2014 Issue

HSLS is pleased to announce that the Falk Library printing system is now a part of the Pitt network. This means that all the benefits of printing at the University computer labs are now available in the convenient location of Falk Library.

The Self-Service Printing option allows students and faculty to:

• Use your individual print quota of 900 sheets per semester free of charge.
• Print to the Falk Library printers from computers anywhere on the campus network, including all of the computer stations in Falk Library.
• Print from a laptop on the Pitt Wireless network. You can configure your own laptop for printing, or borrow a laptop from Falk Library’s Technology Help Desk.
• Print from your home computer while logged into Secure Remote Access.
• Retrieve your print jobs from the printer located on the main floor of Falk Library simply by swiping your Pitt ID.

Pitt network printing replaces the subsidized medical student and cash printing services at Falk Library. Note that color printing is no longer available on the new system. Photocopiers still accept cash payments and Panther funds.

If you have any questions about printing at Falk Library, please stop by the Technology Help Desk or call 412-648-9109.

~ Julia Jankovic

Do you have publications that are non-compliant with the NIH Public Access Policy? Did you know that the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) have resources that will quickly and easily lead you through the compliance process? The most important of these is My Bibliography, which is now the one and only place to record publications resulting from NIH grants. My Bibliography is also a compliance management tool.

Enter publications once in My Bibliography, and that information flows through to all other NCBI tools and resources. When a PMCID is issued, it will automatically appear in My Bibliography and flow through to all other linked resources, such as the Research Performance Progress Report, reducing duplication of effort and opportunity for error. Within My Bibliography, publications can be associated with awards. Recognizing that others may add publications based on your awards, My NCBI will automatically add those newly associated citations to your collection and notify you.

When you login to My Bibliography using your eRA Commons credentials, the information in My Bibliography links to your eRA Commons account. Look for the eRA icon in the upper right to confirm the connection.

To access NIH Public Access Compliance tools in My Bibliography:

1. From My Bibliography, click on Manage My Bibliography.
2. Click on Display Settings.
3. Select Award, and then sort by “Public Access Compliance.” (Note: The Award View is only available to eRA Commons users with active grants who have linked their My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts.)

Compliance status for each publication is color-coded. Users can edit the compliance status for each publication, reporting errors, updates, or changes back to NIH directly from My Bibliography.

For more resources and contact information, visit the HSLS Scholarly Communications LibGuide and click on the NIH Public Access Policy tab.

For illustrated instructions, see the following NLM publications:

• My NCBI: Managing Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy Using My Bibliography
• My NCBI – New Features for My Bibliography for eRA Commons Users
• My Bibliography: Award Compliance Reports in PDF for eRA Commons Users

~Andrea M. Ketchum

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health have collected and digitized all weekly surveillance reports for reportable diseases in the United States going back more than 125 years. The digitized dataset is dubbed Project Tycho™, for 16th century Danish nobleman Brahe, whose meticulous astronomical observations enabled Johannes Kepler to derive the laws of planetary motion.

“Brahe’s data were essential to Kepler’s discovery of the laws of planetary motion,” said senior author Donald S. Burke, MD, Pitt Public Health dean and UPMC-Jonas Salk Chair of Global Health. “Similarly, we hope that our Project Tycho™ disease database will help spur new, life-saving research on patterns of epidemic infectious disease and the effects of vaccines. Open access to disease surveillance records should be standard practice, and we are working to establish this as the norm worldwide.”

The easily searchable database is free and publicly available on the Project Tycho™ Web site. Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the project’s goal is to aid scientists and public health officials in the eradication of deadly and devastating diseases.

The researchers obtained all weekly notifiable disease surveillance tables published between 1888 and 2013—approximately 6,500 tables—in various historical reports, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. These tables were available only in paper format or as PDF scans in online repositories that could not be read by computers and had to be hand-entered. With an estimated 200 million keystrokes, the data—including death counts, reporting locations, time periods and diseases—were digitized. A total of 56 diseases were reported for at least some period of time during the 125-year time span, with no single disease reported continuously.

“Historical records are a precious yet undervalued resource. As Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, we live forward but understand backward,” explained Dr. Burke. “By ‘rescuing’ these historical disease data and combining them into a single, open-access, computable system, we now can better understand the devastating impact of epidemic diseases, and the remarkable value of vaccines in preventing illness and death.”

*Parts of this article were reprinted from Pitt Unlocks Trove of Public Health Data to Help Fight Deadly Contagious Diseases, Pitt Public Health, In the News, 11/27/2013.

See also: W.G. van Panhuis, J. Grefenstette, S.Y. Jung, N.S. Chok, A. Cross, H. Eng, B.Y. Lee, V. Zadorozhny, S. Brown, D. Cummings, D.S. Burke, “Contagious Diseases in the United States from 1888 to the Present,” New England Journal of Medicine, 369(22): 2152-8, November 28, 2013.

This research was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grant 49276 and NIH grant U54GM088491.

~Nancy Tannery

The First Consult App provides access to evidence-based medical information at the point-of-care without an Internet connection. Data is stored on your mobile device, so access is instantaneous. The app is available to Pitt and UPMC users through the HSLS subscription to the ClinicalKey resource.

