International Men's Day 19th November

International Men's Day takes place on the 19th of November every year around a number of themes, including the wellbeing of boys and men.

To mark the event, we have put together a list of titles you can find on our catalogue in support of men's health and wellbeing.

You can also find further resources in support of International Men's Day listed below:

• International Men's Day: Key facts about men and boy's wellbeing (UK)
• International Men's Day: Employers Guide
• International Men's Day: Follow on Twitter
• House of Commons Library: International Men's Day 2021 (briefing with a large amount of information)
• Men's Health Forum: Free downloadable resources 
• Mental Health Foundation: Men and mental health
• Mental Health Innovations: Starting a conversation about mental health
• Movember: Men's mental health (and lots of other resources)
• NHS Employers: Men's health guidance
• NHS UK: Men's health: common health questions
• NHS UK: The male menopause
• NHS UK: Mental health

MEDLINE Complete

The Library Service has renewed the subscription to the MEDLINE Complete database. 

Covering an extensive range of subjects including biomedicine, nursing, pre-clinical science, health policy development and much more, MEDLINE Complete offers something for everyone.

The database features full text access to journal articles covering over 1,100 titles, including ahead of print content for key titles, all easily accessible via your OpenAthens account (and if you don't have one of those you can register online here).

You can access MEDLINE Complete via the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub (along with all of our other databases). Simply sign in with your OpenAthens account and select MEDLINE (EBSCO) from the list under In-depth searching. 

Alternatively, you can access it directly here.

Need any help? We have a step-by-step guide to accessing and using the database on our web site. You can find it here. 

We can also offer you training and support in using all of our databases. Simply contact one of the libraries for more information.

Co-morbidities manager tool added to BMJ Best Practice

Health Education England (HEE) has extended their national subscription to BMJ Best Practice to include the Comorbidities Manager for all NHS staff and learners in England.

In the UK alone, one in three patients admitted to hospital as an emergency has five or more conditions. This poses a significant problem for healthcare systems. Clinical guidelines only focus on single conditions, but failure to treat the whole patient leads to worse clinical outcomes, and longer lengths of stay. The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the problem, with over 60% of patients admitted to intensive care units having comorbidities.

The BMJ Best Practice Comorbidities Manager supports the management of the whole patient by including guidance on the treatment of a patient’s acute condition alongside their pre-existing comorbidities.

BMJ Best Practice is a practical tool to help clinicians meet the changing and more complex needs of patients and maximise NHS resources, together resulting in better care for patients.

Available on desktop or app, 24/7 on and offline, NHS staff and learners in England can use BMJ Best Practice for free via an NHS OpenAthens account. Find out more at bmj.com/hee or watch the short video.

NHFT virtual book club - our next read is The Woman in Black

Following our visit to California and Wyoming in the terrific We Begin at the End, things have taken a darker turn. With Halloween almost upon us, for our 20th meeting we will be reading Susan's Hill's classic ghost story, The Woman in Black.

Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, the sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House. The house stands at the end of a causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but it is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, that a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black - and her terrible purpose.

Spending time in Eel Marsh House to settle Alice Drablow's affairs reveals a lot more than correspondence and paperwork. What are the terrifying sounds on the marsh? Who is the woman in black? All will be revealed... 😱

The next meeting will be Thursday the 24th of November at 7pm via MS Teams where we will be discussing the novel. You can find the link via the Events Calendar on the Staff Room. Come if you dare. 

Access reading lists on our catalogue

We have begun adding reading lists to our library catalogue to make it easier for students and staff undertaking courses to find the books they need.

You can find the link on the left hand menu of the catalogue as pictured above.

The reading lists currently featured are from the University of Northampton nursing courses and medicine at the University of Leicester, as well as the nurse prescriber course.

We hope you find it useful.

An updated reading list for Black History Month

October is Black History Month and a couple of years ago we developed a reading list in support of it. We've now updated the list, adding new titles, and these are available for staff and students in Northamptonshire Healthcare and Northampton General Hospital to borrow from the libraries.

The list covers race and racism, fiction from black authors, nonfiction titles from our leisure reading collection, as well as organisational and health care related books.

On the list you'll find titles like "The uncomfortable truth about racism", "Overcoming everyday racism" and David Olusoga's "Black and British: a forgotten history" as well as fiction from black authors like Marlon James and Akwaeke Emezi (writer of the excellent "Freshwater"). 

