Labor Day Holiday Hours

All of the UCSD Libraries will be closed on Monday, September 3rd for the Labor Day holiday.  Our hours for the weekend are:

• Saturday Sept 1: 10am - 6pm
• Sunday Sept 2: 10 am - 9pm
• Monday Sept 3: closed
• Tuesday Sept 4: 8 am - midnight

Our normal academic-session hours begin on September 4th.

Photo Contest Display

The Biomedical Library has installed a new display in the breezeway:  Prints of the winners of the library’s recent photo contest.

In addition, all 145 photo contest entries are shown in a rotating digital display.  The photos speak for themselves…come and see!

Welcome new and returning students!!!

The academic year kicks off for BML this week with the arrival of the incoming School of Medicine class - welcome! We’ll be seeing the new MS1’s this Friday morning for a library orientation and information session. We’ve got a helpful “welcome” page for new Med students at http://biomed.ucsd.edu/som_welcome.htm . We’ll still be on summer hours through this weekend, with our regular later hours starting on Tuesday September 4th.

Hazards of Arts and Crafts Materials

The Specialized Information Services (SIS) section of the National Library of Medicine has pulled together a number of resources about “Keeping the Artist Safe: Hazards of Arts and Crafts Materials.” This website covers a number of the arts including painting, photography, ceramics, metalworking, etc., and is useful to many people including artists, craftspeople and school teachers. The site also links to a very good article on the topic, “Exposing Ourselves to Art,” in Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP).

UCSD Biomedical Library Video

Have you seen our library video yet?  We created a 3-minute video that gives you a feel for the library’s great study spaces, services, staff and website — and the breadth of what the library can do for you.  We posted the video on both YouTube and Google Video.  Take a look and let us know what you think!

2006 JCR Has Arrived

The 2006 JCR (Journal Citation Reports), Science Edition, is now available at the Biomedical Library. This is a print copy that is kept on reserve. If you need impact factors for a few journals, call the Reference Desk at 858/534-1201 for assistance or send an email to biomed@ucsd.edu .

Great American Eat Right Challenge

Today, Thursday, August 16, the American Cancer Society is launching its Great American Eat Right Challenge, to help you learn more about what you should be doing to get your diet — and your weight — under control, and reduce your risk not only of heart disease, diabetes and hypertension, but your risk of cancer as well.  Check it out — it’s a cool website with a lot of practical tips.

X-Box 360 - a medical education tool?

The University of Washington (UW) is experimenting with using an X-Box 360 to teach rural students surgical techniques. Wireless audio and video components expand the X-Box capabilities and connect the distant students to the main campus. The idea is to demonstrate a procedure or technique and then observe the student practicing the technique.

Brian Ross, professor at UW’s Institute for Surgical and Interventional Simulation hopes that the success of the experiment, defined as showing that learning can be accomplished this way, will positively impact health care outcomes. If successful, the X-Box 360 offers this learning technology at a tenth of the cost of current devices and requires much less infrastructure such as broadband connections and servers.

Hat tip to iHealthBeat Blog.

Biomed Library on Facebook

The library has created a Facebook group.  If you are a Facebook user, join the UCSD Biomedical Library group to keep informed about library events and other useful information.  You can also post questions on the group’s discussion board or wall if you want, and we’ll answer them.  Some of the librarians also have Facebook accounts of their own in case you need a friend. 

Now online at UCSD: Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences is now available online at UCSD via the Synergy e-journal vendor. The content goes right back to 1879, although there are gaps in coverage before 1892. There is one confusing thing about it, however, and that involves preprints - articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not yet appeared in the journal. You’ll find this journal has many links in PubMed flagged as “epub ahead of print.” For those items, you will find they are on the Academy’s own site at www.nyas.org/annals and the UC E-Links for those articles will not work. Published articles will be at the Synergy site which you will find linked in Roger, UC E-Links, our website, etc. If you want to go take a look, the direct link is http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/nyas.