Review of: MICROMEDEX® HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS

MICROMEDEX® HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS RANKED HIGHEST

A recent peer-reviewed study from the BMC (BioMed Central) Infectious Diseases journal entitled "Ability of online drug databases to assist in clinical decision-making with infectious disease therapies" ranked Micromedex Healthcare Solutions first when compared with all other offerings in terms of scope, completeness of information, and accuracy.

Read the full article via BioMed Central:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/8/153/abstract

For More Drug Resources try our New LibGuide:
http://libguides.tulane.edu/drugs

Happy Holidays from the Matas Library

December 11, 2008, 9:30 A.M. -- Snow in New Orleans! Charity Hospital and Tulane University Health Sciences (1430 Tulane Ave.). Happy New Year from the Matas Library.

Health Science Resource Instruction

We can tailor a library instruction session for faculty for a specific course or even to a specific assignment, teaching students how to evaluate resources and results, how to search effectively, and how to make full use of the library’s resources and services. We will also work with a group of individuals or one on one regrading the finer points of searching and discovery within the health science literature.

To schedule a class, simply contact the Matas Library Reference Department. For more information on Library Training and Instructional Services, please go to the Library website:
http://medlib.tulane.edu/about/instruction.htm

“Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.” - WORLD AIDS DAY - Dec.1, 2008

In 1988, the United Nations, General Assembly expressed deep concern at the pandemic proportions of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Noting that the World Health Organization had declared 1 December 1988 World AIDS Day, the Assembly stressed the importance of observing that occasion (resolution 43/15). Today, over 41 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. To combat HIV/AIDS , malaria and other diseases is one of the Millennium Development Goals which all 191 United Nations Member States have pledged to meet by the year 2015.

The World AIDS Campaign (WAC) has chosen as its theme from 2005 to 2010: “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.”

For More information: World AIDS Day links to the UN and UN System.

Comment on Anatomy TV

Please send your feedback on the Special Free Trial of Anatomy TV!

The Product Trial ended November 24th, 2008. Please contact the Matas Library, medref@tulane.edu or 988-5155 with your comments on this product.

October is National Medical Librarians Month

The Medical Library Association (MLA) has declared October as National Medical Librarians Month. MLA created the NMLM observance to raise awareness of the important role of the health information professional. The 2008 NMLM theme is: "Dig Deep @sk your medical librarian".

The LIBRARY ENTRANCE IS OPEN

The Rudolph Matas Library Entrace is now OPEN! The card swipe entrance will convert to an "after hours entrance" and will only be available after the Library Service Areas are closed in the evenings.

We still have some finishing touches. The exhibit cases, some computers, the coffee machine, the artworks and some furnishings are not yet ready for prime time. That time is nearing. Come in and greet us at the new single service point.

Thanks to everyone for your patience and support during the inconveniences of the renovation.

Stay tuned for the grand opening.

BOOK OF THE MONTH - PSYCHIATRY ONLINE

Tulane users have access to a free PDF version of an APPI Bookstore title EVERY MONTH.

You can access the free eBook of the Month from Psychiatry Online. October brings Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality: Focusing on Object Relations, by John F. Clarkin, Ph.D., Frank E. Yeomans, M.D., Ph.D., and Otto F. Kernberg, M.D.


"For therapists treating patients with borderline personality organization, transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) has proven to be a remarkably successful approach that effectively targets the pathology of character. ..

How Much Time Do You Spend on the Computer?

An excerpt from the October 2008 Safety Wave Newsletter, Tulane. Office of Environmental Health & Safety (OEHS)

Computer work may appear to require little effort, but maintaining postures and performing highly repetitive tasks can lead to problems in localized areas of the body such as the hands and wrists, neck, and shoulder muscles. Many computer workstation tasks are highly repetitive, requiring the same motions at a fast pace and with little variation. There may be inadequate time for your muscles and tendons to recover. Combining repetitive tasks with factors such as awkward postures and force may increase the risk of injury. Even the most well-designed workstation cannot eliminate all highly repetitive motions, especially for data input. For this reason it is extremely important to maintain good posture, perform hand tasks with the wrist in a straight and neutral position, have an adjustable workstation, and to take frequent breaks.

