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d's Day!In April you can come to the Library and sip your coffee while searching MEDLINE, or munch on a sandwich or bagel while reading the latest journal article. No, it’s not an April Fool’s joke! But it is an experiment that starts on April 1st, when the Library will begin to lift its ban on food and beverages.
The “MCL Cyber Café” is being created as a food-friendly area in the Library, where you can enjoy snacks, lunches, and beverages (in covered containers) while reading, chatting, or using the workstations. Located to the left of the Library Service Desk (LSD), it will contain small café tables as well as larger tables for group use. In addition, there will be comfortable chairs, a sofa, and coffee tables.
If this experiment is successful, we hope to expand the food and beverage policy to include other areas. However, we need YOUR HELP to make this successful:
Please throw out your trash as you leave
Currently, you have to bring in your own coffee and snacks, but we are investigating the feasibility of putting a coffee bar in the Library. Watch this newsletter and our Website for more updates on the cyber café experiment and our future plans. We also welcome your feedback on this more flexible approach to food and beverages. You may share your thoughts by stopping by the Library Service Desk, leaving a note in the suggestion box across from the desk, or sending email to Vanessa Sellars at sella004@mc.duke.edu or to mclnews@mc.duke.edu.
Many of you have contacted me with your concerns about our decision to say no to the Elsevier contract and what that means for accessing critical information in these journals. First, let me assure you that while we canceled a number of Elsevier titles, we will still receive many of them in electronic format. The issue was whether we would accept their contract terms or move away from “the big deal” and purchase titles on an individual basis, including electronic access. We chose the latter path due to the cancellation clauses, which greatly restricted the Duke libraries’ ability to pick and choose titles over a three- or five-year contract. By moving outside the big deal contract, the Triangle Research Library Network (TRLN) and Duke libraries could take control of their collections and keep those materials that were needed, as well as balance their budgets.
You will find that many of the top quality titles published and owned by Elsevier are still available. However, many of the research journal subscriptions were canceled due to high cost, while the less expensive clinical titles were retained. Almost all the disciplines in the Medical Center were affected by the cancellations.
Elsevier’s proposed contract was not the only big deal that caused us problems. Through TRLN and the Perkins Library system, we have been negotiating better contract terms with a number of publishers, including Wiley and Kluwer, and some negotiations are still under way. Escalating costs of electronic journals are making us challenge the pricing of society and commercial publishers and demand the ability to cancel titles as needed.
The other issue with our Elsevier subscriptions was their high cost. For many years, the premier medical journals have had higher prices. A number of the Elsevier titles are the most costly titles published. As prices have increased over the years, the cost for keeping these journals has required a larger portion of our journal budget, squeezing out the society and smaller publishers’ journals, which offer equally important content.
With our budget cuts in FY2004, the Elsevier subscriptions would have taken nearly 50% of our journal budget, while representing about 15% of all the current journals in our collection. Keeping all the Elsevier titles would have meant cutting $300,000 worth of titles from other publishers and losing electronic access to many. We realized this imbalance could not continue. Based on ratings by faculty, we identified the Elsevier titles that were less important and made the difficult cancellation decisions, as we have made with other publishers’ journals. Even with the cuts, about 35% of our journal budget will be used for Elsevier titles, which account for almost 12% to 15% of our current collection.
I want to thank those who have taken the time to send me their comments and concerns about the journal cancellations. I welcome your input and understand your frustrations in trying to access information in a timely and efficient manner. The proposed budget for FY2005 has been increased, and we will be carefully monitoring journal use to see if some titles need to be restored next year.
| NRC Resources Added to Online Catalog |
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Books and other materials listed in the Duke online catalog with a location of “Med Ctr Natl Ctr Child Trauma — NCCTS” are held in the National Resource Center Library (NRC) for Child Traumatic Stress. Items in this off-campus, Duke-affiliated library collection do not circulate, but may be used in the Center, Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm. For directions to the NRC Library, ask staff at the DUMC Library Service Desk. |
Spotlight on ... Collection Development and Acquisitions
Maurice Reece, Access Services
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This issue’s “Spotlight On...” series focuses on two important behind-the-scenes players on the Library team: the person who selects the books and other materials for the collection, and the person who orders and pays for them. Mary Ann Brown, Collection Development Librarian, spearheads the book selection and review process for all new and replacement items. Her recommendations are then turned over to Jennifer Glasier who places the orders and follows through on the delivery and payment process.
|  Collection Development Librarian |
Commenting on the rise of electronic resources, Mary Ann thinks that online books are great, even though they have certain drawbacks, including licensing problems. “You cannot take a computer with you everywhere you go, and there is no substitute for holding a book in your hands while you read,” she added.