There are also biographies, like those of Walter Tull and Michelle Obama as well as classics like "The Colour Purple", "Beloved" and "If Beale Street Could Talk", books on cookery, and more clinically focused titles. We hope there is something for everyone on the list.

You can find the reading list on our catalogue here.

New eBooks collections available

The Library Service has recently added two new collections of electronic books to our catalogue:

Resilience and Wellbeing collection – books looking at emotional resilience, mental wellbeing, self-care and combatting stress, with a focus on the healthcare setting. Find them on our catalogue here.

Primary Care collection – a selection of books from a primary care perspective, covering topics including diabetes, dermatology, general practice, Covid-19 and more. Find them on our catalogue here.

To access the collections you will need an NHS OpenAthens account. If you don't already have one you can register online here https://openathens.nice.org.uk.

We also have a brief guide to the registration process if you have any problems, and of course you can also contact us if you need any help.

NHFT virtual book club - our next read is We Begin at the End

Following our visit to Nigeria in the excellent The Death of Vivek Oji, we are now off to both California and Wyoming in Chris Whitaker's CWA Gold Dagger winning We Begin at the End.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released.

Not everyone is pleased to see him. Like Star Radley, his ex-girlfriend, and sister of the girl he killed.

Duchess Radley, Star's thirteen-year-old daughter, is part-carer, part-protector to her younger brother, Robin - and to her deeply troubled mother. But in trying to protect Star, Duchess inadvertently sets off a chain of events that will have tragic consequences not only for her family, but also the whole town.

Murder, revenge, retribution. How far can we run from the past, when the past seems doomed to repeat itself? 

"...as perfect a novel as you'll read all year. Devastating and hopeful in equal measure, with pitch-perfect characters you'll root for at each jaw-dropping turn - Duchess, in particular, deserves a fast-track pass to the literary hall of fame. A sophisticated, utterly absorbing read." - Caz Frear

The next meeting will be Thursday the 20th of  October at 7pm via MS Teams where we will be discussing the novel. You can find the link via the Events Calendar on the Staff Room.

August bank holiday closure

 All the Libraries will be unstaffed on Monday the 29th of August for the bank holiday.

24 hour access will be available as usual to registered members via our swipe card system at the Richmond Library.

The Berrywood and Isebrook Libraries will be closed over the bank holiday.

We reopen as normal on Tuesday the 30th at all of our sites.

Our leisure reading collections are on the move

The Library has a great collection of leisure reading titles, both fiction and non-fiction, covering a broad
variety of topics and genres.

We have moved a large selection of the stock between the different libraries to enable everyone to access a different set of titles at each of the sites.

Of course, you can find all our leisure titles on the library catalogue, but sometimes browsing is more satisfying and this gives all our users the chance to peruse a different set of books.

With the summer here, it is the perfect opportunity for you to find a great read you can enjoy in the sunshine... 

NHFT virtual book club - our next read is The Death of Vivek Oji

After solving a murder mystery at The Sanitorium in the Swiss Alps, we are now going to visit Nigeria in the critically lauded The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi (author of the excellent Freshwater).

One afternoon, a mother opens her front door to find the length of her son's body stretched out on the veranda, swaddled in akwete material, his head on her welcome mat.

What follows is the tumultuous, heart-wrenching story of one family’s struggle to understand a child whose spirit is both gentle and mysterious.

The Death of Vivek Oji transports us to the day of Vivek's birth, the day his grandmother Ahunna died. It is the story of an over protective mother and a distant father, and the heart-wrenching tale of one family's struggle to understand their child, just as Vivek learns to recognize himself.

“A robust literary triumph. . . . A sensitively drawn, achingly beautiful portrayal of the boundaries of personal, gender and societal identities.”  - Chicago Review of Books 

“Emezi has a gift for prose that is often as visceral, tender and heart-breaking as what it describes. . . . While the novel sets out to solve the mystery of Oji’s death, what gives it power is how it uncovers the story of a person shielded by the peace of self-acceptance against the pain of the world. Here is proof of what good fiction does best: it is an antidote to invisibility.”  - The Guardian

The next meeting will be Thursday the 8th of September at 7pm via MS Teams where we will be discussing the novel. You can find the link via the Events Calendar on the Staff Room.

Libraries unstaffed 11th August

The library team are having an away day on the 11th of August and all the libraries will be unstaffed for the day.

The Richmond Library will be accessible to registered members via our swipe card system, but the libraries at Berrywood and Isebrook will be closed.

We reopen as normal on the Friday the 12th.

Apologies for an inconvenience.