As a rule, OEHS suggests the following ergonomic tips:
1. Heavy computer tasking requires the user to take a ten minute task break every hour.

2. Light to Moderate computer tasking requires the user to take a 15 minute task break every two hours.

3. What is a Task Break?
Examples:

• Filing – walking to a file cabinet.
• Copying – walking to a copier.
• Mail Run – walking to deliver or get mail.
• Stretching – stretches at copier or while walking to file cabinet, getting mail, etc.

...

For more information, visit OSHA’s eTools or the OEHS website.

Environmental Health & Safety
Pam Fatland, Editor
Web site: www.som.tulane.edu/oehs

DynaMed training & Serials Numbers for PDA Access

DynaMed training is available on:

October 9, 2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m., ET
October 21, 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m., ET

TO REGISTER, click here . Select the desired class from the "Which service?"drop-down list, and complete the form.

If you need a serial number for the PDA version of DynaMed, contact the Matas Library Reference Desk, medref@tulane.edu.

Please visit the vendor Support Site (http://support.ebsco.com) search the FAQs, or download Flash tutorials, Help Sheets or User Guides.

Library Workshops September 2008

Tulane University Health Sciences Students, Staff, and Faculty are welcome to attend Library Workshops to learn new skills or find out about new resources. Ideas for Library Workshops are more than welcomed. Send suggestions to medref@tulane.edu

This month's workshops:

9/17/2008 PubMed TDW 1202 12p – 1p

9/18/2008 PubMed Matas Library 5p – 6p

9/24/2008 OVID Medline TDW 1202 12p – 1p

9/24/2008 OVID Medline Matas Library 4p – 5p

Moving Beyond Katrina: "We hope that the lessons learned will never be revisited".

The August 2008 issue of The American Journal of the Medical Sciences (Available to Tulane Users in OVID Journals) is a symposium that concerns the lessons learned by health educators and students in the years following the Katrina disaster. Many of the contributing authors have a Tulane affiliation. There was an earlier Katrina symposium published in the same journal in November of 2006, which explored the immediate consequences of Hurricane Katrina on the health science educational systems.

Ploth, David W. MD, [Editor's Corner], page 91.
"As the lay press has portrayed, the recovery in the New Orleans area has taken longer than expected. Based on the slow improvement of social and economic conditions, it is relevant to ask the question, “What has happened to medical education post-Katrina?” We have enlisted Dr. Marie “Tonette” Krousel-Wood to serve as Coordinating Editor to address this important question through a series of articles. Dr. Wood serves as Director, Center for Health Research at Ochsner Clinic Foundation, and has expertly identified topics, negotiated authorship, and guided the production of this symposium. Her choices for local leadership and assistance were equally expert with the selection of Dr. Charles Sanders, Chair, Department of Medicine, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Dr. Kent Kirchner, Chief of Staff from the VA Medical Center, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Dr. Errol Crook, Chair, Department of Internal Medicine, University of South Alabama, and Dr. Mark Kahn, Senior Associate Dean for Admissions and Student Affairs, Tulane University."

The American Journal of the Medical Sciences Volume 336(2), August 2008 © Copyright 2008 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation

Have PMID Will Travel - NCBI PMID-PMCID Converter

In support of the NIH Public Access Policy implementation, a new feature has been added to PubMed this week. This new feature is the NCBI PMID-PMCID converter, which allows you to translate one type of ID to the other. The converter allows you to enter one or more identifiers, allowing for a batch process.

The converter is located at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/pmctopmid

Excerpt from email (Thursday, August 14, 2008) David Gillikin , Chief, Bibliographic Services Division, National Library of Medicine

JAMA: A Cover Without Art

	It has become a tradition for JAMA to omit a cover image on the theme issue devoted to HIV/AIDS. Once again we observe this tradition. A Cover Without Art appeared previously on July 10, 1996; July 1, 1998; July 12, 2000; July 10, 2002; July 14, 2004; and August 16, 2006. JAMA. 2008;300(5):480. M. Therese Southgate, MD, Editor The Cover Section Editor: M. Therese Southgate, MD, Senior Contributing Editor.

