booking by email.

Best wishes
Fran

Skin Conditions Specialist Library

2005-02-11T14:36:00.000Z

Hello all
Further to the launch of the Skin Conditions SL, there is now a POD-format flyer available (scroll down the page a little), and a Robodemo for doing off-line demonstrations of the site (use the 2nd link to download and unzip the file to save onto your own pcs).
I've been experimenting with Robodemo, and the one I've made for skin is a bit more interactive, asking you to click in various places, and type into the search box - would be grateful for feedback about this new style of demo (had comments previously about them being too passive) - all comments to the NeLH inbox please.

Cheers
Fran

Emergency Care and Diabetes Specialist Library flyers

2005-01-26T16:04:00.000Z

Also, there are updated versions of the POD templates for these leaflets, available from www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet/pod.asp

Cheers
Fran

Robodemo for Screening Specialist Library

2005-01-26T16:02:00.000Z

Just to let you know that there is a new robodemo for the Screening Specialist Library available from www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet/robodemos.asp - you can run the Shockwave version in your web browser, or download the zipped file, save it on your computer, and use it for off-line demos.

Any comments, please email.

Cheers

Fran

EBM for librarians

2005-01-25T15:09:00.000Z

Are you interested in learning about evidence-based practice? Would you like to use your information and teaching skills to assist health professionals to find good quality evidence? If so, read on...

The NeLH Librarian Development Programme is pleased to offer sponsorship for 5 librarians to attend the "Workshop on the Practice of Evidence-Based Medicine/Mental Health" run by the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM), Oxford. You will have the opportunity to gain knowledge of critical appraisal, and experience in the practice of evidence-based health care at the 3 day workshop in March (21st - 23rd): http://www.cebm.net/view_course.asp?course_id=7
Thanks to a successful pilot scheme that included librarian tutors in the main EBM workshop in September 2004, this year librarian tutors are required again to teach on the 5 day EBM workshop in September: http://www.cebm.net/view_course.asp?course_id=1. Librarians can practice and enhance the skills learnt from attending the March workshop, and will teach other participants to find good quality evidence.

NeLH Sponsorship covers the March workshop fee of £850 which includes course materials, refreshments, lunches and workshop dinner. Ideally, applicants must be available to participate in both the March and September 2005 workshops. If you are able to teach at the September workshop, your fees, accommodation and meals will be covered by the course organisers.
Applicants would be responsible for organising their own accommodation and travel for the March workshop.

You must be employed involved directly in teaching searching skills to health professionals in the NHS. Librarians that are not employed by the NHS are eligible to apply for the places on the course, but priority will be given to NHS librarians or academic librarians providing services to NHS staff.
If you're interested in this opportunity, please send a few paragraphs to Fran by 21st February, outlining your skills and background, and why you would like to attend this EBM workshop. You'll need to gain your line manager's approval in order to receive sponsorship so that we can be sure you will be given time to attend the courses.

Clore Leadership Programme

2005-01-12T09:39:00.000Z

I came across this through a library source (can't remember which) around Christmas (hence the fuzzy memory!!).

Clore Leadership Programme : "aims to help in cultivating a new generation of cultural leaders for the UK. Fellows are selected annually, from the cultural sector or beyond, to undertake a year-long programme of work, research, training and secondment designed to develop the leadership skills and experience of each individual"

Last year's intake included librarians. This year's applications begin next week.

http://www.cloreleadership.org/index.htm

Single Search goes live

2005-01-10T09:04:00.000Z

Message from Colin Davies, Single Search Environment Project Manager....

The National Library for Health single search engine (SSE) is now live and is available at www.library.nhs.uk. This is the first phase of the National Library for Health (NLH) website and work is now beginning on phase 2.

We have had a great response to the initial acceptance testing completed by librarians for the single search environment. Further testing of user navigation and searching is scheduled for mid January and is being undertaken by an external organisation.

Phase 2 will focus on implementing recommendations made during the testing period, connecting additional resources (including locally purchased resources) and the localisation and personalisation of the NLH site. Some consultation work has taken place, led by the LKDN Informatics, and further consultation will take place.

More resources will be made available via the single search engine, but this takes time, as 'connectors' have to be built. The SSE team recognise that there may be some confusion as to which site (NeLH or NLH) to access. Managers should decide, but please be aware that resources will migrate from the NeLH site to the NLH site over the next few months and will be incorporated into the NLH single search directory, which provides direct links to individual resources.

Single Search Environment

2005-01-07T14:41:00.000Z

Thanks to those of you who contributed to our testing in December - 53 of you sent in feedback after taking part. Some changes have been made to the SSE as a direct result of this, other suggestions were already on the list of future development work, and other comments have been added to a list for discussion by the team. All the feedback was incredibly helpful. For a summary of the feedback, the responses from the SSE team, and details of what changes have been made, please go to http://www.library.nhs.uk/forLibrarians/ and click on the first link under Relevant Documents. If you didn't take part in the testing, and want to see what each numbered item refers to, there is also a link to the testing document from the same page.
If you wish to comment further, please email nelh@nhsia.nhs.uk

The search will go live on the NLH site (www.library.nhs.uk) on Monday 10th January. Work on the next phase then begins in earnest. We are also having some usability testing carried out independently, which will help to inform future developments and improvements.

