Research Impact Part 2: Whole New System
This is a 3 part blog series.
Research Impact Part 1: Moving Away from tracking authors’ articles.
I am not going to mentioned the company we went with. The primary reason for this is because I am trying to write this as broadly as possible so that it applies to anybody who is considering this type of endeavor, not the nitty gritty of a specific software. While there is always room for improvement I am happy with what we chose and I am very happy with the support we have received upon implementing it. If you are interested in learning more about the specific products we chose, email me and I will answer those q...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - May 18, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Future of Biomedical Publishing
A medical librarian friend of mine agreed to answer questions for a week on NEJM Resident 360. It involved some future casting and she emailed the medical librarian listserve to pick our brains. I sent her a few crystal ball predictions and she thought they were good and I should post them on the blog to further the discussion.
So, here is the question: What does the future of delivering medical literature and latest research hold?<https://resident360.nejm.org/posts/6339>
Here are my thoughts:
We are going to see more movement in the area of Open Textbooks. Open access journals have started paving the way and now ...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - May 12, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Research Impact Part 1: Moving Away from Tracking Authors ’ Articles
I have been toying with this post for quite a while, trying to think of a good way to present the information without it being to long. Well the only way to do it is to break it into parts. I will link all of the parts together once I have finished writing and posting them.
Part 1: Moving Away from Tracking Authors’ Articles
Before I was a medical librarian my library had been tracking every article, book, and book chapter that somebody within the institution authored. It used to be a list that was published then it evolved into a database that was on a citation management software.
In the beginning it started ...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - May 4, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Databases Technology Source Type: blogs
How Librarians Can Help Healthcare Professionals
I recently wrote a blog post for NEJM Resident 360 (NEJM subscription required) about how residents can better utilize librarian services. How to Take Advantage Your Medical Librarian, details a few of the common ways librarians can help doctors during their residency program and beyond. As a medical librarian, I know there are a lot of other things we can do for residents and other healthcare professionals. There are medical librarians who are doing different types of services, reaching out to provide information in creative ways, and doing things beyond the walls of the library that help our healthcare professiona...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - March 13, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Library Profession Other Medical Library Stuff Research Source Type: blogs
What is Real?
I have always been a scifi junkie even before I knew that was genre term. I can remember as a grade school kid checking out all of the books about ghosts, the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle. I remember being disappointed when I had read everything on those topics in my public library. As I got older I branched out into aliens and conspiracy theories. When the X-Files came out it was like seeing my public library bookshelf had added new titles and gone on TV.
All of those books, movies and TV shows dealt with what was real and what was fake. Is there really a Bigfoot or is somebody walking around wi...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - January 18, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Journals and Books Source Type: blogs
Masters of Illusion
One of my favorite scenes from the Simpsons is where bartender Moe sets up a fake upscale looking entrance to his bar to try and attract more customers. After entering the bar the upscale customer says, “Hey, this isn’t faux dive. This is a dive,” to which Moe responds, “You’re a long way from home, yuppie-boy. I’ll start a tab.”
With just a few word changes and the same idea could be expressed about fake academic journals. This has been a topic of discussion for the last few years in the library world. The New York Times has an interesting and more mainstream article address...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - December 30, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Conferences Journals and Books Source Type: blogs
What Have You Done For Me Lately?
A few years ago I got started down a path thanks to a library director friend in Oklahoma who asked me to teach a class specifically for hospital librarians. While he worked in an academic medical library he noticed that hospital librarians in his area needed some help thinking of different ways to prove their value or justify their existence, especially in light of the Affordable Care Act (which was very new at the time and nobody knew what would happen…but they knew it would have a pretty big impact).
In preparation for the class, I did a lot of research on the ACA. I was and still am not an authority on the AC...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - October 27, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Life as the President of MLA: Part 2
So now it is down to the nitty gritty, what does the MLA President do all year?
I will do my best to describe my activities for the year, but for more specific details MLA members can look through the position description for President in the Board Job Descriptions document.