August 6, 2008 , (Vol. 300, Num. 5), is the day JAMA acknowledges the Day Without Art in memory of those artists and performers lost to HIV/AIDS. The HIV/AIDS issue of JAMA is part of its awareness program that acknowledges the Day Without Art by printing a blank cover.

Welcome T-1s

Welcome to Tulane and New Orleans!

We would like to welcome the first year medical students to the Tulane community. To discover the best study spaces, computer availability, and how to use library resources and services, please stop by and meet our staff when you are at orientation. We welcome phone inquiries (504.988.5155) and email contacts (medref@tulane.edu).

Print and electronic resources of interest will be on display in the Matas Library when you come to register and get a library barcode.

Feel free to stop by the library if you have questions or need directions. Please forgive the state of the physical library as we are undergoing renovation at the moment. There will be more nice study space and a coffee spot when the newly renovated areas are unveiled...soon!

We look forward to seeing you at the Library and helping you with your information needs.

ScienceDirect will be unavailable, August 2nd-3rd

Saturday August 2, to 01:30 EDT on Sunday August 3 (09:30 UTC to August 3, 05:30 UTC), ScienceDirect will be unavailable due to an upgrade of the administrative system that will improve the access and entitlements process to both platforms.

Email alerts and RSS feeds for ScienceDirect will not be sent from 11:30 EDT on August 1 (15:30 UTC) until the downtime has finished. Email alerts and RSS feeds can still be created until 05:30 EDT on August 2 (09:30 UTC), but they will not be sent until after the upgrade is completed.

The expected benefit for users will be simplified access to ScienceDirect. For instance, individuals will have single login details for access to all of their entitled content regardless of access point.

We apologize for any inconvenience this downtime may cause you and look forward to offering you this superior service in the future.
...The ScienceDirect & Scopus Team

American Psychological Association (APA) and NIH Public Access Policy

A new document deposit policy of the American Psychological Association (APA) requiring a publication fee to deposit manuscripts in PubMed Central based on research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is currently being re-examined and will not be implemented at this time. This policy had recently been announced on APA’s Web site. APA will soon be releasing more detailed information about the complex issues involved in the implementation of the new NIH Public Access Policy.

See the July 15, 2008, Chronicle of Higher Education article.

Dr. Michael DeBakey, In Memoriam

Image of Dr. Emile Holman, Dr. Rudolph Matas and Dr. Michael DeBakey. Rudolph Matas is presenting the Rudolph Matas Award in Vascular Surgery (Violet Hart Medal) to Dr. DeBakey, April 6, 1954

Dr. DeBakey received his B.S. from Tulane in 1930, his M.D. in 1932, and a M.S. in 1935. He was a faculty member of the Tulane School of Medicine's Department of Surgery from 1937 to 1948. He invented the roller pump while still a student at Tulane, which became an essential component of his heart-lung machine.

TULANE TALK (Dr. Michael DeBakey by Scott Cowen, Tulane President), July 14 , 2008

For more information: McCollum, C. The distinguished service award medal for the Society of Vascular Surgery, 1999: Michael Ellis DeBakey, MD. Journal of Vascular Surgery , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Pages 406 - 409. doi:10.1016/S0741-5214(00)90171-X

Online Global Health Exhibit

The National Library of Medicine has an online exhibit titled, Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health. It showcases the remarkable changes that are occurring in global health and some of the pioneers who have been creating theses changes.

If you happen to be in the Bethesda, Maryland area, visit the actual exhibit at the National Library of Medicine. It is on display until 2010.

NIH Public Access Policy: How to Deal with the PMCID

As of May 25, 2008, you must include the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) on NIH applications, proposals, and progress reports when citing an article that falls under the new NIH Public Access Policy. There is a FAQ available on "Public Access Frequently Asked Questions" via the NIH website.

