Same old, same old

Research and Development had a bit of a spring clean recently and found some notes for a library user group meeting held back in March 2001. Much has changed since then - not least the library user group closing - but much has stayed the same.

The notes show that 24 hour access was the top of the agenda. The situation now is the same as it was then - we're housed in an old building that is a little off site, and is vulnerable to break in and vandalism. There is therefore no out of hours access. Eventually there will be a new library, and rooms offering 24 hour access are right at the top of the wish list. They will probably be study rooms or computer rooms, rather than access too books and journals. Some books and journals are, of course, available 24 hours online with Athens.

In 2001 we proudly announced 12 (yes - twelve) online full text journals. Now we have over 1000 to offer you. In 2001 there were concerns over lack of databases for literature searching, now we offer you seven different databases through NLH.

In those days databases were bought on CD and copied onto the library servers for use on the library network. Eventually a select few pilot sites were granted access outside the library! The user group was busy discussing pay as you surf internet access. Now, of course, the library is on the Trust next work and everyone can access intranet and internet for free, and all the databases you need are internet-based. What progress!

In 2001 we were just finding our feet with offering training for you on literature searching. We started advertising courses in the Trust Training Prospectus and and handing out certificates to people who completed training. Now we offer very little training, as a team restructure left us without the relevant team members to train.

The issue of quiet study space over a space where people can chat still rumbles on. Again, we still lack the space to offer separate areas for different uses. Keep your fingers crossed for that new library where break out rooms are heading the wish list.

Finally, the user group asked about bibliographic software including Reference Manager or Endnote. We declined to buy it then, and don't buy it now, simply because demand is very low.

We no longer have a user group - sadly, it died young. However, its ghost lives on as we are always happy to have feedback, suggestions, compliment and complaints from you through any of our contact channels. You could even leave a comment on the blog!

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What are you looking for?

A reminder for those of you who use Dialog for searching that it is shortly to be withdrawn. We suggest you use the new NLH Search 2.0 instead.

Do I hear you say "PubMed"? Feel free, but don't forget that PubMed is just Medline - you'll be missing out on Cinahl, EMBASE and Psychinfo. What's that at the back? Oh - you use Google. Again - fine. I use it myself and we're here to offer useful suggestions, not to run a library dictatorship.... Try Google advanced searching, Google Scholar and the advanced scholar.

Any other options? Well, you could always try asking a librarian to search for you. It's a free service.

Oh - and a final word to the Google addicts. You are sitting in an aeroplane and you hear the following: "Ladies and Gentlemen, good afternoon. This is your captain speaking. We have an unexplained fault in our engines. However, the Chief Engineer is looking it up on Google and hopes to get it all fixed soon." How do you feel about that? Maybe a phone call to your lawyer. "What are your rights in case of mid Atlantic air failure? One moment - I'll just need to Google that before I can give you can answer..."

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Change is the only constant

Yesterday when I got home the sun was out, the sky was blue. I stood in the garden, admiring some saxifrages I had just planted. My husband was cooking dinner - which included the always cheerful sound of a cork being pulled - birds sang, and next door's cat came to say hello. I stood there and thought - why can't life always be like this?

The thing is that life goes on a bit - day in and day out for (hopefully) three score years and ten, and a little variety keeps us going. Which brings me neatly on to the various changes cropping up at the moment.

First up - Search 2.0. I've mentioned it before, it has now been released. If you recall it's the one stop shop for searching on the National Library for Health. It's new, it's an IT thing and it's the NHS, so can you guess what I'm going to say next? That's right - it has a few teething problems (most pressingly the nice red search 2.0 logo on the home page leads to a blank page...) But try it (you'll need to sign in with Athens first). Oh, and did I say Search 2.0? Because that's another change - it's now called NLH 2.0. The old Dialog Datastar search is still working for a couple of months, or you can go through PubMed, remembering to tell it you're with the NHS so you get your full text links.

Another NLH change is Hitting the Headlines. This was the handy service that looked at health stories in the news, identified the research behind them, and considered how well the news story had represented the facts. This service no longer exists, although the "archive" (library speak for "old stuff") is still available, hidden away under "News and RSS".

Hitting the Headlines has been replaced by Behind the Headlines, from NHS Choices. I've not had a good look at this service yet, but I note that it seems to cover more stories than Hitting the Headlines. I'm pleased to see it's available as RSS . I'll be adding the feed to my newsreader and posting useful items on the current awareness page.

I've also noticed that while I was away the BBC tweaked the look of their news pages, which is in addition to their rather nice home page, which can be customised.

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Save our searches

If you have been using library databases through Dialog Datastar you will have noticed the ominous red writing on the main page advising you that Dialog Datastar is being replaced with Search 2.0.

Hopefully this will be good news. It means that the way the databases look wont change every time a tender with a particular provider changes. The new interface will hopefully be nice and easy to use. It will also mean that the National Library for Health really is a one stop shop for all your online information needs so you need only bookmark, or remember, the one website address.

So that was the good news. The bad news is that if you have saved searches in Dialog they cannot be automatically transferred to Search 2.0. This may be a good opportunity to have a chuck out, rid your life of unwanted saved searches, and perhaps start afresh with some better quality searches. Heck - you could even ask a librarian for help on devising top notch searches to save.

The folks at NLH have drawn up some instructions. Sadly, I can't work out a way of attaching an ordinary Word file to this blog. Perhaps the instructions will be posted on NLH, in the meantime, please contact us (or your nearest NHS library) if you would like a copy.

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Bye Bye, BMJ, goodbye

Bad news - the subscription that NHS libraries in Essex had to the BMJ journals online has now expired. That means that your Athens password no longer gives you access to the BMJ and related titles.

The BMJ was trailblazer on the internet and was initially all free to view. In recent times libraries have paid for you - the user - to have free access. Budget cuts in 06/07 meant something had to give and the BMJ went out with the bathwater. Many libraries (this one included) still take the paper version, so all is not lost.

Personally I get the table of contents emailed to me weekly. I have to say that although the fillers are often amusing, and the news snippets may be interesting if you haven't already caught them on the BBC or Reuters websites, the actual clinical content seems very thin. This week's issue has just three reviews.

This raises two issues. The first is that free to you doesn't necessarily mean free to all. the resources you have through Athens have been bought and paid for by the NHS so you pay nothing at the point of use. It's amazing how many people seem to think that the world’s knowledge is all on the internet and all free. Next time you download something "free" think of the budgets that have paid for that for you.

The second issue is the way that libraries fall into the habit of stocking "must have” titles. How can you be a real medical/healthcare library and not stock the BMJ, Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA? The truth is that none of these is indispensable, and many NHS libraries no longer take them. Good quality evidence turns up in all sorts of places - just relying on a few best sellers is no longer the way forward.