Digital Media help coming to Jackson Library Fall 2012

Hi all, please enjoy this announcement on digital media services...

This Fall, the Digital Media Commons will open its doors in the lower level [=basement] of Jackson Library. As you know, UNCG students are increasingly required to create and use digital media to complete their assignments. Twenty-first century graduates must now possess media literacy skills in order to critically analyze media, and to create and convey their own ideas and messages in today's emerging mediums.  The Digital Media Commons (DMC) will be a new space on campus where UNCG students, faculty, and staff can get help with all aspects of creating and refining their multimedia projects.

The DMC will be jointly operated by staff and students from the Libraries, UNCG Writing Center, and UNCG Speaking Center, and with assistance from Graduate Assistants from the Media Studies Program and School of Library and Information Science.

The Commons will contain lots of group work areas, workstations, media editing rooms, scanners, consultation spaces, a presentation practice room, and staff offices. Patrons will come to the Commons to get assistance with selecting, using, and citing media resources, as well as consult experts on the rhetorical, aesthetic, and technical aspects of developing and communicating their ideas through media.

The Digital Media Commons site is currently under construction in the lower level of Jackson Library, with plans to begin providing services when the Fall 2012 semester begins in mid-August. News of the construction and services will be updated periodically on the DMC webpage, http://library.uncg.edu/spaces/DMC/.

The Digital Media Commons page has this additional information: Please send your questions, comments, and suggestions to: Joe Williams, Head of Access Services, University Libraries

Pitfalls of interpreting diagnostic codes (ICD-9-CM)

In his podcast Diagnostic Codes & Misleading Clinical Assumptions, the director of the U.S. National Library of Medicine summarizes a recent JAMA article and editorial on the pitfalls of interpreting hospital data such as ICD-9-CM codes.

Good brief intro to diagnostic codes and implications for health care research.  Especially for those of us who don't deal with this kind data on a regular basis!
 
Read the transcript. Or check out the other NLM Director's Comment podcasts.

Student lockers and grad study carrels going fast!

Yes, Jackson Library offers student lockers and grad student/faculty carrels (those partitioned desks).

No charge!  You check them out just like a book when you visit the Check Out desk, for a semester. If you're around this summer, come by asap.  Not many lockers left for the fall!

More details: http://library.uncg.edu/spaces/carrels_and_lockers.aspx

Questions? Ask Access Services (the Check Out Desk folks): 336.334.5304

Who Ordered That? The Economics of Treatment Choices in Medical Care

Came across this interesting chapter while prepping for one of my workshops next week -

In the United States, two patients with the same medical condition can receive drastically different treatments. In addition, the same patient can walk into two physicians’ offices and receive equally disparate treatments. This chapter attempts to understand why. It focuses on three areas: the patient, the physician, and the clinical situation. Specifically, the chapter surveys patient or demand-side factors such as price, income, and preferences; physician or supply-side factors such as specialization, financial incentives, and professionalism; and situational factors including behavioral influences and systems-level factors that play a role in clinical decision making. This chapter reviews theory and evidence, borrowing heavily from the clinical literature.

From Chandra, Song & Cutler, 2011, Handbook of Health Economics, Vol. 2, pp. 397-432. From Science Direct  (=no concurrent user limit at our institution!).

Road Trip!

On Tuesday 5/22 I'm headed to Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory.  To introduce nursing students to searching for court cases and articles.

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Time to update the NUR 620 library guide and handout!

The session on Thursday 5/24 won't take me out of the office quite as much.  Mid-afternoon I'm headed to the Triad Center here in Greensboro to introduce nursing students to some sources for cultural information, esp. health and health care related.

No participant computers at either location, which is a bummer.  So I need to think about ways to translate hands-on sessions to lecture + discussion.

Reviews, reviews, reviews. And goals.

This is peer review time in our unit so I've been reading annual reports and submitting reviews. Plus of course there are tenure reviews and post-tenure reviews for the PE&T committee. Those are high stakes.

It is nice to read about the good work that folks have been doing.

