The Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland

Evidence, resources and updates for health and social care.

Category: Headlines

  • Reduction in available e-resources

    The Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland has faced ongoing challenges in maintaining its resources due to the lack of an increased budget from the Department of Health. With rising subscription costs, the budget has effectively decreased over the years, leading to a situation where maintaining the current level of resources would result in a significant financial deficit. As a result, difficult decisions have been made to stay within the available budget. 

    These decisions include a 50% reduction in the library’s book budget and the cancellation of 32 e-journals, two e-journal collections, and the HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium) database. The book budget reduction is already in effect, while the changes to e-journal subscriptions (see HSC Cancellation List below) will begin in January 2025.  The Library acknowledges the serious impact these reductions will have on healthcare professionals and their work, and it remains committed to working with the Department of Health to find a sustainable funding solution for the future. 

    HSC Cancellation List

    Annals of the rheumatic diseases

    Aphasiology : an international interdisciplinary journal

    Augmentative and Alternative Communication

    BMJ Case Reports

    BMJ Quality & safety

    Brain

    British Journal of Mental Health Nursing

    British journal of music therapy

    British journal of psychiatry

    Canadian journal of anaesthesia

    Cancer Nursing

    Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal

    Current opinion in otolaryngology & head and neck surgery

    Dentomaxillofacial Radiology

    Disability & Rehabilitation (incl Disability & Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology)

    Disability & Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology

    Dysphagia

    European Heart Journal

    Good Autism Practice

    HMIC (Health Management Information Consortium)

    Intensive care medicine

    International journal of developmental disabilities

    Journal of Infectious diseases

    Journal of laryngology and otology.

    Journal of neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry.

    journal of orthopaedic & sports physical therapy [electronic resource]

    Journal of Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition

    Journal of Patient Safety

    Journal of Pediatric Psychology

    Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association

    Pharmaceutical Journal

    Prehospital Emergency care

    Radiology & Radiographics

    Taylor and Francis Mental Health and Social Care Collection

    Taylor and Francis Psychology Collection

  • New Specialist Librarian for Pharmacy and Healthcare Management

    The Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland is pleased to announce the appointment of Patrick Elliott as its new Specialist Librarian for Pharmacy and Healthcare Management.
    In his new role, Patrick will provide specialist subject support, including giving advice on using key library resources, guidance on developing literature searches, and offering tailored one-to-one and group training to pharmacists and healthcare managers.
    Additionally, he will work on ensuring Healthcare Library collections reflect the needs of these customer groups.

    Patrick’s previous experience includes working with students and researchers in academic libraries and he brings a wealth of experience to the role. Patrick will work alongside the rest of the Healthcare Library team in delivering and promoting effective use of information resources relevant to Healthcare Library customers.
    His work will be instrumental in advancing the Healthcare Library’s mission to deliver free library and information services, expert advice and training to support patient care, evidence-based practice and Continuous Professional Development.

    The Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland welcomes Patrick and looks forward to the positive impact his knowledge and skills will bring.
    Pharmacy staff and healthcare managers are encouraged to contact Patrick for support on using the wide range of services available and to discover how the library can support their professional development and research needs.

  • Social Policy & Practice now available for Library members

    This database is particularly useful if you need to find UK based social work research, examples of good practice or reports on service developments etc.  It has links to many reports that are published online but would not be discoverable through the usual library search or other databases such as SocIndex, which concentrate more on academic journal content.

    You can access Social Policy & Practice from the Healthcare Library home page – select the Databases A-Z, and scroll to Social Policy & Practice.  The Link is also available from the Social Work Libguide.

    Contact Hazel.Neale@HealthcareLibrary.qub.ac.uk, the Specialist Librarian for Social Work if you have any questions or want to arrange some training on using this resource.

  • Embase now available to members

    The Healthcare Library is delighted to announce that Embase is now available to all members.  Embase is a database covering biomedical literature and extensive amounts of pharmacological research dating back to 1974.  This resource compliments the Medline database and by searching both researchers can retrieve a good range of the biomedical research.  Embase will also be particularly useful for pharmacists as it indexes drug literature in more detail than Medline.

    To access Embase

    If you have any queries or would like training please contact your subject librarian.