To help inform end users about the search, the options available, and the types of resources they will find in their results, there is now a new 2-page template on the DLnet POD page - http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet/pod.asp, called NLH Search - quick introduction. There is space for you to add your own library details - you'll need to choose the Save option when you click on the link to download the file.

There are also the robodemo and powerpoint files available from http://www.library.nhs.uk/searchdemo/, for any offline demonstrations you might do.

Best wishes

Fran Wilkie
on behalf of the SSE Team

Super Librarian!

2005-01-06T09:16:00.000Z

And this site amused me no end - quite fancy a super librarian laptop bag!
http://www.superlibrarian.org/

You can check if you are a super librarian here: http://www.superlibrarian.org/Resources/sl10ways.htm

F

Promotional ideas from America

2005-01-06T09:14:00.000Z

Hi all
Just noticed this page from the ALA - http://www.ala.org/ala/pio/campaign/nlw/nationallibraryweek.htm
Maybe some ideas for your libraries, and some forward thinking for another health libraries week....?
Cheers
Fran

Resource Alert - The Cochrane Library

2004-12-17T15:55:00.000Z

New Resource Alert for the Cochrane Library is available at http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet/resourcealerts.asp

Cheers
Fran

2004-12-17T14:49:00.000Z

A NLH News Feed has been added to the ForLibrarians section of the NLH web site: http://www.library.nhs.uk/forLibrarians/

This is intended to keep you up to date with developments as they happen. You can read the news feed in three different ways:
- by visiting ForLibrarians pages http://www.library.nhs.uk/forLibrarians/
- by subscribing to the feed using an aggregator such as SharpReader or Bloglines – link for the feed : http://nlhnews.blogspot.com/atom.xml
- by visiting the blog at http://nlhnews.blogspot.com

As this is a new way of delivering news to you, we’d be interested to hear your feedback.

Law librarians say technology has them more in demand

2004-12-17T14:23:00.000Z

Article in Memphis Business Journal - although a different sector, will sound very familiar! http://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/stories/2004/12/13/focus4.html?page=1

Better Information, Better Choices, Better Health

2004-12-17T09:03:00.000Z

Better Information, Better Choices, Better Health

A new document from the DoH covering health information issues with a focus on the needs of patients.

It seems to contain lots of NLH style material but no specific mention of NLH. No use of the L word at all in fact! Does anyone know which search engine they are referring to here? Is it the SSE or is it the new Google based search on nhs.uk?

Surprised to see that they have plumped for a "badge quality on the web" approach.

An interesting read...

NLH work on cpd needs of library staff

2004-12-01T15:02:00.000Z

NLH has commissioned a study into training and development needs of library staff. This work is being carried forward in partnership with LKDN and Health Libraries Group. Following a competitive tender, the University of Wales Aberystwyth were awarded the contract to carry out this study.

The work involves 3 "chunks" of work:

desk research, reviewing existing training needs analyses
interviews with opinion leaders
2 workshops for library staff (advertised via SHA leads, lis-medical, lis-nursing) : Manchester, 29 November; London, 13 December

We’ve had some feedback from people unable to attend who still want to contribute. So, the Aber team have compiled a list of questions which you're invited to comment on…. Please note this applies to ALL library staff.

These questions have also been forwarded to SHA library leads and LKDN members, who may be collating the responses in your area. Please can you send responses to nelh@nhsia.nhs.uk, preferably by 13 December. Additional comments welcomed. Many thanks!

---------------------------------------------------------

QUESTIONS

How does the CILIP qualifications framework map to your needs - for professional qualification and for re-validation? What might the impact of UKCHIP be? What are the accreditation needs of different groups of library staff - managers, specialists, trainers, assistants...? What matters most to you locally?
More information available at http://www.cilip.org.uk/qualificationschartership/FrameworkofQualifications/

What should be delivery locally and how?
What's best delivered nationally and how?
Underpinning this is the problem all too familiar to those who provide database training is that you can provide the training, but how is it linked to practice problems, and how do learners practise their skills and gain confidence? You get the training - but how does your practice improve afterwards?

Recent evidence suggests that the current priorities include knowledge management and intranet management, content management of web sites, strategic and financial management (particularly for outreach and cross departmental working), persuading and influencing, support for e-learning (and teaching).

What are the advantages and disadvantages of mentoring, buddying, coaching? What has your experience been? How would mentoring/buddying/coaching prepare you for future career roles? How does this work for people in solo librarian positions? Would you be prepared to be a mentor/buddy/coach? What would you gain from the process, if anything?

