Tuesday 30 November 2010

Latest Weather & Traffic News Now Available


snow cat
Originally uploaded by

Jamie McClement
Planning a journey? Worried about the snow? If you need the latest news and information on traffic, weather, delays, holdups and roadworks you can find it all in one place on the Travel, Transport & Weather tab of our netvibes site.

There are also planners to produce  routes and maps to make your journey easier.

If you aren't travelling by car, you will also find links to public transport information including local bus & coach services, trains, the tube and even airports.

Wednesday 24 November 2010

New Guide to Netvibes Now Available

What does netvibes do? It allows us to bring together information from lots of different web sites and put it all in one place. It provides all our users with a single dashboard showing the last health news, policy, comment, publications and events, without having to go to lots of different places to find the information. 

Our site covers topics such as the NHS White Paper, mental health, primary care, health care policy and management, public health, and information management & technology. You will find continually updating news feeds from the NHS, NICE, the DoH, Government, CQC, Royal Colleges, King's Fund, voluntary organisations, clinical journals, the BBC, newspapers, weather, travel and transport news (covering local and national items), links to useful health related information and much more.


Although its very easy to use, netvibes can appear a little daunting at first, so we've created a new guide on how to get the best from it. The guide will show you how the site works, how to find the information you need and even how to share it with friends and colleagues.  

Of course, you can always contact us if you have any questions about netvibes, or any of the other services we provide...

Thursday 18 November 2010

Advanced Warning: Health Promotion Resources is Moving

With the closure of the Princess Marina Hospital site, the Health Promotion Resources Service will also be relocating.

We are going to be moving to our new (temporary) premises at Westgate House, Gambrel Road, Northampton (about a mile away from our present location).

Inevitably there is going to be some disruption whilst we pack all of our leaflets and resources and move them, but we will endeavour to keep this to an absolute minimum.

The move is scheduled to take place in mid December, but we will update both this Blog and the Library web site with more information as soon as we have it.

In the mean time if you have any questions about the move you can email us or call on 01604 595267.

Monday 15 November 2010

New Critical Appraisal Course for 2011

Do you need help navigating your way through published research. Need guidance on how to identify good quality research evidence? We can help!
The Library Service is launching an introductory critical appraisal course starting in January 2011 which covers the basics of assessing the quality of research evidence. It looks at the different types of research studies you are most likely to come across, and will give you an introduction to some of the statistical terminology most commonly used in biomedical research such as "number needed to treat" and "confidence intervals".
The course also takes you through a checklist for critically appraising a randomised controlled trial.
No prior knowledge of critical appraisal or statistical techniques is required.
To find out more and see the dates and venues for 2011 see our web site



It's fixed!

Our swipe card system has now been repaired and out of hours access to the Richmond Library for our registered members has been restored.

Friday 12 November 2010

The Richmond Library will be closed the weekend of the 13th and 14th of November

Due to a technical problem with our swipe card access system, the Richmond Library at Northampton General Hospital will not be available for out of hours use.  The library will shut at 5 pm on Friday the 12th and reopen at 9 am on Monday the 14th.

An engineer will be coming out on Monday the 14th and we anticipate our twenty four hour access should be restored the same day.

In the mean time if you need access to the library service over the weekend, the library at Berrywood Hospital will still be open to registered users as normal (although stock at Berrywood has a different focus).

We apologise for any inconvience caused and we hope to restore out of hours access as soon as possible.

Monday 8 November 2010

New Books

See the latest additions to our stock covering subjects such as gastroenterology, psychiatry and mental health, orthopaedics, cardiology, neurology and learning disabilities.

Remember, you can also help ensure we hold the right stock to support you by reviewing our books on approval collection which will be available until the 15th of December at the Berrywood and Richmond Libraries.

Monday 1 November 2010

New Training Dates for 2011


Training Room
Originally uploaded by KuBZoO
Training dates for all of our courses are now available for 2011. We offer A Basic Introduction to Using the Internet which is 100% hands on course for those who are not so confident with the basics. Evidence for Health is also 100% hands on and focuses on finding high quality health information using NHS Evidence. We also offer a course on Literature Searching which provides a guide to finding journal articles by searching databases such as Medline and the British Nursing Index.

Coming soon: A completely new course giving an introduction to critical appraisal