NHFT virtual book club meeting #27 - The Poison Artist

After our visit to revolutionary France with Madame Tussaud in Edward Carey's Little, we are moving to a contemporary, fog-shrouded San Francisco in the shape of Jonathan Moore's twisty psychological thriller, The Poison Artist.

Caleb Maddox is a toxicologist who just wants to drown his sorrows after an ugly breakup with his girlfriend

At a bar he meets the beautiful and bewitching Emmeline who has a taste for absinthe but then vanishes into the night.

He must find her.

As his search begins, Caleb becomes entangled in a serial-murder investigation. The police have been fishing men from the bay, and the post-mortems are inconclusive. One of the victims vanished from the bar the night Caleb met Emmeline. When questioned, Caleb can’t offer any information, nor does he tell them he’s been secretly helping the city’s medical examiner, an old friend, study the chemical evidence on the victims’ remains. 

The search for the killer soon entwines with Caleb’s hunt for Emmeline, and the closer he gets to each, the more dangerous his world becomes...

'An electrifying read... I haven't read anything so terrifying since Red Dragon.’ Stephen King

The next meeting will be Thursday the 24th of August 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.

The NHFT Virtual Book Club - the video!

We were really pleased to be asked to take part in the 2023 Northamptonshire Virtual Wellbeing Festival to talk about the virtual book club and our love of reading.

You can find more about all the books we have shared on our blog or watch the video on YouTube from the Wellbeing Festival.

Health Information Week - children's health

Today is the last day of the Northamptonshire Virtual Wellbeing Festival and day 5 of Health Information Week #HIW2023.

Today’s headliner is Gok Wan, who has talked in the past about childhood obesity and bullying. This ties in with the theme for #HIW203 which is Children’s health.

You can access a range of books from the library on various aspects of children’s health, see our catalogue at https://nhft.koha-ptfs.co.uk/

There are also online resources you can access such as:

• Better Health, Healthier Families: https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/
  
  
• Young Minds: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/
  
  
• Action for Children: https://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/
  
  
• Podcasts from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/news-events/podcasts      

Health Information Week - mental health and wellbeing

It is Health Information Week #HIW2023 and today is all about mental health and wellbeing, which ties in nicely with the Northamptonshire Virtual Wellbeing Festival which started on Monday.

Do you know how the library can support your mental health and wellbeing?

•  Leisure collection: find your summer reading here! A mix of fiction (including the virtual book club books) and non-fiction books supported by the Northamptonshire Health Charitable Fund.
  
  
• Your Health collection: includes how to reduce stress, menopause management and using nature for wellbeing.
  
  
• Lots of other books on topics such as managing stress, anxiety, overcoming depression, men’s  health, being happy and wellbeing (both clinical and non-clinical).
  
  
• Games: alternatively why not try a game in a team meeting for a fun and different way to learn? Try the Working stress game or the Teams that care game.

 Find all these on the library catalogue https://nhft.koha-ptfs.co.uk/

A reading list for Pride Month

June is Pride Month and to celebrate we have put together a reading list of all the resources we have to support our LGBTQ+ colleagues, patients and the wider community.

These are available for all staff and students in Northamptonshire Healthcare and Northampton General Hospital to borrow from the libraries.

The list contains a mixture of clinical, management and healthcare related titles (both in print and electronic), as well as fiction and nonfiction books from our leisure reading collections with an LGBTQ+ theme.

You can find the reading list on our catalogue here.

The EBSCO mobile app - information on the move

The EBSCO mobile app is a new way for you to easily access high quality healthcare information on the go.

The app is a really useful tool for searching, providing quick and easy access to content wherever you are. From one search box you can search across library resources and online content including journal articles, guidelines, e-books, evidence summaries and more.

It features simple, mobile-friendly displays for searching, scanning results, liking, and sharing. 

You can also save content into your folder which will then be accessible on the EBSCO platform, meaning you can synchronise your searches and saved information automatically across multiple devices.

To get you started we have created a quick guide to the app, covering setting up and logging in, as well as searching and saving content. You can find on our website here.

EBSCO also have a video tutorial which you can find on YouTube.