Clinical librarians and outreach work has been viewed as an add-on to 'normal' library activity. Should we really be debating whether clinical librarian approaches and outreach are the norm? Librarians - almost as a side-effect of their professional route - have been isolated within their organisations. What career routes can you see in other areas of health informatics that might offer career pathways out of the library - as well as into the library?

NHSU news

2004-12-01T13:40:00.000Z

From a DH press release (available on http://www.nhsu.nhs.uk) :

The new ALB structure will [...] bring together the work of the NHS Modernisation Agency, the Leadership Centre and the NHSU into a single NHS Institute for Learning, Skills and Innovation placing innovation and learning at the heart of the NHS
The new NHS Institute of Learning, Skills and Innovation will promote excellence and innovation across the health system incorporating the work currently carried out by the NHS University and the Modernisation Agency. It will enhance service delivery in the NHS by placing innovation, learning and leadership development at the heart of the NHS in an integrated and efficient manner

LIScareer.com

2004-11-30T11:33:00.000Z

Just came across LIScareer.com http://www.liscareer.com/ following recommendation on one of the blogs i subscribe to. Has some useful stuff on it.

Muir Gray's Librarian Manifesto

2004-11-24T13:50:00.000Z

Dear all
Below is Muir Gray's 5 point Librarian Manifesto. This is his personal manifesto which he uses to champion librarians - it covers the sort of things he says at what is sometimes called the "highest level of decision-making", to try to bring librarianship onto an equal footing with IT in the minds of those at that level. Muir is not a librarian, but believes whole-heartedly in the value and skills of the library profession, and so uses his manifesto and his position outside the profession to champion us wherever and whenever he can.

More librarians
More librarians close to clinicians and management; the librarian is the most valuable resource in the library and they are even more valuable outside the library
The library service to be as highly valued as IT
Better valued librarians
Librarians empowered to run knowledge systems delivering knowledge where and when it is needed

Map of Medicine press release

2004-11-23T20:07:00.000Z

Please go to the Map of Medicine website to read the press release about Medic-to-Medic's contract with Fujitsu, Local Service Provider for the southern cluster. Please take the opportunity to register your interest and access four sample patient journeys.

Barrow SWIMS launch

2004-11-18T11:03:00.000Z

Barrow SWIMS launch
Originally uploaded by Library Comms.

Mr John Loy, Learning Resources Development Manager
Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust and Sally Chaloner

John Reports "We used the opportunity primarily to launch SWIMS - the SW library catalogue - but HLW was all around and we have begun advising people of the transition from NeLH to NLH. I've certainly been plugging the new Mental Health E-books across the Trust since yesterday.

We had an amazing turnout for the event - between 40-50 people in the library for a free lunch. This coupled with a guest star proved quite a draw. The photo is of me and Sally Challoner, one of the local newsreaders from BBC's Points West who came along to cut the ribbon for us. I think the photo demonstrates rather well why she's on the telly and I'm not. (Library card shown larger than actual size)"

If you have taken photos of HLW please send us your photos so we can share them. Nelh@nhsia.nhs.uk Thanks!

Magnetic Badges- a warning

2004-11-17T22:21:00.000Z

Please be aware that the magnets for attaching the NLH badges are capable of corrupting magnetic media.

I strongly recommend keeping credit cards, tapes, hard drives, monitor screens away from them.

Nick

Official Launch of National Library for Health

2004-11-17T21:48:00.000Z

Today at 1pm the National Library for Health was launched by Dr Muir Gray, Secretary to the National Knowledge Service at the Royal Free Medical Library.

With Dr Ben Toth acted master of ceremonies The event consisted formal demonstrations by Fran Wilkie, a presentation by Muir and then a formal opening declaration.

While a press conference was underway participants were able to eat lunch and have informal demonstrations on QA, Mental Health ebooks, SSE and the Map of Medicine.

The event was attended by over 70 people including NHS librarians, independent librarians, knowledge suppliers together with Senior Management from Trust and NPfIT personnel.

Our very grateful thanks go FDI (who paid) and Betsy and her team (who hosted the event).

Health Management Briefing

2004-11-17T09:31:00.000Z

Dear All

It is planned that a briefing on NLH/NeLH Health Management Specialist Library by the NHS Confederation will hit the desks of Senior NHS Managers tomorrow (Thursday). Along with the document was a letter from Muir Gray paying tribute to librarians and inviting them to visit your library during HLW. Two NLH Resource Cards were also included to encourage attandance (but you might like to contact your board to help them fill in the blanks (on the card) or offer a new one if they have lost them.

Letter text:

[HLW Logo] [NLH Logo]

Dear Colleague

Re Your health library

I hope you find the NHS Confederation briefing about the Health Management Specialist Library a useful introduction to the trusted resources that have been pulled together to support your knowledge needs.

We have sent this briefing to you during Health Libraries Week, during which your Trust librarians will be demonstrating training and promoting the use of high quality knowledge resources purchased by the NHS both in your library and as virtual resources on the Internet.