Jennifer Glasier joined the Medical Library staff in 1999 as a Library Assistant in the Circulation Department. She came to Duke after graduating from Auburn University and spending several years working in retail bookstores in AL, DC and NC, in various capacities ranging from clerk to manager. Moving from Circulation to Acquisitions was a logical career move for Jennifer. As Acquisitions Manager, she takes the recommendations made by Mary Ann, places the orders, and follows through on the delivery, billing, and payment for each order. Most often orders are processed online or directly with the publishers, but on ocassion, the old-fashioned visit to the bookstore is necessary to purchase an item.
 Acquisitions Manager |
Jennifer keeps track of ongoing orders for publications such as the American Drug Index and the Physician’s Desk Reference, which publish new editions each year. (Some serials such as Methods in Molecular Biology are not always published sequentially and must be placed on standing order. Because these series are not published in regular succession, a patron may find volume 253 on the shelf, for example, but no volume 252.) Jennifer also oversees payment for the monthly and bimonthly journal subscriptions and prepares spread sheets and statistical reports to help keep track of acquisition activity and monthly expenditures, an increasingly important part of her job in light of recent budgets cuts. |
The Medical Center Library hosted a teleconference on expert database searching in the Duke Hospital auditorium on March 10, 2004. Roles and Essential Skills for the Expert Searcher was sponsored by the Medical Library Association (MLA) to “provide an overview of the basic concepts of expert searching, explore the issues involved in developing and retaining expert skills, and promote expert search services as an important means of institutional support.” Librarians from North Carolina hospitals, academic medical centers, biomedical institutions, area health education centers, universities, community colleges, and public libraries joined colleagues at Duke to explore strategies for enhancing expert database search services for their clients.
Speakers on the teleconference panel included Ruth Holst, associate director of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine-Greater Midwest Region, University of Illinois-Chicago; J. Michael Homan, director of libraries at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota; Ann McKibbon, associate professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Health Information Research Unit at McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; and Susan Whitmore, chief of the Information and Education Services Branch in the National Institutes of Health Library, Bethesda, Maryland.
The Medical Library Association (MLA) policy statement on the Role of Expert Searching in Health Sciences Libraries addresses the complex process of retrieving and evaluating the most relevant information from the biomedical literature indexed in computerized databases. MLA’s policy statement asserts that “the use of evidence- or knowledge-based information retrieved through the expert searching process can help insure the clinical, administrative, educational, and research success … of the individual health care provider as well as the hospital or academic health center.” The MLA Task Force on Expert Searching identified several “high impact areas” that benefit from the involvement of professional medical librarians with expert database searching skills: complex or unusual clinical cases; research design support; support of basic science research; institutional support of patient safety; institutional support of litigation; key business and academic decisions; and support of scholarship and grant applications.
For more information and to download a pdf copy of the policy statement, connect to http://www.mlanet.org/resources/expert_search/policy_expert_search.html.
Medical librarians at Duke have valuable expert searching skills gained from education, training, and experience. For evidence-based medicine and best practices in clinical care, there has been a renewed focus in the health sciences on librarians as expert searchers. The Duke Medical Center Library is reviewing its current database search services in the context of the MLA policy statement and recent teleconference.
In the fall of 2003, the Duke University Libraries (Perkins Library and its branches along with the libraries serving Business, Divinity, Law, and Medicine) selected Ex Libris, Inc., to provide a new suite of library management software. The new software will substantially enhance access to all library resources, both online and traditional.
The Duke Libraries have also selected two additional Ex Libris products that will ease the task of locating digital resources at Duke and beyond. The MetaLib virtual gateway will search across electronic resources with a single command, standardize results from multiple sources, and compare those results in ways that yield more relevant information. SFX, a context-sensitive linking tool fully integrated into MetaLib, allows users to move seamlessly from information in the library’s online catalog and subscribed databases to licensed full-text versions.
It is projected that the new library system will be implemented in the summer of 2004.
For additional information regarding this project, visit http://www.lib.duke.edu/its/diglib/ilstrans/selection.
Questions regarding the new library system should be directed to Kenneth Berger, Project Manager
(660-5804; ken.berger@duke.eduTeleconference on Expert Searching
Robert James, Associate Director, Public Services
In August 2003, Dr. William J. Fulkerson made a call for Duke staff to participate in the 2nd Annual Teddy Bear Challenge for the 14th Annual Teddy Bear Ball. The bears collected from the challenge were to be donated to the Children’s Health Center.
Pat Thibodeau, Associate Dean, accepted the challenge, along with Library staff members Marlyse MacDonald, Robert James, and Charlie Lackey. The group put a great deal of thought into naming and selecting the bears that would be donated for the challenge.
Liberry Bear denotes the field of librarianship.
Reada Bear, with her accompanying books, encourages children to read.
Wizard Bear shows how libraries work to answer questions.
