Home page links to ‘Resources by Profession’

Resources for specific professions are currently accessed via the ‘Electronic Resources’ menu in honni.  To find them it is necessary to click on ‘Electronic Resources’, then on ‘Resources by Profession’, and finally on the specific profession of interest.

To shorten the route to these resources the honni team plans to place buttons linking to specific subject areas on the honni home page.

Menu link to ‘Renew Books’

We also plan to introduce a ‘Renew Books’ link to the main honni menu.  This will allow you to quickly log in to your library account and renew any books you currently have on loan.   Watch out for the changes in July 2010

In addition to any of the libraries which are part of the Medical & Healthcare Library, HSC library members are also entitled to use the University’s new, purpose-built library.  The  McClay Library, located beside Belfast’s Botanic Gardens, is a modern building which brings together state of the art computing and study facilities, blending the best features of a traditional library with the latest technology.

You can bring your own wireless laptop and connect to our network, avail of the library’s ‘laptop for loan’ service, or log on to one of the desktop PCs available.  Please note that you will need to bring your library card to gain entry.

For further information about the services available visit The McClay Library page on the library website.

Those of you who are members of the honni Consultative Group normally receive honni Update by email.  Where appropriate it provides links to this blog where you can post comments on issues raised. 

The Library has recently implemented Microsoft Sharepoint for sharing information and working collaboratively.  It is possible to create a work space within the Library Sharepoint site to allow Consultative Group members to log in and follow honni developments, contribute to discussions, and open discussions of their own. 

We are keen to know whether this would be of interest to existing or potential Consultative Group members.  Post your comments here to let us know what you think.

The ‘My iLibrary’ interface is not compatible with older versions of Internet Explorer. Users who experience problems using this resource are advised to use Internet Explorer version 7 or more recent, or an alternative browser.

A new OvidSP interface is will be released in June 2010.  The OvidSP interface hosts such databases as Medline, Maternity & Infant Care and HMIC.  You can already try the new OvidSP by clicking on the Try it now button from within the current interface as displayed below.

However this dual access will continue until the end of July when access will be permanently transferred to the new interface.

If you have any queries, please contact your subject librarian.

Introduction

During the months of February and March 2010 trials to three Point of Care clinical tools were made available on the honni website.  This was as a result of feedback from HSC personnel that this type of resource would be beneficial.  The resources trialled were BMJ Best Practice, Dynamed and FirstConsult.  The trial was publicised on the honni website, in all library branches and by direct contact with individuals.  An online feedback form was designed to enable direct feedback on the three resources allowing individuals to indicate their preference.

Feedback

Only four feedback forms were received, with BMJ proving the preferred option with average ratings of good to excellent.  FirstConsult was second getting average ratings of fair to very good.   Dynamed was the least favoured with average ratings of fair to good.

Comments from feedback:-

• “BMJ evidence is pitched perfectly at the level of the clinically practising doctor and is a mine of information.  It is also reassuringly up to date.”
• “Difficulty: initially with dynamed”
• “BMJ evidence was the best but not as easy to navigate as First Consult.  Dynamed was useful but I liked it least of all three.”

Statistics

Despite BMJ proving to be the preferred option according to the feedback, it was not the most used resource.  During the trial both Dynamed and FirstConsult were used more often.

		Total (Feb & Mar)
FirstConsult	Sessions	46
Dynamed	Sessions	41
BMJ Evidence	Sessions	26

Conclusion

It is difficult to establish a way forward based on the comments of four individuals particularly since the statistics and feedback do not necessarily support each other.  The library currently has insufficient funds to take a subscription to any of these resources.  Furthermore due to the limited feedback and usage it would be difficult to bid for additional funding.  BMJ for instance has an annual subscription cost of over £100,000 but the results of the trial do not indicate a great enough demand to warrant the expense of such a subscription.  At present the library will not be pursuing a subscription to a point of care tool but will keep this under review.

There are currently free resources of a similar nature available through honni e-lib and at present the library would recommend these to our users as a useful alternative.

• Clinical Knowledge Summaries
• Best BETs – best evidence topics
• BMJ Evidence Updates

Although an evolving resource, TRIP Answers is a collection of clinical questions and answers drawn from a wide number of sources around the world.  It continues to build on TRIP’s experience of answering clinical questions and users are alerted to the fact if the evidence they are accessing is over two years old.  Links are further provided to PubMed and TRIP to allow users to conduct other related relevant searches.

Users can access TRIP Answers by using the Cross Search facility within Honni e-lib and referring to Medicine, and selecting Guidelines & EBP.

There is a new area within MDConsult which pulls together resources from the MDConsult database of relevance to over 25 medical specialties.  These recommended resources provide the most current, relevant and clinically useful content.  Specialties are further broken down into relevant topics and help to provide good sources for answers to clinical medical queries.

MDConsult is a resource for physicians to answer clinical queries and keep up to date with recent developments.  Resources covered include electronic books, journals, Clinics of North America, guidelines and images.  Access to this resource is available through Honni e-lib, and the Find Database option or the Cross Search facility under Medicine and by selecting Databases.

Pharm-line is a bibliographic database on medicines management, prescribing, pharmacy practice and the clinical use of drugs.  From April 1^st 2010, Pharm-line will no longer be a separate database but instead a new open-access medicines management area has been added to the National Electronic Library for Medicines (NeLM).  New records are being added to this area and relevant Pharm-line records have been transferred.

The previous Pharm-line database is no longer being updated and will eventually be closed.  Users can access the National Electronic Library for Medicines site by using the following URL:

http://www.nelm.nhs.uk/en/NeLM-Area/Evidence/Medicines-Management/References

or by accessing the NeLM through the Pharmacy web resources category within the Cross-Search facility on Honni e-lib.

We are pleased to report that this problem has now been resolved. So it should again be possible to request articles from a PC on any operating system.
(30/11/2010)

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It seems that the article requesting service via honni does not work properly with the Windows 7 operating system.  The article details are not transmitted to library staff who are therefore unable to process the request.

Until the problem has been resolved article requests should be submitted by one of the following methods:

• On a PC with an operating system other than Windows 7
• Via the ‘Place Request’ facility on the Library Catalogue
• By filling in and submitting a printed form available from any Medical & Healthcare Library site.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.  The fault has been reported to the software suppliers and we hope there will be a speedy resolution.