As a non-librarian I would like to pay tribute to the skills of librarians and ask you to visit a library during Health Libraries Week. Health librarians can make a major impact on both clinical practice and management, although of course their numbers are limited and the demands placed on them are great. The NeLH has been investing resources to develop the skills of librarians not only to help them flourish even more in the digital age but also to help them become even better at evidence-based decision-making.

The most valuable resource in any library is the librarian but they can be even more valuable outside the library. This year we have seen many excellent examples of clinical librarianship and outreach librarianship supporting both primary care and public health professionals. I very much hope that you do visit your library during the week and find this briefing useful.

Kind regards

J A Muir Gray, CBE, DSc, MD, FRCP, FRCPSGlas.
Director, National electronic Library for Health

Enc. Two NLH resource cards to remind you (and a colleague) of your Athens Username. Please visit your library or www.library.nhs.uk to obtain the username and password.

Hope you are having a successful week!

Nick

SSE - launch delayed

2004-11-15T17:02:00.000Z

Dear Colleagues
Plans for the official launch of the National Library for Health are progressing well and we look forward to seeing many of our colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital on the 17th November. This event will generate interest in the services that the NLH has to offer now, and the developments that are in the pipeline for the coming months. I am aware that many of you have activities planned for next week to demonstrate the new service to your clinicians.
With regards to the single search component, in response to feedback during our last round of testing, we have asked FDI for some extra development work and there just isn't time to complete this and give you all sufficient time to familiarise yourselves with this, before the 17th November. Therefore, after much debate, we have decided to introduce the search element of the NLH service in stages.

The new programme for the SSE roll-out will now be as follows:
17th November: The official NLH launch - including an overview and a demonstration of the SSE to generate awareness and interest amongst the press and clinicians in the new service.
Development work and testing will continue into early December.
The test site will then be made available to library staff during December to allow you to familiarise yourselves with the search and how it works.
10th January 2005: the search will go live

We believe that this new timetable will ensure that when the service is made available to clinicians, it offers a service of the highest quality, and all our colleagues are really familiar with what it can do. A rolling demonstrator of the search engine has been created and can be seen at http://www.library.nhs.uk/searchdemo and is available now to provide you with a demonstration of the key features of the new service.
New developments will continue to be added to the www.library.nhs.uk site over the coming months, so we would ask that you help us in encouraging end-users to move from the current NeLH site to the new site over the next few months. The current NeLH site will continue as it is until at least spring 2005.
We appreciate that many of you have put a lot of hard work into preparing for Health Libraries Week and the launch of the new site and search. Health Libraries Week is a great opportunity to promote your library as well as electronic resources.
Kind regards
Ben Toth, NLH Programme Director & Robin Murray, Managing Director Fretwell Downing Informatics

Single Search Engine Delay

2004-11-15T15:29:00.000Z

Having read the communications proposals in the Communications and Consultation Plan I'm a little confused why DLNet blog has not been used as a method of communication to keep people informed of the delay in Single Search Engine. Particularly as it has the immediacy of RSS feeds which would be advantageous considering the lateness of information on the delay.

Notes from HLW Call on 3rd November

2004-11-09T09:44:00.000Z

The call gave a quick run down of what's happening during HLW:

New NLH site going live on Monday 15th Nov, with the directory of resources, Hitting the Headlines and news, a preview area, a For Librarians area, and an About NLH area
The Single Search is being launched on Wednesday 17th November - this means that for Monday and Tuesday of HLW, the search will not be available, although a demo of the search will be - we're sorry about this, but our hands are tied with the development teams
The official launch on the 17th will launch the search, the first set of titles from the new Mental Health e-book collection, the pilot Question and Answering service for Primary Care, and some new Map of Medicine pages

There are also some more NLH pens in stock, and there is still time to order them, as well as more resource cards, postcards, or whole promotional boxes. We've had some problems with the order line, but orders are now getting through - see http://library.editme.com for more details of what's available and how to order.

Knowledgexchange - community for sharing expertise.

2004-11-02T09:14:00.000Z

I have just found this useful resource which enables health and social care professionals to share their expertise. Knowledgexchange (http://www.theknowledgexchange.co.uk/) is a web-based community that connects health and social care professionals, enabling them to share advice and information on a wide range of health-related topics. It covers all areas in health care, including training, clinical and management issues. The service is already used by over 2,300 NHS managers and is free to NHS staff. I found out about this site via IDeA Knowledge (http://www.idea.gov.uk/knowledge/) which is another knowledge management resource for local government.

Health Libraries Week and PODs

2004-10-28T15:43:00.000+01:00

Also, I've just updated the POD page, with some new templates for health libraries week, that give suggestions for text for posters/leaflets/etc.
I've also put up the water drop image in both black & white and colour, and some new magnifying glass images for some of the newer Specialist Libraries.

I've also put up the latest designs I have for the NLH site - they're not finalised, but they give an idea about what you'll see during Health Libraries Week. As soon as I have the finalised design, I'll share screenshots again. Beware - it's a large file (1.17 Mb) to download.