Compatible Devices

The First Consult App is free to download and is available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch from the iTunes App Store. It requires iOS 5.1 or later. The app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Getting Started

To access the mobile app, you must first create a personal account in ClinicalKey:

1. Visit ClinicalKey on the HSLS Web site.
2. On the ClinicalKey home page, click on the Register link.
3. Complete the registration form. (Your e-mail address will be your username)
4. Confirm your password by re-entering it.
5. Once you have downloaded the app, three options should appear—choose option #1 (I use First Consult and know my username).
6. Enter your Clinical Key username and password and start using the First Consult app.

A data connection is required for the initial content download and content updates, but is not required to use the app itself. The app can be set to automatically update when used within a network connection.

Search Features

The First Consult App is easy to use and navigation is simple. There are several search options:

• Search by disease or condition
• Use the slider index to scan the alphabet
• Scroll through the alphabetical list of diseases or conditions

For each disease or condition of interest, you’ll initially see a list of topics to select from, for example:

• Key points
• Background
• Screening
• Primary prevention
• Diagnosis
• Treatment
• Follow-up
• Patient education
• Resources
• Current contributors

Once a topic is viewed, you can also choose to go directly to various sections within that topic, such as summary of evidence, FAQs, epidemiology, associated disorders, and more.

For more information about the First Consult App and other mobile friendly versions of HSLS resources, such as Micromedex or UpToDate, direct your browser to the HSLS Mobile Resources Web site. You can also contact the HSLS Main Desk at 412-648-8866 or Ask a Librarian.

~Jill Foust

Imagine your research demands quick answers to the following questions:

• What genes induce apoptosis?
• What diseases are induced by BRAF mutations?
• What cell lines express the protein EGFR?
• What animal models are used in schizophrenia research?

You can get the answers by reading scores of papers, but you may struggle to find time in your busy schedule. You may even wish that someone would read the papers for you. We have good news—meet Quertle, a free online search tool that gives you exactly what you are asking for. Continue reading →

ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the National Institutes of Health, is a free online resource that links patients, clinicians, researchers, and the public to information about publicly- and privately-funded clinical trials from across the United States and the world.

ClinicalTrials.gov was launched in 2000 by the National Library of Medicine. In 2008, as a result of Section 801 of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007, ClinicalTrials.gov was expanded to include basic results reporting, including adverse effects. Information in the database is provided by study sponsors and principal investigators. In addition to basic results, study records link to published results, when available.

As of December 2013, there are 156,808 studies in the registry with locations in all 50 states and in 185 countries. Over 10,000 records currently have basic results, a number which has nearly doubled since 2011.

Results reported in ClinicalTrials.gov may not be published anywhere else, making it an essential resource for authors of systematic reviews and others who depend on the most current research on a drug or other therapy. A recent article in JAMA Internal Medicine, reported that the results of 25-50% of clinical trials are never published. Among those studies that are published, the authors found a two-year delay, on average, from study completion to journal publication.

ClinicalTrials.gov has a variety of resources for different users of the site:

• Patients: to find ongoing and recruiting clinical trials.
• Clinicians: to access information about specific trials, trial methodologies, clinical evidence on a topic, and previous and on-going research in a field of interest.
• Researchers: to find previously unreported study results, investigate research funded by specific sources, and locate potential collaborators on future projects, as well as to register and report the results of their own studies.
• Any user: to find study results.

~ Kate Flewelling

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

News

Rebecca Abromitis, reference librarian and liaison to the School of Dental Medicine, has been granted a secondary faculty appointment as instructor in the School of Dental Medicine, Department of Dental Public Health.

HSLS staff members contributed $200 to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank during the recent holiday season.

Publications

Jonathon Erlen, history of medicine librarian, published “Current Journal Articles on Disability History: Dissertations” in H-Disability: an H-Net Discussion Network, December 1, 2013; “Dissertations/Theses” in the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 30(2): 245, 2013; and along with co-authors Jennifer Rhee and Susan Allender-Heagedorn, published “Bibliography: Relations of Science to Literature and the Arts, 2011,” Society for Literature, Sciences and the Arts, 2013.

Presentations

Lydia Collins, consumer health coordinator, NN/LM Middle Atlantic Region, presented “NLM: Science Resources for Educators,” at the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association in State College, PA, on December 6, 2013.

Reference librarians Andrea Ketchum and Michele Klein-Fedyshin received 1st place in recognized posters for excellence in research, for their poster “A Renaissance of Resources Used for Clinical Searching: What’s the Impact of the NIH Public Access Policy and Open Access on Morning Report” at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association, in Pittsburgh, PA, on October 14, 2013.

Congratulations

Congratulations to these HSLS staff members who recently received University of Pittsburgh staff recognition awards. For five years of service: Rob Rayshich and for 30 years of service: Mary Gail Merlina.

HSLS offers classes on database searching, software applications such as Adobe Photoshop, 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.

No registration is required for any of these classes. Seating for classes is first-come, first-served, until the class is full. 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.

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)

Painless PubMed* (Falk Library Classroom 1)

Prezi for Presentations (Falk Library Classroom 2)

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND GENETICS RESOURCES

Locating Gene/Protein Information 1: Literature* (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Locating Gene/Protein Information 2: Databases* (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Genome Browsers 1* (Falk Library Classroom 2)

Genome Browsers 2* (Falk Library Classroom 2)

CUSTOMIZED CLASSES

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