Grab yourself a bargain! Book sale starts 2nd of September

We are having a sale of recently withdrawn stock at the Richmond and Berrywood libraries starting on Monday the 2nd of September.

On offer will be a variety of titles including previous editions of current text books and other items covering lots of different topics and disciplines.

Costing just £1 or £2 each, you could find some real bargains. Everything must go!

DuckDuckGo - a great alternative to Google

When people think of Internet searching they often just think of Google, but there are some alternatives that offer their own advantages.

DuckDuckGo (DDG) is just as easy to use as Google, but does a number of things in quite different ways that make it worth considering as an alternative.

• Anonymity DDG does not track your searches (in the way some other search engines do) or store any personal information about you, so you won't find adverts following you around from site to site based on your previous searches.

• Avoid the filter bubble Many search engines give you search results based on your previous search history, FaceBook likes, etc. You'll see more of the things you have shown an interest in and less of things you haven't (see here for a fuller explanation). This level of personalisation can be useful, but can also get in the way of finding the information you need. DDG does not collect your preferences and therefore gives you results that are just based on your search terms.

• Customisable You can change a lot of the setting in DDG to suit you. From the font and colour, layout, through to the regions it searches, safe searching, and even opening your results in a new tab. These settings can be saved anonymously in the cloud.

• Search functionality DDG works as you would expect, you put in the search terms and it ranks them by relevance. You can also do phrase searching, use operators like AND or OR and sort your results by date, or limit to a country. DDG will also give you links to perform the same search on other sites.

• Advance searching DDG has a feature called !bang syntax. Just type in your search term, then a ! followed by the site you want to search (e.g. depression !nhs.uk) and it will only return results from that site. You can also use brackets to group your terms together for more sophisticated searches e.g. (policy OR guideline).

To find out more about DDG there is a short video on their site, or you could have a go at using it! It is a strong contender as an alternative to Google, Yahoo or Bing and well worth a look.

August bank holiday closure

All of the libraries will be closed on Monday the 26th of August for the bank holiday.

24 hour access is available as usual to registered members by swiping in using your library card at the Berrywood and Richmond libraries.

We reopen as normal at all of our sites on Tuesday the 27th.

August Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services  which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this may mean for current practice.

In the August issue you can find:

Improvements in outcomes for extremely preterm babies
Cohort studies suggest that outcomes after extremely preterm birth have improved in the UK between 1995 and 2006.

Screening for type 2 diabetes
A cluster randomised controlled trial assessing screening for type 2 diabetes in general practices finds no benefit on all-cause mortality.

Deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease with early motor complications
A randomised controlled trial suggests that deep brain stimulation may improve quality of life in patients with Parkinson's disease and recent onset of motor complications.

The effects of printed computerised reminders in clinical practice
A Cochrane review suggests that computerised reminders printed out and delivered on paper may result in improvements to processes of care.

Fever in patients with cancer and low-risk neutropenia – oral antibiotic monotherapy versus dual therapy
A randomised controlled trial suggests equivalence of the oral antibiotic regimens of once daily moxifloxacin or twice daily ciprofloxacin plus co-amoxiclav for treating febrile neutropenia in patients with cancer who are at low risk of sepsis.

Use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) on discharge from hospital and 1-year mortality in older patients
An observational study notes that prescription of high-dose PPIs in older patients discharged from acute care hospitals may be associated with increased 1-year mortality.

Case studies from the Quality, Improvement, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) collection

• ThinkGlucose programme for diabetes inpatient care

Latest titles in stock

You can now see the list of titles we have added to our stock in the last month. The lists from the previous six months are also on the same page.

The topics covered in our latest set of acquisitions include:

• Accident and emergency
• Anatomy
• Training
• Health promotion
• Mental heath, psychology and psychiatry
• Surgery
• Nursing
• ...and many more

You can also help us to develop our collections by reviewing our Books on Approval selection, and we are always happy to have recommendations for things you think we should have...

PEDro - the physiotherapy database

PEDro is a free to access database covering physiotherapy. It is produced by the Centre for Evidence-Based Physiotherapy at the George Institute for Global health in Australia.

The database contains over 24,000 randomised controlled trials, systematic review and clinical practice guidelines, all relating to physiotherapy.

Each record contains a full reference and abstract, as well as a link to the full text where this is available. Each trial is quality assessed and rated to give users an indication of it's validity and usefulness in clinical practice.

PEDro offers a simple search option with a single search box, as well as an advanced search option with drop down menus to specify different search elements, such as type of therapy or body part, as well as the ability to limit by date or search particular fields (e.g. title or author).

PEDro advanced search

Also on PEDro are explanations on how the site works, how each item is quality assessed and tutorials on trial validity and clinical usefulness to help you get the most from the database.

Web site of the month: NIHR Journals Library

The National Institute for Health Research has launched its own collection of peer reviewed open access journals.

NIHR Journals Library

There are five titles which reflect five programmes of research currently being carried out by the NIHR.

The journals all provide free full text access and are fully searchable.

The titles currently available in the NHIR Journals Library are:

• Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation which publishes science driven studies which are expected to provide a substantial health or patient care gain
• Health Services and Delivery Research which focuses on evidence to improve the quality and organisation of health services.
• Health Technology Assessment publishes research information on the effectiveness, costs and broader impact of health technologies.
• Programme Grants for Applied Research publishes evidence aimed at improving health outcomes in England with practical application for the benefit of patients and the NHS in the relatively near future.
• Public Health Research features research on non-NHS interventions to improve public health and reduce health inequalities

The Journals Library also has a set of collections which focus on evidence on particular topics:

• Dementia
• Diabetes
• H1N1 pandemic flu research
• Obesity

You can also sign up to receive email notification of the latest publications, subscribe to an RSS feed or follow the NIHR on Twitter. 

NICE are also planning to link the titles from the collection into the NICE Evidence Search, the healthcare databases and the journals service in the future.