William Shakespeare Visits HSLS in September!

Shakespeare
Click to download a printable 8.5″x11″ poster of the exhibit events at Falk Library

HSLS will be hosting the traveling exhibit, “And There’s the Humor of It”: Shakespeare and the Four Humors, produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and coordinated by the American Library Association. The exhibit uses materials from the historical collections of NLM to explore the prevailing belief during the Shakespearean era that human emotional states were physically determined by the four bodily humors—blood, bile, melancholy, and phlegm.

The connection between Shakespeare’s time and our own is the common understanding of neuroscientists that human emotions are based in biochemistry and that drugs can be used to alleviate mental suffering.

The exhibit is set to arrive at Falk Library on September 29, 2014. Please mark your calendars for the following free events during the exhibit:

OPENING PRESENTATION: October 2, 6-7 p.m., 1105 Scaife Hall

“William Shakespeare and the Four Humors: Elizabethan Medical Beliefs”
Gail Kern Paster, PhD, director emerita, Folger Shakespeare Library

*Visit the exhibit in Falk Library following the lecture, 200 Scaife Hall

OCTOBER PRESENTATION: October 21, 6-7 p.m., Scaife Hall, Lecture Room 5

“A Clinician Looks at Shakespeare and Medicine”
Robin Maier, MD, MA, director of medical student education/clerkship director, Family Medicine, University of Pittsburgh

~Ester Saghafi

The Mendeley Mobile App

Mendeley Logo VerticalMendeley promotes itself as “a free reference manager and academic social network.” It allows users to create searchable libraries of citations and PDFs, cite as you write, read and annotate PDFs, and connect to fellow scholars in a field of interest. Students, faculty, and staff of the University of Pittsburgh have access to the Mendeley Institutional Edition which allows for increased personal storage space among other benefits. 

A free Mendeley app is available for iOS devices at Apple iTunes. Once downloaded, users must sign in with their existing Mendeley desktop account information or create a new account to get started. Continue reading

HSLS Staff News

The HSLS Staff News section includes recent HSLS presentations, publications, staff changes, staff promotions, degrees earned, etc.

News

Melissa Ratajeski, reference librarian, has been appointed a one year term as chair of the Majors/MLA Chapter Project of the Year.

Presentations

Lydia Collins, consumer health coordinator, NN/LM Middle Atlantic Region, presented the keynote address, “More Than a Bandage: Health Information Resources for K-12 Health Professionals,” at the Voices of School Health V Conference in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 2014.

Classes September 2014

HSLS offers classes on database searching, software applications such as Prezi, bibliographic management, molecular biology and genetics, and library orientations. For more information, visit the online course descriptions.

Classes are held on the first floor of Falk Library (200 Scaife Hall) in Classroom 1 and on the upper floor of the library in Classroom 2. All classes are open to faculty, staff, and students of the schools of the health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, who will need a valid Pitt ID or e-mail account. They are also open to UPMC residents and fellows, who will need to show their UPMC IDs.

No registration is required, except where noted. Classes marked with an asterisk (*) qualify for American Medical Association Category 2 continuing education credit.

Class schedules are subject to change. Please consult the online class calendar for the most current information.

FlashClass

FlashClass is a “deal of the week” Groupon-like offer of timely and useful learning. Each week’s offer proposes one or two topics, and you’re invited to sign up to attend a one-hour class the following week. If at least three people sign up, we’ll hold the class. (We’ll notify you either way.)

HSLS CLASSES

EndNote Basics (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Friday, September 12 9-11 a.m.

Advanced PowerPoint for Presentations (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Monday, September 15 10 a.m.-noon

Painless PubMed* (Falk Library Classroom 1)

Wednesday, September 3 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Monday, September 8 4-5 p.m.
Wednesday, September 17 9-10 a.m.
Monday, September 22 Noon-1 p.m.

Prezi for Presentations (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Friday, September 26 12:30-2:30 p.m.

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND GENETICS RESOURCES

Literature Informatics* (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Wednesday, September 10 1-3 p.m.

Genome Browsers 1* (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Wednesday, September 17 1-3 p.m.

Genome Browsers 2* (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Wednesday, September 24 1-3 p.m.


CUSTOMIZED CLASSES

Customized classes can be developed for your department, course, or other group.

When a Negative Becomes a Positive

Once upon a time there were ten research studies with very similar hypotheses and methodologies. In nine of them, the results came out “negative” so the researchers never submitted their studies for publication. The researcher who reported “positive” results did publish the results.

What happens to the lessons learned from the “negative” studies? The results include information that can contribute to the knowledge base of that discipline. Unfortunately, it will not be shared because there is a perception that negative results are not publishable. As a result, time and money will be spent by other research teams repeating previous work. What about the study participants who have given their time and effort to contribute to the knowledge base? When results are not published their endeavors are wasted. Is this ethical? Continue reading

Director’s Reflections…Welcome to the New Year!

