Factiva now available at UCSD

Factiva is a business database that joins a growing suite of business research tools at the UCSD Libraries along with Business Source Premier and Lexis/Nexis. Factiva covers news sources, journals and magazines, and contains over 30,000 company reports. You can filter your searches to particular industries - some of the relevant ones include Biotechnology, Health Care, Health/Medical Insurance, and Pharmaceuticals.

Factiva
Business Databases at UCSD Libraries
Please note: Factiva does not work with all Web browsers. Please see their
list of supported browsers.

Jan 31-Scholarly Publishing Lecture

Ken Wissoker, the editor-in-chief, of Duke University Press will give practical tips to finding publishers and publishing in this ever changing publishing landscape. MCC Rm 201, 2-3:30pm. This session will focus mainly on book publishing. Check campus map for directions to Building 390-Media Center-Campus Communications: http://maps.ucsd.edu

IM reference @ BML

Starting today, you can reach the Biomedical Library reference desk by Instant Message. We’re set up on four services: AOL, GoogleTalk, MSN and Yahoo.

On AOL and Yahoo our screen name is: ucsdbiomed
On GoogleTalk and MSN it’s: ucsdbiomed@gmail.com
(Please note, that e-mail is one we set up for the purpose of IM. It does get forwarded to our regular e-mail address, but it’s not our primary e-mail. That remains biomed@ucsd.edu)

You can also reach us via our Ask-A-Librarian page at http://biomed.ucsd.edu/ask/ or by phone at 858.534.1201. And of course, you can always just drop by the desk.

Blogarithm Emails Re: New Blog Items

Did you know that you can track the blogs you like by email? For instance, if you want to keep up with the new items we post on the UCSD Biomedical Library blog, but you don’t want to visit the blog all the time or to set up an RSS feed reader, set up a Blogarithm account and you will be emailed daily when new items are posted on the blogs of your choice. To get started, go to the Blogarithm website and enter the URL of a blog you wish to track (the BML blog URL is http://gort.ucsd.edu/mtdocs/bml/) and your email address. You will then receive an email message asking you to confirm your request and create a password. This is a free service and Blogarithm does not share your email address with anyone.

NIH Clinical Alert: International HIV/AIDS Trial Finds Continuous Antiretroviral Therapy Superior to Episodic Therapy

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced that enrollment into the SMARTinternational HIV/AIDS trial comparing continuous antiretroviral therapy with episodic drug treatment guided by levels of CD4+ cells has been stopped. Enrollment was stopped because those patients receiving episodic therapy had twice the risk of disease progression (the development of clinical AIDS or death), the major outcome of the study.

To read more, please see the official Clinical Alert from NIH.

FDA Warning for Brazilian Diet Pill

On January 13, 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned consumers not to use 2 unapproved drug products that are being marketed as dietary supplements for weight loss. Emagrece Sim Dietary Supplement, also known as the "Brazilian Diet Pill" and "Herbathin Dietary Supplement," may contain several active ingredients found in prescription drugs that could lead to serious adverse effects or injury.

"There are dangers to consumers who purchase diet pills that contain drugs of unknown origin and quality," said Dr. Steven Galson, Director of FDA*s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "These products are not approved by FDA and if people experience side effects, it is difficult to trace problems and for physicians to treat them."

The products are offered for sale on the Internet. FDA urges consumers, health care providers, and caregivers to cease using and dispose of these products and report any adverse events related to these products to MedWatch, the FDA’s voluntary reporting program at 1-800-FDA-1088; by FAX at 1-800-FDA-0178; by mail to MedWatch, Food and Drug Administration, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD, 20857-9787; or online at www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm.

Listen Up: Scholarly Communication Talk via Streaming Audio

The first talk in the Faculty Lunch Series, by Dr. Blaise Cronin, Authorship and Attribution; Access and Attention: Trends in Scholarly Communication, held on November 22, is now available via streaming audio. Cronin is the Rudy Professor of Information Science and Dean of the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University. The audio portion of Cronin’s talk is available in two parts (Part 1, Part 2) via streaming RealAudio format on the Faculty Lunch Series website (Note that you need to have the RealAudio player installed in order to listen to this talk). Give a listen and see what you think…

The Faculty Lunch Series is a group of talks that explore the current state of academic communication and suggest possible improvements. The series is open to all UCSD faculty members and takes place at the UCSD Faculty Club.

National Study: Electronic Reporting of Medical Errors

According to a Tufts New England Medical Center press release, “Results from a multi-year survey of reports from hospitals using electronic adverse event and error reporting systems indicate that an estimated 34,000 patients a year could be seriously or permanently injured, or die, during hospitalization due to medical errors and adverse events. The findings, based on an extensive study designed and managed by Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, come from analyses of 2.5 million patient days at 26 acute care hospitals across the U.S.”

The study has been published in
The Journal of General Internal Medicine in the early online issue, and will appear in the February 2006 print issue.

Complete Tufts-NEMC Press Release

UCSD Bookstore Delivers, Fast and Free

We urge you to use the UCSD Biomedical & Medical Center Libraries’ books, in print and online, but sometimes you may need to buy books. Keep the UCSD Bookstore in mind for your book buying needs. They offer a 5% discount when you shop online at the Medical Web Store or go to the bookstore during Wednesday Happy Hours (4 PM-Close). They also offer free, next day delivery on campus, to the VA, and certain other locations. How can you beat that? For more information, call (858) 534-3149 or email medicalbooks@bookstore.ucsd.edu

January 16: Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Monday January 16 is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. The Medical Center Library in Hillcrest will be closed, but the Biomedical Library and other libraries on the UCSD main campus will be open. At the Biomedical Library, there will only
be one Annex delivery, at 4:00 pm. Requests must be received by 1:00 pm. Delivery on Saturday, January 14 is unaffected.

Hours for all UCSD libraries can be found at http://libraries.ucsd.edu/services/hours.html.