Any comments, please email us.

@ your health library

2004-10-28T15:12:00.000+01:00

Hello all
The training people up at the Scotland e-library have come up with some catchy slogans that they're using during health libraries week, and that they're happy for us to share (thanks Cathy Zahra)!
They could be used on posters or leaflets to target particular departments or staff groups.
Hope you like them!

Bone up on orthopaedics @ your health library

Brush up on infection control @ your health library

Keep a finger on the pulse @ your health library

Keep sweet on diabetes@ your health library

Prevent knowledge decay @ your health library

Radiology in a flash @ your health library

Step into podiatry @ your health library

Take a dose of pharmacology @ your health library

Wake up to anaesthetics @ your health library

If you can think of any more, post them up here!

Fran

2004-10-27T13:15:00.000+01:00

Hello all - just a reminder about the Health Libraries Week website at http://library.editme.com, which has all the details about the week, promotional items, suggestions for activities and lots more.

6 things to highlight for today:

For NHS libraries:
1. If you have not already acknowledged receipt of your box of promotional materials, please do so by following this link: http://www.insitefulsurveys.com/Survey.asp?SI=43365328280

For everyone:
2. If you still need to order promotional materials for HLW (either whole boxes or individual items), you can try our new automated order line: http://www.insitefulsurveys.com/Survey.asp?SI=46657168425

3. If you have not filled in the form to tell us what you're planning for Health Libraries Week, please follow this link: http://www.insitefulsurveys.com/Survey.asp?SI=59200358685 - this will help us to evaluate the success of the week afterwards.

4. Some of you may have noticed that it's Children in Need day on the Friday of HLW - if you're planning on dressing up or holding other events in your library, you could think about tying it in with a collection for Children in Need.

5. We now have computer wallpaper and email signature messages available for you to download and use: http://library.editme.com/wallpaper and http://library.editme.com/messages - please email nelh@nhsia.nhs.uk if you're not sure how or why you might use them.

6. We're going to hold a teleconference on Wednesday 3rd November at 9.30am (lasting no more than half an hour) to talk about the plans for HLW and answer any questions you may have. Please email nelh@nhsia.nhs.uk to let us know if you plan on joining the call. On the day, please dial 0800 358 3795 and enter access code 771239 followed by #
If you can't make the call, we'll be writing up notes and posting them here.

Reminder : teleconference lecture tomorrow!

2004-10-25T14:20:00.000+01:00

Just a quick reminder that NeLH is running a teleconference lecture tomorrow morning…

Information Needs in Primary Care
Led by Dr Deborah Swinglehurst

Tuesday 26 October at 10am

To join the call, simply dial 0800 358 3795 and enter the code 771239 followed by #
You’ll need access to an Internet-connected PC to follow the online presentation

If you’re not available, don’t worry, you won’t miss out as we’ll be recording the call and uploading the recording within the next few days to http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/learning/.

NLH user needs study

2004-10-22T10:34:00.000+01:00

The National Library for Health (NLH) team has commissioned TFPL to carry out a study of user needs, preferences and information seeking behaviour, to inform design and development of services and resources for NHS staff. The study will comprise desk research and primary research. The first step is to find out what we already know about users and non-users. For this, we need your help.

Have you carried out a user needs study or usage study for your service since 2000? This includes training needs analyses. Would you be willing to share your findings with the NLH/TFPL team? We strongly encourage you to send in details of your study so it can contribute to the development of the NLH. Don’t worry if your study is very focused and specific, or very broad and general – it will be valuable. TFPL will be using this information to build up a composite picture of users, and their needs, across England, but will also be interested in any Studies carried out in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Remember the more information we have, the clearer a picture we will get of the needs of our actual and potential users.

If you have something to share, please do get in touch (preferably within the next 7 days) with Vivienne Winterman, the TFPL Project Manager for this study:

Contact details are:
email – Vivienne.winterman@tfpl.com,
phone – 020 7251 5522,
fax – 020 7251 8318

Many thanks for your contribution

Map of Medicine

2004-10-16T15:36:00.000+01:00

I am pleased to announce that Medic to Medic have signed a contract with Fujitsu, the Local Service Provider for the Southern cluster, to deploy the Map of Medicine across the south. The contract was signed Thursday 30th September.

Many thanks to all those that came along to the Taster day, 21st September. I would also like to thank the NeLH for sponsoring the event and helping on the day.

We are keen to support anyone who wishes to present the Map to their NHS community. Our Training Manager has produced a presentation and supporting literature for this. Please email sarahjane@medictomedic.com to receive this material.

Please help

2004-10-11T09:36:00.000+01:00

Lost: 401 brown boxes containing much loved leaflets and promotional goods. Unkown whereabouts but last seen heading up (or down) the M5. Previous owners very keen to know that they are with people who will care for them. Please let us know they are safe http://www.insitefulsurveys.com/Survey.asp?SI=43365328280. Reward in heaven.