The only other thing you will need is an OpenAthens password, and if you don't already have one, it is the work of a few minutes to register online at https://openathens.nice.org.uk/.

The app is free to download and available on Google Play for Android devices and Apple's App Store for iOS, or you can scan the QR code below.

If you have any questions or need any help with the EBSCO app, or any other library resources, we'd be happy to help...

NHFT virtual book club meeting #26 - Little

After our visit to New Caledonia with Marge Benson and Enid Pretty in Miss Benson's Beetle, we are stepping further back in time to revolutionary France with Edward Carey's Little.

In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie Grosholtz is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. 

As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and... at the wax museum, heads are what they do.

"this is a visceral, vivid and moving novel about finding and honouring one’s talent; about searching out where one belongs and who one loves, however strange and politically fraught the result might be." The Guardian

"Don’t miss this eccentric charmer! Little, by Edward Carey, narrated by Madame Tussaud of waxworks fame, [on] her strange life and times, including the almost fatal French Revolution, a prime season for heads." —Margaret Atwood

The next meeting will be Thursday the 20th of July 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.

The NHS Knowledge and Library Hub - now with extra Best Practice!

The NHS Knowledge and Library Hub connects NHS staff and learners seamlessly to a range of high quality knowledge and evidence resources all in one place.

The Hub is a single point of access for finding high quality evidence, and through it you can access databases, electronic journals, ebooks (such as the Royal Marsden Manual or the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines), evidence summary tools and more.

A new feature has been rolled out to the Hub so that whenever you do a search, if it matches a topic (or topics) in BMJ Best Practice, they will automatically feature at the top of your results.

This makes it even easier for you to quickly click through to a summary of high quality evidence on clinical topics.

BMJ Best Practice is an evidence-based point-of-care tool, structured around the patient consultation with advice on symptom evaluation, test ordering and treatment approach that also allows you to factor in co-morbidities. You can also download whole topics as a .PDF document.

You will need a Trust OpenAthens account to access BMJ Best Practice (and all the other fantastic resources on the Hub. If you don't have one of those you can register online here.

Please contact one of the libraries if you have any questions or need any help.

Spring bank holiday closure

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

24 hour access will be available as usual to registered members over the Easter period 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.

NHFT virtual book club meeting #25 - Miss Benson's Beetle

Following our trip round the globe with David Mitchell's extraordinary novel Ghostwritten, we are going back to 1950 with Rachel Joyce's award winning book, Miss Benson's Beetle.

It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist.

Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in mind. And yet together they will be drawn into an adventure that will exceed every expectation. They will risk everything, break all the rules, and at the top of a red mountain, discover their best selves.

Find out more about the book in this handy video introduction from the author.

'A girl's own adventure...This is Rachel Joyce's best book yet ...Exciting, moving and full of unexpected turns.' The Times

'A joy of a novel' The Guardian

The next meeting will be Thursday the 8th of June 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. 

Coronation bank holiday closure

 All the libraries will be unstaffed on Monday the 8th of May for the coronation 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 9th at all of our sites.

Updated Clinical Key app now available

An updated version of the Clinical Key mobile app is now available.

Clinical Key is an easy to use resource with a wealth of content including:

• Over 800 full text electronic journals, including the complete Lancet series of titles
• Over 960 full text electronic books
• Over 1,300 clinical overviews giving comprehensive clinical topic summaries 
• Over 2,500 drug monographs by Gold Standard
• Over 300 procedures consult topics
• Clinical guidelines (including NICE)
• Videos and other multimedia content
• Patient education materials in a variety of languages

Clinical Key also allows you to:

• Capture the information you use to develop CME credits
• Create presentations from multimedia content
• Store favourite items for easy access
• Save searches

The enhanced and redesigned mobile app is available now for iOS (Apple) and Android devices. There is a quick reference sheet for guidance on how to download, authenticate and optimize the mobile experience.

You can also access Clinical Key online with a web browser.

For both App and online access, you will need a trust OpenAthens account. NHFT and NGH staff and students on placement can register for one here https://openathens.nice.org.uk/.