May 2015
Wednesday “after” the MLA meeting when everyone is going home, taking some extra vacation, or finishing up some MLA conference activities like CE or final meetings, the MLA Board meets to do a sort of post conference meeting. This is where we discuss the meeting as a whole and anything that came out during the meeting from MLA g...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - September 16, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Behind the Scenes Tales from MLA President Source Type: blogs
Three Legged Dogs are Cool
I know I owe you all part 2 post on Life and MLA President but I have gotten delayed. My 1 yr old puppy, Chewie (as in Chewbacca of course) was diagnosed with cancer and had to have his leg removed. That kind of sucking away all of my available free time.
Chewie doing good after surgery.
While Chewie doesn’t have much to do with medical librarianship, I have to say the little dude has inspired. (Source: The Krafty Librarian)
Source: The Krafty Librarian - July 27, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Life as the President of MLA: Part 1
I’m baaaaaaaaaack.
It has been a while since I have posted. I want to thank all of the guest posters who have written and kept things going while I took a year off. You guys were great.
So, one of the questions I have gotten over the year is what is like to be President of MLA. I want to take the time to answer that question. I will try to provide as much information without getting so wordy that it becomes the longest blog post ever. With that in mind I am going to make this a two part series. The first part is going to focus on my experiences while the second part will get into the nitty gritty of time ...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - July 11, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Odds & Ends of possible interest
Useful FireFox extensions :
Distill
This allows you to monitor a web page for any changes. You can highlight just part of the page (handy as some pages change a lot with tweets or whatever so you want to avoid that) and it will track changes only in that section – useful if looking for a report to appear, update to a publication. The only tricky thing with it is that when you highlight a section the Save changes icon you want is bottom right (took a while to find that)
Lightshot and Awesome Screenshot Plus
Both of these make capturing and annotating screenshots very easy which is useful for trainin...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - April 29, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Rob Penfold Tags: Apps Databases iPad Library Products (not Databases) Other Medical Library Stuff PubMed Technology Source Type: blogs
Odds & Ends of possible interest
Useful FireFox extensions :
Distill
This allows you to monitor a web page for any changes. You can highlight just part of the page (handy as some pages change a lot with tweets or whatever so you want to avoid that) and it will track changes only in that section – useful if looking for a report to appear, update to a publication. The only tricky thing with it is that when you highlight a section the Save changes icon you want is bottom right (took a while to find that)
Lightshot and Awesome Screenshot Plus
Both of these make capturing and annotating screenshots very easy which is useful for trainin...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - April 29, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Rob Penfold Tags: Apps Databases iPad Library Products (not Databases) Other Medical Library Stuff PubMed Technology Source Type: blogs
Ithaka S+R Local Faculty Survey and Health Sciences Libraries:
In 2014, the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Libraries administered the Ithaka S+R Local Faculty Survey to our faculty to measure their changing needs and perceptions of library resources. The survey, consisting of seven modules including the health sciences module, was distributed across our campus. The health sciences module targets faculty with patient or clinical care responsibilities. At this time, few health sciences libraries have used this instrument. Survey questions focused on attitudes and skills related to evidence-based scholarly resources as well as access and use of other library services and resource...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - April 13, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Irene Lubker Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Post Publication Review: Librarians ’ Role
This study highlights the need for more accurate and comprehensive reporting needed for search strategies in systematic reviews and other literature search-based research syntheses, and the need for better peer review of search strategies by information specialists/medical librarians. Though the searches in the Appendix are on face value replicable and high quality, on closer inspection, they do not in fact meet the reporting standards as outlined by PRISMA Statement items #7 and #8: “Describe all information sources in the search (e.g., databases with dates of coverage, contact with study authors to identify additional ...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - April 6, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Post Publication Review: Librarians’ Role
This study highlights the need for more accurate and comprehensive reporting needed for search strategies in systematic reviews and other literature search-based research syntheses, and the need for better peer review of search strategies by information specialists/medical librarians. Though the searches in the Appendix are on face value replicable and high quality, on closer inspection, they do not in fact meet the reporting standards as outlined by PRISMA Statement items #7 and #8: “Describe all information sources in the search (e.g., databases with dates of coverage, contact with study authors to identify additional ...
Source: The Krafty Librarian - April 6, 2016 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: KraftyLibrarian Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
