Halloween in the Library…

If you’d prefer not to contribute to the overconsumption of candy this Halloween and don’t have a party to go to, why not spend a spooky evening at the Geisel Library taking in a classic horror flick?

The original 1925 silent “Phantom of the Opera” starring Lon Chaney will be presented with live musical accompaniment by the library’s own Teeny Tiny Pit Orchestra and mezzo-soprano Kristin Behrmann. These shows always feature a variety of fun audience-participation opportunities to play with noisemakers. The film starts at 7:00 pm and it’s free. Location: Geisel Library, Seuss Room (main floor).

PDA Differential Diagnosis tool - free

Our PDA featured resource for October is Diagnosaurus — a tool for checking differential diagnosis at the point-of-care. It is offered as a free download from Access Medicine/McGraw-Hill. The tool was developed by Roni Zeigler, M.D. from Stanford University and is based on content from CURRENT Medical Diagnosis & Treatment. For more details see our PDA page at http://gort.ucsd.edu/clinlib/pda/.

Medical abbreviations online

Can’t tell an ARM from a TOE? Check out these handy resources for decoding medical abbreviations and acronyms:

Dictionary of Medical Acronyms & Abbreviations - inside Stat!Ref

Wikipedia’s List of Medical Abbreviations - may not be as complete and authoritative as the Dictionary above, but you can add your own terms and the list includes many “informal” abbreviations used in the real world.

(ARM = Artificial rupture of membranes, TOE = tender on examination, among others!)

No Saturday Annex deliveries for 3 to 4 weeks

Due to construction at our off-campus Annex, there will be no Saturday Annex deliveries starting October 21st, and lasting for 3 to 4 weeks. Monday through Friday deliveries will continue as normal.

BIOSIS Previews Class - 10/24

Need to find scholarly literature in the Life Sciences? Join us October 24, 9:30-10:30 a.m. in the Biomedical Library Classroom to learn about the premiere database for life sciences research, BIOSIS Previews. To register, complete the online registration form.
Continue reading BIOSIS Previews Class - 10/24…

Web Based Productivity Tools Getting Better

If you travel frequently and end up using computers in hotels, conference centers, or even public computers in the library, you know how frustrating it can be to run into a computer where you can’t do some quick word processing or tweak a slide in your presentation. A number of new web-based tools are now ready for prime time to help you accomplish these tasks on any computer where you have Web access.

A couple of examples:
Google Docs and Spreadsheets offers word processing and spreadsheets, which you access via your Google account. You can upload a file from hard drive storage, store documents you’re working on, and export the final results in Word, Open Office, HTML, or PDF format.

Zoho Office offers word processing, spreadsheets, a presentation tool, and a number of other applications. These are currently free, but a paid version may come along for access to premium features.

None of these offer the power or range of features of Microsoft Office or OpenOffice, but they’ll let you finish up that paper or presentation where and when you need to. These and a number of other similar web-based productivity tools can be found in this great blog posting from SolutionWatch.

EndNote class Tuesday - a few spots left

We have a few spots left in our EndNote class, Tuesday, October 17, 4-5:30 pm at the Biomedical Library. Please register via our classes web page at biomed.ucsd.edu/services/instruc.htm.

We Get Suggestions

Some recent items we found in our suggestion box:

- “Is it possible to have Novell to access Ed Com (MedEd) Servers?”

Although we don’t plan to install Novell on the computers located in the Library Information Commons (LInC), we did plan to allow access to Ed Com’s file storage. Unfortunately, our solution for this has not worked yet. We plan to continue to work with Ed Com to get this up and running. Thanks for the suggestion!

- “Get ACS printers! Please!”

I’m sorry to say that we’re not planning to install ACS printers in the LInC at the moment. The Biomedical Library receives excellent service from our copy vendor Imprints, and it makes sense for us to have Imprints provide the copying for the LInC. We realize that the account-based printing ACS provides is preferred by some students, and we have asked Imprints to investigate the possibility of offering account-based printing in the future. Thanks for the suggestion!

- “Allow rooms to be checked out without requiring two students, especially if there are empty rooms.”

This has been our most common suggestion since we opened the new library. We debated long and hard about what policies to put in place for the group studies. We didn’t have any group study rooms in the old building, and now we have more than any library on campus. Because of this, we were conservative in our initial policies for how the rooms could be used.

However, we knew all along that not all the policies we’ve decided on for the opening will be the right ones. So we’re committed to reevaluating all our policies, including the ones for the group studies, at the end of the first quarter. By then, we will have experienced a full academic quarter, how all of our user groups work in the new library, and have hard data about high and low use periods for our rooms. At that point, we should be able to set policies that will work for the long haul, and work with the library’s limited resources. Thanks for the suggestion!

- “With the library opening at 8AM and overnight loans due at 9AM the next morning, the reserve loan system is unfair to those with morning classes on Tuesday and Thursday since the first morning class is 8AM to 9:20AM. Can the library be opened earlier of the morning grace period for the loan extended? This is REALLY UNFAIR!!!

I can see you’re upset. I’m sorry the Biomedical Library’s loan policies for reserve items are putting you in the unfortunate situation of deciding between taking advantage of the opportunity to borrow reserve items overnight, and make it to your class on time. I will forward your suggestion to the library’s circulation and reserves units to see if there is a way that could modify our policies, yet still balance the needs of individual students with the need to provide as much access tour reserve materials for the benefit of all our users. Thanks for the suggestion!

UC researchers score an IgNobel Prize

Two UC researchers won this year’s IgNobel Prize in ornithology at the annual ceremony at Harvard:

Ivan R. Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles, for exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don’t get headaches.
REFERENCE: “Cure for a Headache,” Ivan R Schwab, British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 86, 2002, p. 843.
REFERENCE: “Woodpeckers and Head Injury,” Philip R.A. May, Joaquin M. Fuster, Paul Newman and Ada Hirschman, Lancet, vol. 307, no. 7957, February 28, 1976, pp. 454-5.
REFERENCE: “Woodpeckers and Head Injury,” Philip R.A. May, Joaquin M. Fuster, Paul Newman and Ada Hirschman, Lancet, vol. 307, no. 7973, June 19, 1976, pp. 1347-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY: Ivan Schwab

The IgNobel Prizes are awarded annually and celebrate the lighter side of scholarship. Read the full list of award winners here:
http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html

Test Drive Current Protocols in Microbiology Online

Take a look at Current Protocols in Microbiology now through the end of December 2006 and tell us what you think! Your comments and opinions will help us decide if we should license this resource for our campus. Send your comments to Dominique Turnbow at dturnbow@ucsd.edu. Please include your name, department, and status (faculty, staff, student).