Phone-in Learning Session on Primary Care

2004-10-06T09:36:00.000+01:00

26 October at 10am
Join us for an online lecture on "Information needs in primary care". The lecture will be led by Deborah Swinglehurst, who is a leading authority in this area.

To join the lecture, simply:

on the day, around 9.55 to 10.00, dial 0800 358 3795
when prompted, enter the code 771239 followed by #
open your internet browser
follow the instructions from the facilitator to open the web-based slide presentation

If you can't make it, we'll be recodring the session so you won't miss out!

Responses to roadshow questions

2004-10-05T14:16:00.000+01:00

Those of you who attended a National Library for Health roadshow this summer will remember that your questions, together with your thoughts, concerns and ideas were gathered during the day. These were summarised in a report, which is available at www.library.nhs.uk

The questions were grouped and summarised, and responses from the NLH Programme Team are now available at http://www.library.nhs.uk/roadshowresponses.htm. These will be added to and updated, as any new questions and responses arise.

fancy dress for HLW

2004-09-24T11:46:00.000+01:00

Does anyone have any suggestions? Someone with a connection to books; a TV or film or literary character who reads a lot or is associated with books and is easily recogniseable?

Your ideas are much appreciated

Kate Jones
Library Skills Trainer
South Birmingham PCT NHS Trust

Health Libraries Week 2004

2004-09-23T13:43:00.000+01:00

HLW 04 Poster
Originally uploaded by Library Comms.

Literature for HLW and the NLH web page launch is being collated and packed as of today into a Promotional Pack. Subject to their being no hitches, it should arrive no later than 5 Oct. Additional top-up packs will be available shortly after from the IA Publications helpline 08453 66 00 66. To find out more about the packs contents and Health Libraries Week 2004 go to http://library.editme.com/Whatsnew

National Library for Health Search

2004-09-23T13:20:00.000+01:00

Some dates for your diaries

The new Single Search Environment for the National Library for Health is due to have its PILOT launch for librarians on 11th October. From this date we will be asking you to participate in our usability testing and feedback your thoughts.More information about this will follow.

The search engine will then be incorporated into the new National Library for Health website, which is due to launch on the 15th November.

We are working to have some previews of this available before the launch date for you to familiarise yourselves with. Again, more information to follow.

OCLC report

2004-09-17T07:09:00.000+01:00

From "OCLC Reports":

The newest OCLC report, 2004 Information Format Trends: Content, Not Containers, is now available as a download at the OCLC Web site.

The 2004 report picks up where the 2003 Five-Year Information Format Trends report left off...The 2004 report also builds on observations from the acclaimed Environmental Scan...

2004 Information Format Trends examines remarkable changes of the past 18 months, most significantly the "unbundling" of content from traditional containers (books, journals) and distribution methods (postal mail, resource sharing). In revisiting the idea of format evolution, we discovered that more and more, format of content matters less than the content itself.

The report lays out the top trends in content and what they may mean for libraries in the next five years:

Legitimacy of open-source publishing (e.g. blogs)
Rapidly expanding economics of microcontent
Repurposing of "old" content for new media
Multimedia content as a service for an array of portable devices

Visit http://www.oclc.org/info/2004trends/em/default.htm to download.

A Primary Care Current Awareness Service for the NHS

2004-09-16T17:29:00.000+01:00

In case you haven't seen earlier message to discussion lists from Sue Lacey-Bryant, it is repeated here for you....have deliberately left out the team's email addresses due to spammers but if you would like Sue's details get in touch with us at nelh@nhsia.nhs.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A small working group has formed, with the backing of NHSIA, to develop a Primary Care Current Awareness Service building on the experience and technical infrastructure of TIN (see http://www.tin.nhs.uk/home/keeping-up-to-date). This is one of several new NHS wide services planned to deliver benefits to users and raise the profile of libraries as part of the first stage of the development of the National Library for Health.

Contributors to TIN find that by pooling their work they can realise time savings while extending the services each library can provide, benefiting from the input and expertise of colleagues within the wider network while sharing local work with a wider audience. Meanwhile, technical developments offer us fresh opportunities to extend the range of services we can offer primary care users, using RSS feeds to develop and link into a range of current awareness services - categorised by subject and by discipline, and focussed on both managerial and clinical issues facing primary care staff.

Our aim is to start small, and build gradually, taking this forward as a collaborative development with colleagues around the country. We see opportunities for multiple partners to share resources, contributing to a pool of services that can be freely used (and customised) by librarians in a number of different ways to deliver and support both current awareness and more selective dissemination of information.

Would you like to get involved? Perhaps you are already providing current awareness services, using RSS feeds, or are keen to develop new targeted services to meet the needs of primary care staff? You are invited to get in touch with me to indicate your interest (and perhaps give me some background on your service). Should you have any thoughts on taking forward this service development, or queries, by all means contact any one of the working group (listed below).

