Thanks to all who responded to the Document Supply survey. We had a very pleasing response of approximately 10% of our members. The full report will be available in January.

Most people are satisfied with the existing service but were not aware of the significant costs of acquiring material from the British Library. Although respondents are concerned about the mechanism for paying, approximately 34% said they would be willing to pay if there was no charge for material supplied from within the Queen’s or HSC Library network. From our records it would appear that the majority of requests can be fulfilled internally. Some articles available online are free and in those cases you can print them out or download them without any charge. Other online articles are available to you because the library has paid a subscription and you are recognised as a member of our library. Again you can print or download these for no charge. We are only talking about charging users for material that we have to obtain from other libraries at the cost mentioned in the survey.

The next stage is to look at implementing a new system of charging and discussing this with the Trusts and other organisations. We will keep you informed of developments.

In June the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) launched its first medicines and prescribing app for use on Smartphones.  The app provides easy access to the latest up-to-date prescribing information from the BNF.  Currently the app is only available to health and care professionals in England.  However the Medical & HSC library is in correspondence with NICE at present with a view to making the app available to HSC personnel in Northern Ireland and we will update our members on progress through honni.

The Medical and HSC Library is currently carrying out a brief survey on document supply to find out what our library users need and how the service might develop in the face of increasing funding pressures.

We would be grateful if you would take a few minutes to complete the survey which is available at http://go.qub.ac.uk/lvbbc.

Have you noticed?  Now you can:

• Share resource records on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites
• Print and email records easily

When you find an item on honni Encore and open the full item record, you will see links to certain social networking sites underneath the record details.  The links are displayed as small icons:

Clicking on the email icon opens an email dialogue box which allows you to email the item details to yourself and others.  The print icon enables you to print the item details in an appropriate format.  Icons for Twitter and Facebook are specifically provided, although you can select from a wide range of other social networking sites simply by clicking the last icon for more.  This also allows you to access reference management sites such as CiteULike, Mendeley and Conotea. Note that Encore does not necessarily support all reference management tools so you will need to test these for yourself.

We are conscious of the fact that many social networking sites are inaccessible from HSC Trust locations. However, you may find the links useful when working from home or elsewhere.

 

If there a particular book you would like to see available in the library you can easily suggest it to library staff.

Just click the ‘Suggest a Purchase’ link from the My Account menu on the honni home page and log in.  Then simply fill in the item details on the form, provide your own details and click ‘Submit Suggestion’.  Your suggestion will be received by a specialist subject librarian for consideration, and you will be notified of the decision.

It is very easy to request material online from the library. Depending on your approach, you can use one of two different requesting methods:

1.      Directly from your search results

This method is used if you find a particular item during a search.  For an article which is not available online in full-text you will be offered the ‘Place Request’ option and you will only need to click ‘I agree’ to accept the copyright declaration and submit the request.  For other types of material a ‘Request it’ link may be available in the catalogue and you simply need to specify the location where you would like to pick up the item.

2.     From the ‘Place Request’ link  in the My Account menu

This method is used if you are unable to find a particular item on honni, or no ‘Request it’ link is available, or you don’t have time to carry out a search and prefer to go straight to requesting.  Unlike the first method, where the request form is automatically populated with the item details, you will need to manually input the information.

Paper forms are also available from the library for those who prefer not to use online requesting methods.  There is no charge for requesting books, reports and similar types of publication, but a small charge for article requesting is payable.  For more information see the Book and Article Requesting section on honni.

 

A new online guide to finding and connecting to resources via honni Encore is now available.

Using images to show exactly what you will see on screen, the guide provides information on how to:

• Search the catalogue
• Find electronic journals
• Find electronic books
• Access articles
• Access databases

To see the guide, click the link in the centre of the honni home page, or go directly to the How to Guide.

The Library recently ran a trial through honni to the point of care tool, UpToDate.  It elicited a very positive response from users, with many requesting that it be purchased.

The trial is now over so access to the resource is no longer available, and the Library is now negotiating with the supplier to see if a regional price can be agreed.

A Procurement Sub-Committee of the Library Advisory Group was set up earlier this year and is currently investigating how best we can work together on a regional basis to procure and provide access to resources for the benefit of all HSC staff.  It is only by taking a creative approach to resource procurement at a time of severe funding pressures that we can negotiate more competitive deals, thereby ensuring staff have the information they need to provide high quality patient care and effective risk management.

Joint procurement is a challenging task and it will take some time to carry the project forward.  The outcome will depend on many factors, not least cost, but we are awaiting a quotation for regional provision of UpToDate and we will keep members informed of progress.

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About UpToDate

UpToDate is a clinical information resource which has been available for 20 years.  It aims to provide information quickly and easily to help with point of care decisions in 19 specialities, with more specialities in development.

The problem with honni Encore has been resolved (Thursday 13th Sept. 2.00pm).

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The Encore library catalogue has been unavailable since last night, and the software suppliers are working hard on resolving the problem.  Until it is fixed you can access the library catalogue via the classic advanced search facility at http://qu-lms.qub.ac.uk/search~S2/X.

3 October 2012: The UpToDate trial has now ended.  We will be endeavouring to negotiate a deal with the publisher and we will keep you informed via the blog.

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from 1^st August for 6 weeks

The Medical & HSC Library is running a trial to UpToDate via honni (www.honni.qub.ac.uk) in order to assess interest in procuring it on a regional basis for all Trusts.

UpToDate is a clinical decision support system that helps clinicians throughout the world provide the best patient care. It is based on the current medical evidence with a view to answer clinical questions quickly and easily at the point of care. It is created by a faculty of over 4800 physician experts who synthesize the current medical literature, incorporating the latest evidence-based medicine, providing specific, reliable and succinct clinical answers for all aspects of patient care. The available clinical evidence is vigorously peer reviewed prior to publication, and further enriched through feedback by physicians in about 150 countries.

In addition to comprehensive presentation of the evidence, each topic offers practical, detailed, and evidence-based recommendations that clinicians can use at the point of care. There is no question that UpToDate offers the most current, authoritative and easily accessible information available on a clinical topic.

To access the UpToDate trial click

http://honni.ezp1.qub.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.uptodate.com/contents/search?unid=^u&srcsys&eiv=2.1.0

Your feedback is important: Your feedback on the clinical value of UpToDate will be a decisive factor on whether to purchase UpToDate regionally.  Please provide your feedback to Angela Thompson (Faculty Librarian, Medical & HSC Library), a.m.thompson@qub.ac.uk