Answering the Teddy Bear Challenge
Charlie Lackey, Cataloging and Collection Development Services
Library staff had a wonderful time preparing the bears. This activity brought a great deal of humor into the workplace as well as serving a worthy cause.
LiBEARians Donated:
Booker Bear emphasizes the importance of books to children.
Staff News
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April 18-24, 2004 |
Many universities and libraries have suffered substantial damage during the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving their faculty, students, and countries without access to library materials. Duke University is working with the University of Manitoba Medical School to address some of the problems in the Kabul Medical Institute Library. The Manitoba Medical Students Association is the organizing force behind this project.
The Kabul Medical Library Project volunteers are asking for donations of medical textbooks that are less than ten years old. A list of specific textbooks is available at http://members.shaw.ca/kabulmedbooks/donations.htm, but they are willing to take other textbooks if they fall within the ten-year time frame of 1994-2004. Cash donations are also welcomed for purchasing needed materials.
The Medical Center Library will collect textbooks to send to Manitoba, or you may send them directly to Kevin Warrian, Medical Student Project Coordinate, Kabul Medical Library Project, University of Manitoba, Faculty of Medicine Office, Room 270 Brodie Centre, 727 McDermot Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, R3E 3P5, Canada.
Monetary donations, made out to the University of Manitoba, with “KABUL LIBRARY PROJECT” indicated in the note or memo section of the check, can be sent to Attn: Monica Roucek, Dean’s Office, 270-727 McDermot Avenue, Brodie Centre, Winnipeg, MB, R3E 3P5, Canada.
For more information about the project, visit the Kabul Medical Library Project Website at http://members.shaw.ca/kabulmedbooks/kabullibrary.htm.
Iraqi health professionals are also in dire need of current medical textbooks. The American Red Cross is working with the US Army to deliver current medical materials to Iraq. Donations can be sent to the American Red Cross, Attn: Station Manager (CA), G1 HHC 4ID, Unit 92628, APO AE 09323-2628.
MCL News Moves to Online Only
Beginning with the October 2004 issue, The Medical Center Library News
will no longer be distributed in print and mailed to subscribers. For your
convenience, we will continue to offer an HTML version and a portable document
format for printing at http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/about/news/newsletter.html.Current subscribers will continue to receive the print version of the newsletter until the transition takes place. If you want to be notified by email when the electronic versions are available, you may send an email message to mclnews@mc.duke.edu or complete the Notification Form at http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/about/news/mailform.html.
Pat Thibodeau, Associate Dean for Library Services
Book Drop Locations and Schedules
To avoid overdue fines, please pay particular attention to the pickup schedules, or return all journals, books, and interlibrary loan items directly to the Library. Audiovisuals should be returned to the Library Service Desk to avoid damaging them.
Duke South Clinics
Personal Rapid Transit Lobby. Pickup: Monday through Friday at 9:30 a.m. Duke Hospital North
PRT Lobby, Lower Level near the walkway to Parking Garage II. Pickup: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday ONLY at 9:30 a.m. Sands Building
Sands Building, on the Jones Building side near the rear exit door. Pickup: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday ONLY at 9:30 a.m.
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Library Educational Offerings |
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Please contact the topic instructor to arrange for a session
MEDLINE
Using the Web Gateway
Call the Library Service Desk
919-660-1100
PubMed
Anne Powers, 919-660-1128
Library Orientation
Megan von Isenburg, 919-660-1131
Grant Information On The Web
~ COS and Other Resources ~
Anne Powers, 919-660-1128
Introduction To EndNote
Ginger Carden, 919-660-1184
Introduction To Reference Manager
Ginger Carden, 919-660-1184
Introduction to Sources for Health Statistics
Hattie Vines, 919-660-1125
EndNote Tutorial
Tutorial designed to assist users who have completed a search in the Ovid Web
version of MEDLINE and would like to import citations into EndNote.
http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/training/endnote/
EBM Tutorial
This tutorial identifies the steps in the EBM process and key issues related to critical appraisal.
http://www.hsl.unc.edu/lm/EBM/index.htm
Virtual Tour of Library
This online tour provides you with information about the Medical Center Library,
its services, and where to find them within the building.
http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/about/virtualtour/
For more information about these offerings, connect to the Library's Website at http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/training |
To receive notification by email when the electronic version of the Medical Center Library News is available, please send your name, department, box number, and email address to the Medical Center Library, Box 3702, DUMC. You may also send email to mclnews@mc.duke.edu or complete the Mailing List Form at http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/about/news/mailform.html.
Maurice Reece ...............Julie Walker
Anne Powers
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Questions? (919) 660-1127
mclnews@mc.duke.edu
DUMC 3702 Durham, NC 27710 USA
http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/about/news/ln04-04.html Last modified: 8-26-2008 © 2008 Duke University Medical Center Library |