And timely since I need to set my own goals for the upcoming year.  I know about some of the projects coming my way. That helps. In general I try to structure my goals around the general expectations for my job -

1. General/interdisciplinary reference and information service
2. Liaison (subject) librarian and collection development - 6 schools, depts, and programs plus interdisciplinary
3. Library instruction - mostly in my liaison areas but starting this year I'll be one of the folks officially taking a turn helping out with freshman/first year instruction, yay!
4. Scholarly, research, creative activities
5. Service
6. Professional development and continuing education

I aim for S.M.A.R.T. goals from as many of these categories as possible.

Farmer's Market Coming to UNCG in July!

The good folks at HealthyUNCG are organizing a Farmer's Market on campus. This isn't library news, but...yay!!

When? starting July 12, Thursdays 11 am-1 pm
Where? Weatherspoon parking lot

View Larger Map

And yes, they're talking to Carl the Tomato Man to include him :)

UNCG/WFU Liaison Brainstorming

What's the deal?

There's been a lot of talk about services and priorities at my library in the past few years.  When the academic programs were reviewed, library services and resources were reviewed too.  Some activities were discontinued and some personnel were reassigned.

Right now there's a group looking at liaison librarian roles. I'm pretty interested in the outcome, since much of what I do is liaison work.

Who are the liaisons?

Most of our liaisons are reference librarians. Their primary jobs have something to do with instruction, research assistance, and collection development.  But we have liaisons from other library departments (IT, Administration). Also at several administrative levels (department head to associate dean). 

Liaisons used to be assigned to academic departments. These assignments have been growing with the addition of new academic programs and the expansion of liaison assignments to living and learning communities, student groups, research centers, etc.  Meanwhile liaisons have also been picking up additional responsibilities within their subject areas - a few of the librarians co-teach for credit courses or embed themselves (play an ongoing, active role) into courses, other librarians are heavy into library guide and tutorial creation, etc.


So let's talk
Steve Cramer, Business Librarian Extraordinaire, called together liaisons from Z. Smith Reynolds Library (Wake Forest University) and from UNCG. We discussed roles, strengths and weaknesses of our liaison systems, plus ways to improve them.

Roles
What are some of the things that we're doing at both institutions?

Strengths and weaknesses
What's working well?  What could be improved?

Strengths of a liaison system drawing from various library depts and administrative levels, with assignments across campus departments and other groups

• Wide coverage of campus for library matters
• Library goodwill - people like learning that you are "their" librarian!
• More viewpoints and strengths from each library area/level available directly to patrons
• Self-agency - flexibility in allowing personnel to focus on subject areas or job functions in which they excel

Weaknesses

• Increased difficulty for administration, training, reporting, assessment of liaison activities
• Growing demand - not sustainable to keep expanding services and activities indefinitely
• Difficulty in finding or keeping a good match between assignments and librarians

Solutions
Ideas for stretching finite resources to meet growing demand.

1. Hire additional liaisons - that one got a big laugh
2. Review and reallocate liaison assignments based on academic department size and need.  
3. Spread liaison work around. Perhaps share liaison tasks with library personnel who have a strong academic background in a subject area? Or let library science student workers loose on tech type stuff?
4. Specialization vs. generalization of liaison work - Perhaps allowing librarians to specialize in job function might save time, effort, duplication? Teaching liaisons (all in reference/outreach dept?) vs. collection liaisons.
5. Reduce time-intensive work:
• Increase approval plan and support additional demand driven/patron driven book selections.
• Rely more on tutorials in library instruction, e.g. assign basic skills tutorials as priming before library talks.

PubMed filters to replace limits page

PubMed will replace the Limits page with sidebar filters.  "Coming soon." Preview available from  the NLM Technical Bulletin.

PubMed citation manager update

The Send to command now has a "citation manager" option, so one less click is involved in saving results to a ctation manager.  Most of the process is still the same for EndNote Web.

1. Open a web page to PubMed and start a search
2. Next to each citation of interest, check the box
3. Click “Send to Citation Manager” then "Create File"
4. A file called citations.nbib will be created for you to save onto your computer.

1. Log into your own EndNote Web account
2. “Collect tab” then “Import References"
3. “Browse” to select your file, then set the filter to “PubMed (NLM)” then send your references to the “Unfiled” Group (folder)