List the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) at the end of the already-required full journal citation for the paper in applications, proposals and reports.
Examples:

Cerrato, A., et al., Genetic interactions between Drosophila melanogaster menin and Jun/Fos. Dev Biol. 2006 Oct 1; 298(1): 59-70. PMCID: PMC2291284

Sala-Torra, O., et al., Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) expression and outcome in adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Blood. 2007 April 1; 109(7): 3080–3083. PMCID: PMC1852221

Please contact the Rudolph Matas Library if you have questions concerning PMCID numbers and citation mangement programs, such as EndNote and RefWorks. If you are using RefWorks to apply for an NIH grant, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries has a page on Using RefWorks or EndNote to Manage NIHMSID & PMCID Numbers. <http://www.library.wisc.edu/scp/nih/faq.html>

Diagnosaurus in AccessMedicine.com

If you are seeking a database that provides symptom-based searching for differential diagnoses of symptoms, signs, and diseases check out Diagnosaurus in AccessMedicine. This McGraw-Hill database is accessible by license to the Tulane University community.

In Diagnosaurus users have a pulldown menu, with entries by organ system, or users select to view the list of symptoms only, the list of diseases only, or all of the entries. For example, if you wish to review the causes of a patient’s chief complaint, simply select the symptom or sign from the alphabetical listing. If you have made a diagnosis and wonder what other disorders to consider, select your diagnosis from the list to see its DDx.

Diagnosaurus is also available as a download for your PDA.

DETOUR-Looking for the Library?

MATAS LIBRARY RENOVATION ENTRANCE
1430 Tulane Ave. --
M-209 (24 Hour Computer Lab Entrance)
Mezzanine Hallway


The Library Entrance will be unavailable during a portion of the renovation process. The Temporary Entrance is located on the Mezzanine. Enter the Mezzanine from the center stairway or elevator. (The entry nearest the bridge and Tulane Avenue may be temporarily blocked.)

Links to the Matas Library Past

"The best remedy for the "blues" and the best way to forget discouragement about the progress of medicine, that I know, is to peep into the reading rooms of the library, as I have done often, and see twenty-five, fifty and more students, teachers and physicians of the community there working and storing up in their own minds and souls the knowledge and thoughts so bountifully gathered there for them; or to arrive early on a Monday morning and see on the receiving tables, the loads of books and material which were taken out for use over the weekend. It gives me a real thrill and a boost of spirits every time I see it." - p.8 Address, Charles C. Bass, M.D.

"There is much that I could say regarding my now historic relations with this library which, since its birth, I have looked upon witha paternal solicitude almost as if it were my own child..." - p. 21, Response. Rudolph Matas, M.D.

From the Program and addresses at the Dedication of the Rudolph Matas Medical Library, November 29, 1937. (Reprinted: New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, pp.532-539, Vol. 90, No.9, March 1938)

Global Health Archive, Citations and abstracts back to 1910

The Rudolph Matas Library has just added citations and abstracts back to 1910 for the Global Health Database available in Ovid. Global Health 1910 to May 2008 may be searched as a single file. Choose Ovid from the Library Home page.

• Global Health Archive 1910 to 1972
  
  This resource offers historic coverage of information related to human health and communicable diseases. Global Health provides an alternative, complementary point of reference with a broad analysis of foreign language journals, books, research reports, patents and standards, dissertations, conference proceedings, annual reports, public health, developing country information, and other difficult to obtain material.
  

The Global Health databases cover the following aspects of human health and disease: communicable diseases (including HIV/AIDS), tropical diseases, parasitic diseases, medical entomology, human nutrition, nutritional disorders, community and public health, occupational health, health status indicators, the impact of agriculture on health, cancer epidemiology, medicinal and poisonous plants.

The records may also appear in printed abstract journals published by CABI. Nearly all records have informative English abstracts prepared by scientists.

Matas Library - Renovation Progress

There is a blog to keep you up to date on the progress of the renovation in the Matas Library. The carpet and ceiling tiles have been removed in the reading room. The entrance and mezzanine areas are still available for study. There are carrells along the mezannine wall, the mezannine computer labs and several closed study areas on the mezannine.