  • EBSCO/Cinahl Single Sign-On (SSO)

    The Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland is now able to provide Single Sign-On (SSO) for EBSCO resources.  These resources include some databases such as Cinahl Ultimate.

    Single Sign-On (SSO) provides seamless authentication and personalization to EBSCO resources.  You will not need to manage a separate login to access your MyEBSCO account. You will use the Healthcare Library login credentials to institutionally authenticate and to seamlessly access your personal MyEBSCO account.

    If you are prompted to consent to the creation of a MyEBSCO account click on Continue Personalized, a MyEBSCO account is created and you are automatically logged into it. On subsequent logins, you will be immediately logged into your MyEBSCO account.

    If you do not grant consent by clicking on Skip for Now, you will receive an error page as you are required to personalize in order to access any EBSCO products.

    I already have an EBSCO account – how do I retrieve my existing searches?

    If you already have an EBSCO account with saved searches etc. you are still able to access those.  In the database click Sign In at the top right of the screen & then click Switch Accounts also at the top right. Login with your existing EBSCO account details. Your saved searches will then be accessible by clicking on Folder.

    If you have any questions please contact your Specialist Librarian.

  • Current Awareness Bulletins: Autistic Spectrum Disorder

    Our Autistic Spectrum Disorder bulletin connects HSC staff to full-text papers on autism and other neurodivergent conditions. View and subscribe at:

    https://libguides.qub.ac.uk/healthcarelibrary/medicinebulletins/autism

    New issues are available every 2 months.

    Any questions, please email: richard.fallis@healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk

  • The Healthcare Library’s Standards of Service

    The Healthcare Library’s Standards of Service

    The Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland has since 2018 been committed to ensuring a consistent and excellent delivery of service through a range of 18 service standards broadly covering the following service areas:

    Person holding a rosette with a tick. It is surrounded by stars

    The purpose of our Standards of Service is to provide a measurable performance level to guarantee that the Library will meet customer needs. Examples of these Standards include a set response time for an enquiry, a commitment to supplying interlibrary loan requests within a certain period and simply ensuring that our Healthcare Library customers are happy with our library environments. All but six of our Standards of Service have a target of 100% which demonstrates that the Library is striving to provide the best possible service.

    Speech bubble saying We want your feedback

    All library staff are responsible for ensuring that the provision of service meets set targets and, each year, the Library reviews its customer-focused service targets and we publish our performance against these targets. As part of this process, we would like your input – if you have any feedback or comments on our Standards of Service please let us know via our  
    Customer Feedback Page.

    We are particularly interested to hear if you feel that there are important areas of service delivery on which we should focus or whether our targets meet your needs

    A group of medical professionals

  • Struggling to stay up to date?

    We know it’s hard to keep on top of all that’s happening in the world of medicine.

    That’s why we issue our weekly Big 4 Current Awareness Bulletin. Each week we’ll send you links to the newest articles from the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, JAMA and NEJM straight into your inbox.

    Sound handy? Subscribing couldn’t be easier. Just email i.coghlan@qub.ac.uk to subscribe.

    You can see our latest issue here

    Here’s some feedback from current subscribers about the Big 4 bulletin:

  • The new ClinicalKey app – now available

    The Library has subscribed to ClinicalKey for many years.  The resource gives you access to key information through tools such as clinical overviews, drug monographs and calculators, as well as many journals and e-books.  If you want to find out more about the resource, why not watch the video below which gives you an overview of the range information available on ClinicalKey. 

    Overview of ClinicalKey 

    ClinicalKey is available as an app and this has recently been updated giving you quick and easy access to the information you need, when you need it.  To help you get started there is a quick help sheet linked to below.  Please follow the instructions for Accessing via your institution and when prompted enter the Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland as your institution.  NB you will be required to log in with your Healthcare Library username and password. 

    ClinicalKey-App-Quick-Sheet.pdf (widen.net) 

    If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact your subject librarian. 

  • Cinahl Ultimate now available

    The Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland has upgraded its access to Cinahl, from Cinahl Complete to Cinahl Ultimate, which is the new definitive research tool for nursing and allied health professions.  This means members of the Library now have access to 100’s more journals including the RCN titles, British Journal of Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy Reviews, Podiatry Today and many more.