Barbara EpsteinThere are many different types of new year celebrations: calendar new year, fiscal new year, Chinese new year, Persian new year, Jewish new year, and more. On a college campus, though, the beginning of the fall term in August and September always seems like the real new year. We welcome new and returning students and faculty to the bustle of new classes, new projects, new friends, and new challenges.

At the Health Sciences Library System (HSLS), librarians spent the summer preparing orientations and classes, and freshening Web portals, and user guides. Please take a few minutes to explore our home page, Continue reading

Capitol Hill Adventures

Barbara Epstein and Senator Casey
Barbara Epstein and Senator Casey

I have been a member of the Joint Legislative Task Force of the Medical Library Association and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries for five years. We visit Capitol Hill every spring to meet with staff of our senators and congressional representatives to advocate for NIH funding and research support, and specifically for the National Library of Medicine, an institute of the NIH. This year’s visit was especially productive, as my colleagues and I were invited to attend Senator Casey’s monthly Keystone Coffee breakfast, to speak with the Senator directly. It was fun to roam the halls of the Capitol and the congressional office buildings Continue reading

Elsevier’s New Share Link: Sharing Full-Text of New Publications for Greater Visibility

Are you publishing research in an Elsevier journal? If so, jumpstart the dissemination of your newly published article by sharing it with colleagues through e-mail or by posting it on social media—all with permission from Elsevier, one of the world’s largest academic publishers. In a new twist, Elsevier is now encouraging authors to share newly published articles, but under the terms of Elsevier’s new Share Link service.

Share Link automatically sends a special Web link to the corresponding author at the final publication stage, who can then distribute the link to co-authors. Authors can use Share Link for the first 50 days to provide full-text access (HTML or PDF) by e-mail or by posting on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mendeley, or other personal social media. No registration is required to access the article for anyone clicking on the special Share Link during the 50-day sharing period.

Why is Elsevier doing this? Authors sharing new publications within their professional and personal networks through a variety of digital tools may increase exposure of new publications, benefitting both author and publisher: as an article becomes more visible, the potential for citations increases, positively impacting both article-level and journal metrics.

Only journals managed within the Elsevier Production Tracking System (PTS) are included in the Share Link program. (The Lancet, and some other third-party owned journals, operate outside of the PTS.) A list of all Elsevier journal titles can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/journals/title/a.

For more information about authors’ rights, visit the HSLS Scholarly Communication LibGuide, or contact Andrea Ketchum at ketchum@pitt.edu.

~Andrea Ketchum

Treasures from the Rare Book Room: Anatomy as Art

There is probably no other medical discipline so tightly tied to art as anatomy. The link between the two disciplines is bilateral. Ancient sculptor Myron applied his knowledge of anatomy to render the perfect movement in his sculpture, Discobolus. And without artists would we have the incredible illustrations that aid in the study of anatomy? Falk Library has a superb collection of old anatomical atlases. With the help of these historical books, it is easy to study the relationship between the artist and the anatomist. From the gracefully posed skeleton in the Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis (1543) and whimsical backgrounds in Albinus’s Tabulae Anatomicae (1747) to Gautier Dagoty’s color mezzotint in Myologie Complete (1746) and anatomical dioramas in Ruysch’s Opera Omnia (1721), the examples from our collection can prove that the dividing line between the two disciplines is sometimes blurred. When artist and anatomist are one, the old medical books truly shine.

Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731), “the artist of death,” was a Dutch botanist and anatomist known for perfecting the methods of anatomical preservation of body parts used in teaching surgeons and midwives. He is believed to be the first to use arterial embalming. His secret was to inject liquid wax into blood vessels. Over the years, he perfected his liquor balsamicum to preserve the lifelike color, elasticity, and structures of the preparations which would be otherwise invisible. To offset the macabre captured in the glass jars, he artistically arranged the specimens and elaborately decorated the jar tops. The exhibit he created became a major attraction. The cabinets filled three rooms and each of them was turned into a work of art. The frontispiece illustration from his Opera Omnia (1721) gives an idea of how his museum might have looked.

Ruysch
Illustrations from Opera Omnia

The wet specimens in the jars, sold to Tsar Peter the Great, are still available in a museum in St. Petersburg.1 His amazing dioramas did not survive, and are known today only from the printed works. The four volume set of his Opera Omnia can be viewed in the Falk Library Rare Book Room by appointment.

1. Morbid Anatomy: Surveying the Interstices of Art and Medicine, Death and Culture, http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/2010/01/announcing-new-virtual-museum-dedicated.html.

~Gosia Fort

NIH Launches 3D Print Exchange

NIH3dprintThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently launched the NIH 3D Print Exchange, a public Web site that enables users to share, download, and edit 3D print files related to health and science. These files can be used, for example, to print custom laboratory equipment and models of bacteria and human anatomy. The NIH 3D Print Exchange also provides video tutorials and additional resources with instruction on 3D modeling software to enable users to customize and create 3D prints.