There is some noise. There are free ear plugs available at the Matas Library Reference desk. Let us know if there are other things we can do to help improve your library experience as we live with the renovation process.

Check out "Matas Library Feng Shui". Your comments are welcome.

Images from the Reading Room, May 28, 2008.

Upcoming Matas Library Renovations

Watch as the library transforms

before your eyes!

Renovation begins Thursday May 22, 2008

Look for these changes in the next few weeks

New Lighting

New Carpet

New Ceiling

Painting

New Window shades

New Seating areas

More computers

Bathrooms accessible from inside library

New Reference and Circulation Area

Coffee

24/7 access

Please accept our sincere concerns about the disruption of this activity. We will be posting details of the renovation process.

SCImago: A new source of journal metrics offers free data on open access journals.

SCImago Journal and Country Rank is an alternative database of journal citation metrics developed by researchers. Until very recently, the ISI Web of Knowledge, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) has been the standard for the ranking of journals (impact factors). Unlike ISI's JCR (available by Tulane license), SCImago is freely available online. In addition to being free, SCImago offers some other improvements:

• SCImago makes use of data supplied by Scopus which covers 13,000 journals, including many journals not tracked by ISI's JCR. Scopus adds open access titles to its database on an annual basis, and so SCImago contains reliable data for the open access journals.
  
• The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) approach weights citations from journals according to how highly cited the journal is, using an iterative approach.
  
• SJR calculation looks at citations made in a three year period which provides a more stable indicator of trends than impact factors.

Another free ranking service is available - Eigenfactor.org which launched last year with a similar approach. See our previous post: Journal Ranking Systems, Journal Citation Reports (ISI) and Eigenfactor

New Rules: Do you receive research funding from NIH?

Do you receive research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)? If so, as from April 2008 you will be required to deposit the final manuscript of your journal articles in PubMed Central and ensure free availability (open access) within 12 months of publication.

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

Specifics:

• http://publicaccess.nih.gov/
• This is a list of the journals that submit articles directly to PubMed Central on behalf of their authors. If you publish in one of these journals, no further action is needed to comply with the submission requirement of NIH Public Access Policy. http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm

Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research, Notice Number: NOT-OD-08-033, Effective Date: April 7, 2008

April 7-13, 2008: National Public Health Week

CLIMATE CHANGE 2008
http://www.nphw.org/
Since 1996, APHA has organized National Public Health Week and developed campaigns to educate the public, policy-makers, and public health professionals about issues important to improving the public’s health. By making climate change the theme for 2008, the public health community is changing how society addresses this unprecedented challenge.

There is a direct connection between climate change and the health of our nation today. Yet few Americans are aware of the very real consequences of climate change in the health of our communities, our families and our children.

Related resources:

• Encyclopedia of World Climatology [Springer] (2005)
• Hot House: Global Climate Change and the Human Condition [Springer] (2007)
• National Academies Climate & Global Change
• WHO Climate Change and Human Health
• WHO. Climate Change and Adaptation Strategies for Human Health (2006) Also in print at the Library: WA 30.5 C67 2006

Recent publications on Climate Change from PubMed.

Carlos Finlay and Tulane

The Matas Library has some of the original documents related to Carlos Finlay and his early work on yellow fever on display. Rudolph Matas translated one of Finlay's important early works: "The Mosquito Hypothetically considered as an agent in the transmission of yellow fever poison", by Dr. Charles Finlay. New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, NS9 (1882):601-616.



For more information on Carlos Finlay:

Finley, Carlos E. (1940) Carlos Finlay and Yellow Fever, New York: The Institute of Tropical medicine of the University of Havana by Oxford University Press. Matas Library Location: WZ 100 F49p

Rodriguez Cabarrocas, Raoul. (1960) "Carlos J. Finlay and Yellow Fever". Bulletin of the Tulane Medical Faculty, 19(4):219-228. [Dr. Rodriguez was the recipient of the B. Bernard Weinstein Award] (.pdf version online)

Tulane and Charity Hospital Exhibit

There is a Charity Hospital Exhibit on display at the Entrance to the Rudolph Matas Library. A few of the images are available as a slideshow.

