Caves - the Leicester connection
There we were on a tour, by boat, ofSpeedwell Cavern in Castleton, and I was sure that the guide mentioned the University of Leicester, and Trevor Ford. It was in connection with exploration to find out how deep the " Bottomless Pit " would have been before a lot of mining spoil was tipped into it in the 18th century.So I conducted my own web based exploration.Trevor Ford was a Senior Lecturer in Geology, starting when the University was still a University College, was had research and outside interests in Derbyshire, the Peak District and in caves and Blue John.Dr Ford died earlier this year and you canread an obitu...
Source: Browsing - May 5, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries 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
Second edition of Marketing Your Library ’s Electronic Resources is on the way
What’s New Since the First Edition [this text is taken from the preface of the second edition]
We have learned so much from you since the writing of the first edition of this book and are grateful to those of you who took time to write to us about your experiences with the book, and to those who wrote reviews of the book. All of your feedback has been folded into this edition.
One of the things we heard from you is that it was helpful to see marketing plans from libraries, so that you didn’t feel like you needed to reinvent the wheel while creating your own. We agree that viewing different approaches to developing mar...
Source: Organization Monkey - April 26, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: book Source Type: blogs
Search strategy for chronic kidney disease
Chronic kidney disease? Chronic kidney failure? Chronic renal failure?There are many ways to describe this (1). After a few searches on the topic, I tried to come up with a Medline strategy. I think it may include some conditions that Hsu and Chertow would not, but I have this:1. ((endstage or “end stage” or established or chronic or progressive) adj1 (renal or kidney) adj1 (failure or disease* or insufficienc*)).ti,ab2. (Chronic adj1 nephropath*).ti,ab3. &nb...
Source: Browsing - April 21, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: literature searching nephrology Source Type: blogs
Guidelines for comparing guidelines
This was asked at a writing workshop that I led recently. How do you go about comparing two guidelines?Critical appraisalComparing is related to, but not the same as, critically appraising a guideline, in which you are looking at guidelines individually. Trisha Greenhalgh ' s very useful bookHow to read a paperhas a chapter about appraising guidelines, with ten questions to ask about a clinical guideline. There is also a systematic review of appraisal tools inthis article in PLoS One by Ulrich Siering and colleagues.ComparingTheNational Guidelines Clearinghouse has a " Compare " to...
Source: Browsing - April 21, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: critical appraisal guidelines Source Type: blogs
The Evolution of the Personal Networks of Novice Librarian Researchers
Have you ever written something you’re really excited about? That was my mood while writing our latest article, “The evolution of the personal networks of novice librarian researchers.” Why so excited, you ask? It’s the first time in our field that we have observed how the networks of librarians who are new to conducting research change over time.
The population examined for the article is the Scholars of the program I co-direct, the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL). Over the course of a year we asked each of the Scholars from the first cohort to complete an egocentric network ...
Source: Organization Monkey - April 13, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: articles i'm reading IRDL writing Source Type: blogs
Sometimes nice things happen
For the last few months every time I walked from the library to get my stress fix (a small bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos) from the campus bookstore I would pass by a light pole hung with a large banner of myself, as part of the LMyoU campaign. It’s been a total delight to get to be the face of the library for the 2017 cohort. Here’s a link to the website that has my picture and story, along with all of the other cohort members: http://lmyou.lmu.edu/marie-kennedy/. I really like the photograph that LMU staff photographer, Jon Rou, took of me.
Here’s what the banner looks like:
It’s nice to be recognized...
Source: Organization Monkey - April 9, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: e-resource mgmt Source Type: blogs
Tears
One of the things about being married to a minister is that I sometimes end up helping with resources. And so it was that I was asked how many tears someone would cry in a lifetime, for use as an illustration in a service.This turns out to be a difficult question. If you just count tears of sadness, then of course it depends on how often you are sad, and how sad, as well as how long you live. But I ended up with a sort of answer, and although it was on the internet, it wasn ’t found through a regular internet search.I started with a regular internet search, for something like “how many ...
Source: Browsing - April 6, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: citation searching ophthalmology tears Source Type: blogs
Syndemics
The Lancet has started aseries about " syndemics " (may require a subscription). Not a term I have come across before. But not a new one, either.It is to do with the interaction of diseases, and environmental and other factors. The diseases or conditions have an influence on each other, and this is what differentiates syndemics from multimorbidity or comorbidity.The term was devised by the anthropologist Merrill Singer, whose book Introduction to syndemics appeared in 2009. Singer developed the " emergent concept " of syndemics " as part of an ongoing effort to rethink the pub...
Source: Browsing - March 27, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Source Type: blogs
My pronouns are...
I recently saw an email, at the end of which was the statement:" My pronouns are she/her/hers " .When talking about someone, for example, " go and talk to the librarian, and [pronoun] will help you " , which pronoun do you use if you don ' t know the gender of that person? If you use " he " or " she " , that is gender specific and may not match the gender of the person. " It " doesn ' t really work to refer to people. I ' d use " they " .But which pronouns would that person want used to refer to themselves? That is what " my pronouns are... " is about. Moves towards gender and transgender incl...
Source: Browsing - March 22, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Source Type: blogs
We apologise for the delay to this blog...
Another long wait.Caused by nothing specific.I am going to try to get back in the writing habit. This post does not count, though. (Source: Browsing)
Source: Browsing - March 17, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries 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
Marketing A-Z
To amuse myself I went to Google and typed in “Marketing is” and then added on the letters of the alphabet, one by one, to see how it auto-completed. Summary: LOL. (Source: Organization Monkey)
Source: Organization Monkey - January 13, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: monkeys/bananas 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