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sue Lacey Bryant - on behalf of the Primary Care Current Awareness Service working group:

David Brunt
Kieran Lamb
Sue Lacey Bryant
Clive Warren

Background information on RSS is available at http://www.northmerseylis.nhs.uk/doclib/RSS%20Feeds.doc and http://www.unn.ac.uk/central/isd/weblogs.htm.
As an example, see BIOME and http://biome.ac.uk/whatsnew/news/searchbox-june04.html

Teaching Librarian

2004-09-15T13:18:00.000+01:00

Stephen Francoeur the Teaching Librarian explores the intersection of reference services, technology and teaching. Comes with of course the obligatory blog. Some interesting stuff here worth looking at.

Residential workshops in 2005

2004-09-02T13:04:00.000+01:00

A while ago I announced dates for a primary care workshop (11-12 Jan) and a DLnet residential (8-9 March). These events are now postponed until later in 2005.

The reason why....?

As part of the National Library for Health programme, I'm working with the LKDN Workforce Development Group and the Health Libraries Group, on a systematic programme of CPD for all library staff. We want to really get to grips with CPD to build on the excellent work already happening locally and nationally. We're starting by commissioning some desk research to pull together the training needs analyses already carried out. We hope you'll agree it makes sense to wait until we have the results from this research before running longer residential events.

Showing why libraries are needed

2004-08-25T16:59:00.000+01:00

Peter Clarke, European Special LIbrarian of the Year 2003, has written a good article in the latest SLA European Chapter Newsletter, called "The value of our profession". The link takes you to the pdf so you'll need to scroll through to find it.

Teaching opportunities for librarians

2004-08-23T09:47:00.000+01:00

Workshop on Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine, Oxford. 6th-10th September 2004

Posted on behalf of Nicola Bexon

Do you have the skills, interests and experience to be a librarian tutor for the Evidence-based medicine (EBM) workshop in Oxford?

This workshop is aimed at clinicians and other health care professionals who want to explore issues around teaching evidence-based medicine. Most of the workshop is conducted in small groups. http://www.cebm.net/downloads/courses/flier_tebm2004.doc

For the first time, we are going to introduce a scheme of librarian tutors - we intend to have one librarian tutor in each small group. All librarian tutors will have their course fees, accommodation (Sun –Thurs nights in St. Hilda’s College) and breakfast/lunch paid for. Travel costs and evening meals will need to be paid by the librarian (or their employer).

To be eligible to apply you must:

be available to attend the whole week Mon 6th -10th September 2004, including arriving on Sunday evening (5th) for a dinner meeting
have the support of your Line Manager to attend the week
have attended an EBM course, a Critical Appraisal Skills Workshop (CASP) or other similar appraisal course in the recent past, or be able to demonstrate experience and interest in critical appraisal skills
be a Clinical Librarian, a primary care librarian, an outreach trainer etc, or be involved directly in teaching searching skills to health professionals
be employed by the NHS

As a librarian tutor, we envisage that you will:

participate in small group sessions, and make sure that question formulation/finding quality evidence discussions are included in any teaching sessions the participants give
teach a searching session to your small group (or help a participant to teach a searching session depending on requirements)
volunteer to teach optional sessions (participants select sessions they wish to attend) on aspects of searching for evidence, specific sources etc.
be available during “free-time” sessions to work one-to-one with your small group participants if they wish to have extra searching help

This is a good opportunity for librarians to gain more skills and experience in practicing and teaching evidence based medicine, by working with health professionals in small groups.

Please apply to Nicola Bexon (nicola.bexon@ihs.ox.ac.uk) if you are eligible and interested – send a couple of paragraphs outlining how you fit the eligibility criteria. There are only a maximum of two more librarians required so if you are eligible please apply as soon as possible.

National Library for Health virtual roadshow

2004-08-23T09:44:00.000+01:00

Now that we've finished the summer series of roadshows, we have put up a virtual roadshow for those of you who couldn't get to one. Go to http://www.library.nhs.uk/virtualroadshow.asp. I'll be adding notes to my slides on the National Library for Health very soon.

How to get involved in National Library for Health

2004-08-05T14:43:00.000+01:00

If you'd like to get involved in National Library for Health developments, or would like to be kept updated as projects unfold, visit www.library.nhs.uk to register your interest. Although it's most likely we'll be following up after the NLH roadshows finish next week, I'm looking in particular at the moment for individuals who want to get involved in the study on user needs; a study on CPD/training needs of library staff; and a new publicity/awareness group. Take a look and sign up - no obligation if you later find you don't have the time and an easy and quick way to contribute your ideas etc to the development process.

www.nhs.uk - Webuser Gold Star Award

2004-08-04T09:10:00.000+01:00

You know how you like to think what you say matters...

After filling in one of their online questionnaires over a year ago, the web site design team invited me (and lots of others!!) to show them how I used the site. They asked me things about searching and then asked me to find certain things - which I did - eventually... using their site search engine. A lot of the time I gave up and said, "I'd use Google now..."