"The history of Tulane University School of Medicine’s involvement with Charity Hospital is long and storied. Tulane, originally founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834, has long played a role in both caring for the poor and shaping the future of the hospital." - The History of Tulane University School of Medicine's Involvement with Charity Hospital - By Douglas R. Lincoln (Class of 2007)

See related publications:

Leighninger, Robert D., Jr. Big Chairty: A History of New Orleans' Public Hospital. Louisiana Cultural Vistas (Fall 2007):p.19

Katz, Alan. Big Charity: A History of Emergencies. Tulane Medicine, 23(1): 14-21. Spring 1992 (First appeared in New Orleans Magazine, Nov. 1991)

NLM Drug Information Portal

The National Library of Medicine has announced the release of the NLM Drug Information Portal. The site is at http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov. The NLM Drug Information Portal gives the public, healthcare professionals, and researchers a gateway to current, accurate and understandable drug information from the National Library of Medicine and other key government agencies.

More than 12,000 drug records are available for searching. The search interface is straightforward, requiring only a drug name as a search term, and successful searching is enhanced by the assistance of a spellchecker. Information buttons and balloon pop-ups guide the user by providing helpful hints or a description of the resource and links to the source website. Links to the following resources contribute to the search results: MedlinePlus®, AIDSinfo®, Medline/PubMed®, LactMed, HSDB®, Dietary Supplements Labels Database, TOXLINE®, DailyMed®, ClinicalTrials.gov, PubChem, NIAID Anti-HIV/OI Database, ChemIDplus®, Drugs@FDA, DEA, and USA.gov .

The Drug Information Portal offers a varied selection of resources and focused topics in medicine and drug-related information, with links to individual resources with potential drug information and summaries tailored to various audiences. General drug categories from MeSH are also included in the Drug Portal records. NLM Post: 12 February 2008

Screening pregnant women for bacterial vaginosis (USPSTF)

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has released two recommendations for screening pregnant women for bacterial vaginosis:

The USPSTF recommends against screening for bacterial vaginosis in pregnant women at low risk for preterm delivery. (D recommendation).

The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for bacterial vaginosis in asymptomatic pregnant women at high risk for preterm delivery. (I statement) These recommendations are published in the February 5 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The recommendation and supporting material can be found at
http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstf/uspsbvag.htm

From AHRQ. Preventive Services.
Excerpt from, Feb. 8, 2008, UPDATES ON AHRQ PREVENTION PROGRAMS [AHRQ_PREVENTIONPROGRAMUPDATES@LIST.AHRQ.GOV]

Hot Topics, Guidelines & Standards: February 2008

February is American Heart Month. Go Red for Women is a movement that works toward a reduction in coronary heart disease and stroke in women. The movement is working hard to change the perception that heart disease is a “man’s disease” by teaching more women how to talk to their doctors about heart disease.

2008 Recommended Immunization Schedule
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) have issued the 2008 Childhood Immunization Schedule. There are three schedules that reflect current recommendations for use of vaccines licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and include numerous changes from the 2007 schedule.

ECRI Institute Launches Comparative Effectiveness Resource Center Web Site
Comparative effectiveness initiatives may have significant impact on a sweeping range of constituencies—from providers, payers, industry, and regulators—to patients and their advocates. Competing drugs, medical devices, and clinical procedures are all in play. This educational Web site is intended to help you understand the issues involved in this complex topic. The site provides access to a range of resources, from national policy conference recordings to perspectives from leading experts.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has recently published the following new/updated documents:

• Intraperitoneal chemotherapy for ovarian cancer (Committee Opinion)
• Surgery and patient choice (Committee Opinion)
• Elective and risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy (update) (Practice Bulletin)

The American College of Physicians (ACP) has released guidelines on evidence-based interventions to improve the palliative care of pain, dyspnea, and depression at the end of life and a position paper on achieving a high-performance health care system with universal access.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has released their annual Clinical Practice Recommendations.

The Center for Outcomes and Evidence has released a new evidence report on the impact of gene expression profiling tests on breast cancer outcomes.

