Wednesday 21 December 2022

Changes to OpenAthens password requirements

OpenAthens is the key to unlocking access to all of the electronic content available to you purchased by the Library Service, and nationally by Health Education England.

An OA account provides you with access to electronic books and journals, databases and other key evidence resources. 

OA have recently changed their password requirements for all user accounts to align with UK National Cyber Security Council guidance. Having nudged users to update their passwords over the last few months, this is now mandatory: everyone with a non-compliant password must update it at login.

Here is some guidance you can use if you are struggling to choose a suitable password:

  • password length must be between 10 and 100 charact
    ers and pass a strength assessment
  • passwords are case sensitive, and just about any character from any language is fine, including spaces (if it's on the keyboard you're using it should be ok)
  • one option is to use a passphrase – a string of three random words such as vaseclockbox (think along the lines of what3words)

Passwords cannot:

  • be the same as the username
  • contain words known by hackers to be commonly used such as 'password' or 'letmein'
  • contain non-printable characters such as control codes

Please contact one of the libraries if you have any questions about OpenAthens.

Sunday 18 December 2022

Christmas opening at the libraries

All of the libraries will be open up to Friday the 23rd of December.

Berrywood Hospital Library will be staffed from Wednesday the 28th until Friday the 30th of December as usual, and then will reopen on Tuesday the 3rd of January.

Isebrook Hospital Library will be closed after Friday the 23rd of December for the Christmas period and will reopen on Tuesday the 3rd of January. Please contact one of the other libraries if you require any help during this period.

The Richmond Library at Northampton General Hospital will be staffed from Wednesday the 28th until Friday the 30th of December as usual, and then will reopen on Tuesday the 4th of January.

24 hour access will be available to registered users as normal throughout the Christmas period at the Richmond library.

We would like to wish you a very happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year. We look forward to seeing you in 2023.

Tuesday 6 December 2022

Enhance your training sessions and team meetings with our educational games

Do you want to make learning more fun and engaging? 

We have acquired a collection of educational games to support your learning and enhance training sessions.

Our collection from Focus Games includes titles for clinical training, as well as those covering more general, but health care related, topics. 

They are ideal for formal training sessions, team meetings, or other professional development activities, turning learning into a fun and sociable event (and they make a great change from PowerPoint!).

Focus Games have developed their evidence-based titles in conjunction with the NHS, Royal Colleges, Universities and other expert groups and they are designed to address specific issues in the healthcare setting. You can also find a number of case studies about the effective use of their games here.

Games covered by the collection include:
  • Drug rounds / drug calculations
  • Infection control
  • Leadership and team work
  • LGBTQ+ in the workplace
  • NEWS2
  • Reflective learning
  • Safeguarding
  • Sepsis
  • And more...

In total we have 17 titles available for you to borrow. 

You can find them all on our catalogue here, including information about which library holds them and more details about the actual games.

Why not liven up your learning?