Well whatever we said has resulted in web page that now has been given this weeks Best New Website Webuser Gold Award (Webuser Issue 89 5-18 August 2004 p18). It says that the homepage www.nhs.uk - NHS Gateway - is cleaner and provides simple access to NHS information and services.

So in my own little way I like to think...

Access hours concept

2004-08-04T08:53:00.000+01:00

A pleasing letter in the latest issue (169) of the oft mentioned Computer Active talks about IT access via public libraries. It includes the statistic that 52,000,000 online hours are available to library service users.

I found this an interesting way of looking at things. Quick sums show that my library offers:

15,000 online hours
70,000 seated hours

A few hours of laptop use probably don't change the figures too much!

I wonder how many online hours and others we offer across all NHS Libraries?

New Tours

2004-08-03T18:29:00.000+01:00

Hello all
Just to let you know that there is a new tour for the Cardiovascular Specialist Library available from www.nelh.nhs.uk/tour
And that there is a new version of the Clinical Evidence tour there too, with updated screenshots, reflecting the changes they made recently to the site.

Robodemo versions of the tours will be appearing soon!

Fran

Blogging at HLG

2004-08-03T14:52:00.000+01:00

One of my colleagues at eKAT brought to my attention that fellow blogger,Tom Roper, from Brighton and Sussex Medical School will be talking on blogging at HLG.

On Wednesday 8 September Parallel Sessions 3 at 11.40, Tom will be talking on "Blogging in Brighton: current awareness for medical educators through weblogs"

Sadly I won't be there, but I am taking tips from his blog site (mostly the racing ones) to develop my own....

Apologies if this has been blogged before!

Map of Medicine sample map

2004-07-30T20:30:00.000+01:00

The Map of Medicine has made the COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) patient journey available online. Go to Explore sample map.
Many thanks

Richard Smith

2004-07-30T17:29:00.000+01:00

Today Richard Smith leaves the BMJ and will join the board of the Public Library of Medicine (PLOS) read his last editorial. bmj.com Smith 329 (7460): 242

Read the Scotsman and Open Access Now

10 Minute Training

2004-07-29T11:44:00.000+01:00

Hello Fellow Bloggers,

Despite joing this a year ago, this is my first posting so here goes.

I was very interested in Caroline Papi's ten minute training session slot yesterday. I was particularly interested in the way she had customised her training and concentrated on different sites for different groups. What I was thinking of was using the POD and producing some single sided guides to resources for the different groups - really just URLs and one or two lines about the resources. Has anyone done anything similar that they are prepared to share?

Thanks

Sharon

North Bristol Trust

Networking Online

2004-07-27T22:22:00.000+01:00

For those DLnet reps that attended the DLnet residential & those that were interested in the presentations from the "Personal Networking" day, who wish to further their networking. The latest issue of Computeractive W/E 04/08/04 has a 4 page article about online networking. There's a paragraph about safety issues and a table comparing sites. Unfortunately, the article isn't yet on its website:

www.computeractive.co.uk

This is the same issue with the robot librarians article & cartoon. No I do not have shares in the magazine!

More "free" journals

2004-07-22T14:12:00.000+01:00

CILIP http://www.cilip.org.uk/news/2004/040630.html have an interesting offer on at the moment - members can have free online access to Journal of Information Science and Journal of Librarianship and Information Science until 1st Nov. Significantly discounted subscription rate too.

Robot librarians

2004-07-22T12:27:00.000+01:00

...and to think we were all worried about Google taking over our jobs... ;-)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3897583.stm

NPfIT website

2004-07-22T12:01:00.000+01:00

Want to know more about the National Programme for IT?
NPfIT has a very informative website - www.npfit.nhs.uk
The Jargon buster is invaluable.

Blog makeover

2004-07-22T10:59:00.000+01:00

You'll notice a bit of a change to the DLnet blog - it's had a makeover! Reason for this is that the previous template didn't display comments so there was no way of knowing if anyone had commented on a post without clicking the date link. This template indicates if there are any comments so makes it much much easier :-)

If you'd like to comment on a blog post, simply click on the "x comments" link at the bottom and it will prompt you to post a comment - it will ask you to login so you'll need your username and password handy.

Hope you like the new look blog!!

Scientific Publications: Free for all?

2004-07-20T12:59:00.000+01:00

Available at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmsctech.htm

From the CILIP Daily News (well worth subscribing to if you're a member - just follow links on home page:

The commons science committee report on its long-running enquiry into scientific journal publishing is to be released today. It comes down in favour of the open access, or 'author pays' model, arguing that, although uncertainties remain, the government should make funds available for further experimentation with the model, and that ministers should act to promote it abroad. The traditional 'subscriber pays' system is criticised because the increasing range and price of journals is making it more difficult for university libraries to subscribe to the journals they require. FT, p4, 20 July

Testing

2004-07-16T11:02:00.000+01:00

Test post via email from John loy

John Loy
Learning Resources Development Manager
Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

Training Department, Barrow Hospital, Bristol, BS48 3SG
E-mail - John.Loy@awp.nhs.uk Tel - 0789 998 8595