______

Excerpted and edited, from ECRI Institute, HCS Update. http://hcs.ecri.org/news/

ECRI Institute's Healthcare Standards Directory is available at the Rudolph Matas Medical Library, Ready Reference , W 22 AA1 H42 2007.

OvidSP GOES LIVE ON FEBRUARY 4TH, 2008!!!

Ovid Gateway products will migrate to their new platform, OvidSP, as of February 4th, 2008.

We are hoping that the migration will go smoothly. There are some changes and we will be conducting classes and also working with Ovid searchers one on one to answer any questions.

OvidSPD contains:

Medline (1950 – present)
Evidence Based Medicine- EBM Reviews (Cochrane, DSR, Journal Club, DARE and CCTR)
Global Health (1973 - )
Ovid Healthstar (1966- )
Ovid full-text Journals

In addition to the Ovid Full Text, Linking is available to the many Tulane licensed Full-text journals via the TULink.

We hope that everyone is having a Happy Mardi Gras!! Call us on Wednesday, February 6th when we return to the Library after Mardi Gras with your questions and comments.

Upcoming Library Classes

30 minutes with the new OVID SP - Thursday, February 7 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
30 minutes with the new OVID SP - Tuesday, February 12 at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Store your citations and write your papers with RefWorks
Monday, February 18 at 2 p.m.

Learn how to make PubMed and OVID work for you by setting up an account
Thursday, February 21at 3 p.m.

All classes will be held in the front lobby of the Rudolph Matas Library.

New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) - ONLINE VERSION

We now have access direct with publisher of New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). This will allow users to download the .pdf version of the article. Choose the "Full text from Highwire Press Massachusetts Medical Society" from the Tulane E-journals list.

You may browse past issues available: http://content.nejm.org/contents-by-date.0.shtml

The Library still receives the print version of this journal title as well. The full text version is no longer available to Tulane in Journals at Ovid.

NOW IN SERVICE: Tulane E-Journals List (SFX)

There was an error when running the December update of the Tulane E-Journals List (SFX). ExLibris, our vendor for this product, is working on the problem.

As a temporary measure, while the updated E-journals list is unavailable, the previous E-Journal List has been available via the library’s homepage.

The URL to the older version of the E-Journals Page is: http://tulink.library.tulane.edu:3210/sfx_local/a-z.

All other TULink services are working.

We will return the the new version as soon as this issue is resolved. The Citation Linker is not available in the older version.

Resolved: Jan.15 2008

Librarian's Lunch Q&A and Instruction: Every Wednesday, Tidewater, 1202

Meet with Matas Librarians, Spring Semester 2008
Tidewater Building, 12th floor
Room 1202
Wednesdays 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

WEDNESDAY SPECIAL TOPICS SCHEDULED -

The Group session on special topics will begin at 11:00 am. An open question session will follow on any topic after 12 noon.

• January 30: MEDLINE – PubMed and OVID SP
• February 20: Citation Linker and ILLiad [Got PMID?] Tips for finding e-journals
• March 5: EndNote Web
• April 9: RefWorks
• April 16: Open Access Journals (PMC, DOAJ, BMC)

The Rudolph Matas Library, Reference Department will be available to assist with research and provide other information support services every Wednesday at lunchtime in the Tidewater Building on the 12th floor. Other topical sessions may be offered during the semester. Please check back for schedule changes. Contact the Matas Library if you would like to suggest a topic for group discussion and/or demonstration. medref@tulane.edu or 988-5155.

Welcome to Incoming School of Public Health Students, Spring 2008

Philip Walker conducts the Library Orientation for the new School of Public Health Students, Jan 10, 2008.

Come meet the Matas Librarians every Wednesday this semester, 11am-1pm in Tidewater, 12th floor, room 1202. An Open topic session will be held for on our first Wednesday session on January, 16. We welcome any kind of information question, or just come by and register with the Library (barcode your ID). These sessions are open to the entire Tulane community.