“3D printing is a potential game changer for medical research,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD. “At NIH, we have seen an incredible return on investment; pennies’ worth of plastic have helped investigators address important scientific questions while saving time and money. We hope that the 3D Print Exchange will expand interest and participation in this new and exciting field among scientists, educators and students.”

NIH uses 3D printing, or the creation of a physical object from a digital model, to study viruses, repair and enhance lab apparatus, and help plan medical procedures. The 3D Print Exchange makes these types of files freely available, along with video tutorials for new users and a discussion forum to promote collaboration. The site also features tools that convert scientific and clinical data into ready-to-print 3D files.

3D Printing at HSLS

HSLS has partnered with the Swanson Center for Product Innovation in the School of Engineering to bring 3D printing services to Pitt affiliates. Use of 3D printers, materials, and design consultations are available, sometimes at no cost. For details about 3D printing options at Pitt or a consultation for your project, e-mail Julia Dahm, technology services librarian.

*Parts of this article were reprinted from the News & Events section of the National Institutes of Health Web site, originally published June 18, 2014. The entire article may be read at: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jun2014/niaid-18.htm.

~Jill Foust

HSLS Staff News

News

Rose Turner, MLIS, joined HSLS as a Reference Librarian on August 1. Rose received her MLIS from Wayne State University, and earned a BS degree from the University of Michigan. She worked for a number of years as a Project Manager for Hewlett-Packard, and more recently was a Graduate Student Intern at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Library.

Publications

Jonathon Erlen, history of medicine librarian, published “Dissertations in the History of Pharmacy” in Pharmacy in History, 55(2-3): 114-118, 2013; and along with co-author Megan Conway published “Disability Studies: Disabilities Abstracts” in The Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal, 10(1-2): 113-15, 2014.

Classes August 2014

HSLS offers classes on database searching, software applications such as Prezi, bibliographic management, molecular biology and genetics, and library orientations. For more information, visit the online course descriptions.

Classes are held on the first floor of Falk Library (200 Scaife Hall) in Classroom 1 and on the upper floor of the library in Classroom 2. All classes are open to faculty, staff, and students of the schools of the health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. They are also open to UPMC residents and fellows.

Faculty, staff and students of the schools of the health sciences will need a valid Pitt ID or e-mail account to attend these classes. UPMC residents/fellows will need to show their UPMC IDs.

No registration is required, except where noted. Classes marked with an asterisk (*) qualify for American Medical Association Category 2 continuing education credit.

Class schedules are subject to change. Please consult the online class calendar for the most current information.

FlashClass

FlashClass is a “deal of the week” Groupon-like offer of timely and useful learning. Each week’s offer proposes one or two topics, and you’re invited to sign up to attend a one-hour class the following week. If at least three people sign up, we’ll hold the class. (We’ll notify you either way.)

HSLS CLASSES

EndNote Basics (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Monday, August 4 2-4 p.m.

Painless PubMed* (Falk Library Classroom 1)

Tuesday, August 5 4-5 p.m.
Thursday, August 14 Noon-1 p.m.
Monday, August 18 9-10 a.m.
Thursday, August 28 11 a.m.-noon

Prezi for Presentations (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Thursday, August 7 1-3 p.m.

CUSTOMIZED CLASSES

Customized classes can be developed for your department, course, or other group.

Integrating Information Seeking and Management Instruction into the Classroom

A central goal of education is to produce lifelong learners. Lifelong learners require information skills. They are aware of the information ecology of their field. They recognize when they need information, address that need independently, and incorporate new information into their personal knowledge base. Efficiency in identifying and using quality information sources is a critical skill in which librarians excel, and enjoy teaching.

The American Library Association is revising their 2000 Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education and has released drafts of their new Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The scheduled release of the Framework this fall provides an opportunity for librarians and health sciences faculty to revisit integration of information literacy instruction into our curricular programs.

BarbFolb_teachingTeaching faculty often ask HSLS liaison librarians to provide class instruction when they observe evidence that students need more information skills to complete their classwork. Librarians usually deliver instruction through “one-shot” or multiple lectures, or online modules for independent student use. Information literacy assignments can provide opportunities for information skill building, support completion of other class assignments, and build awareness of information literacy as an essential professional skill.

Instruction at the request of the individual professor is good, but doesn’t guarantee all students the opportunity for professional information literacy attainment. Students can begin their capstone project—an essay, research study, thesis, or dissertation—without the independent information skills required for the task. Advisors may refer them to the library for help, which is provided through individual consultation. The Framework calls for “a wider and deeper integration of it (information literacy) within the formal academic curriculum,” which would reduce the burden on students of having to learn these fundamental information skills when they would rather be engaged in higher level analysis and synthesis of information.

HSLS librarians have participated in a series of internal teaching enhancement workshops, and are available to collaborate with you in and out of the classroom in information instruction. Consider how instruction on topics such as finding and managing information, information ethics and legal issues (copyright, plagiarism avoidance), or systematic review search methods could benefit your students, and then contact your library liaison for more information.

~ Barbara Folb