Library Instruction classes are scheduled at various times throughout the year and also by request. General, subject specific, or resource specific courses are available. We will come to your classroom, office or arrange to meet small groups in any setting! Custom presentations are available for faculty meetings, brief informational sessions during a class. Topics include how to locate online full-text journals and ebooks, PubMed and Ovid SP MEDLINE, or specific databases like PsycINFO, Web of Science or Global Health. Get a leg up on the organization of your references for your papers this semester with our database manager class on RefWorks.

Contact the Matas Library Reference Department (988-5155 or medref@tulane.edu) to schedule library instruction at a time and place convenient and customized for you.

Henry Stewart Talks

The Henry Stewart Talks: Biomedical and Life Sciences Collection is currently being made available to the entire Tulane community by the Biochemistry Department. The presentations may be of interest to Tulane faculty, students and researchers in biomedicine and the life sciences . The talks are organized into comprehensive series that cover both fundamentals and the latest advances. The narrations may include animated slides.

Topics available in the HST database include: Apoptosis -- Calcium Signaling -- The Design and Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials -- Eukaryotic Gene Regulation -- Evolution and Medicine -- Free Radicals and Oxidative Stress -- Genetic Epidemiology -- Human Population Genetics-- Molecular Chaperones -- Neurodegenerative Diseases -- Obesity -- Retroviruses -- Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine -- Using Bioinformatics in the Exploration of Genetic Diversity -- Viruses and Viral Diseases: Emerging Threats to Humans and Animals -- and MORE.

Henry Stewart Talks is available via the Tulane computer network at http://www.hstalks.com/access Thanks to the Department of Biochemistry for their resource support of the entire Tulane Life Science Community.

Library OPAC will be Unavailable, Jan. 10-11

The Library catalog, Voyager OPAC, will be upgraded to version 6.5.3 on January 10 – 11, 2008. The entire Library System will be unavailable during this upgrade (both internal library clients and public OPAC interface on the website).

To assist users with finding materials, there will be a backup version of the catalog available: http://systems.library.tulane.edu/voy.php. Please note that this is a copy of the Voyager database which will NOT reflect whether an item is checked out or available. The Library will have temporary local systems available to check out materials.

Getting to Full Text from Hospitals and Clinics

Are you having trouble finding free full-text articles from a computer in hospitals or clinics?

Be sure you authenticate at the Rudolph Matas Library web page before starting your search to access full-text journal articles, online books, and databases. All of the Tulane Hospitals and Clinics are on a different computer network than the University, making it necessary for you to sign in. You must follow the same procedure as if you are off-campus. Sometimes hospitals may have additional security and firewalls that may interfere with this process. Please contact the Library Reference Desk if you have problems, medref@tulane.edu or 988-5155.

If you need something that is not available, you can request it through ILLiad, the library’s free and speedy interlibrary loan service.

Matas Library web page: http://medlib.tulane.edu

Bill Postell Retires as Director of the Rudolph Matas Library

Ben Sachs and Bill Postell announce Bill’s retirement from Tulane as Director of the Rudolph Matas Library, effective 12/31/07.

Bill has been with Tulane for 33 years. He has served Tulane Health Sciences Center under four senior vice presidents, five deans of medicine, and four deans of public health and tropical medicine. Before coming to Tulane, he served as Assistant Director of the Rowland Medical Library of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. Bill is a native New Orleanian.

During his tenure, the education and training levels required of the staff were raised in step with AAMC institutions nationwide. He led the effort to replace the card catalog system with a fully automated and integrated library system. In addition to the traditional library services in support medical education, research, and patient care here at Tulane, Bill and his staff assisted authors of numerous historical publications in their research and manuscript preparation.

During his career in academic medical library administration, Bill has frequently served as an officer in the Southern and South Central Chapters of the Medical Library Association. Twice he has been elected Chairman of the Board of the South Central Academic Medical Libraries Consortium, a non-profit corporation of which he was a founding member.

Bill and his wife, Nancy, look forward to spending more time with their children and grandchildren in Houston. Please join us in thanking Bill for his dedication to our University for his numerous contributions during his long and illustrious career at Tulane.

HSCADM-L@tulane.edu (message from Fri 1/4/2008 8:43 AM)