May Day bank holiday closure

All the Libraries will be unstaffed on Monday the 4th of May for the bank holiday.

May Day Celebrations at Xeuilley 1624-25 www.metmuseum.org

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

We reopen as normal on Tuesday the 5th at all of our sites.

Loan laptops

We are having the operating system on our loan laptops upgraded. Accordingly IT will be picking them up on the 5th of May to do the work.

They will be out of action for approximately 2 weeks, but we should have them back with us and ready to loan again by Monday the 18th of May from the Berrywood and Richmond libraries.

Apologies for the inconvenience, but the upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 is essential.

Clinical Key has arrived.

We have been very lucky to secure a year's subscription to Clinical Key, thanks to generous funding from the Northamptonshire Health Charitable Fund. It is produced by Elsevier who publish the Lancet and a wealth of well known medical books such as Kumar & Clark's Clinical Medicine.

Clinical Key is a versatile search engine backed by a huge amount of full text electronic content. It can be used at the point of care for fast overviews, or for more in-depth research or study, making it a valuable resource for consultants, doctors, students, nurses and other clinicians.

www.clinicalkey.com

Unlike a normal search engine, Clinical Key's smart search is designed to find answers very quickly and to think like a clinician. When you search it recognises relevant clinical concepts, giving you a short cut to the information you need.

You can also filter your search by types of content, books, journal articles, videos etc.

Search results will often lead you to a disease topic page where you will get an overview, including definition, diagnostics, differential diagnosis, imaging and treatment.

Clinical Key contains:

• 1,400 topic pages
• Over 600 electronic journals 
• Over 1000 electronic books
• 850 First Consult monographs
• 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
• 300 + Procedures Consult videos
• 15,000 patient education handouts
• 2.2 million images
• You can find a full content list here

As well as reading them online, individual articles (and some book chapters) can be downloaded as .PDF files 

Whilst there is no app, Clinical Key is optimised for mobile devices and will work well with the browser on your tablet or phone.

You will also be able to find the full text journal content from Clinical Key when you use HDAS to search the databases (e.g. Medline or the British Nursing Index) on the NICE Evidence Services site.

To access Clinical Key all you need is your OpenAthens password (register online here if you don't have one) to get started.

Clinical Key is a fantastic easy to use resource, full of high quality information from world recognised sources (and if you do get stuck there is a user guide here).

At the end of our subscription in March 2016 we will be evaluating how much usage Clinical Key has had and deciding whether to fund an ongoing subscription from the Library's budget, so now is your change to try it out and let us know what you think.

Northamptonshire Health Charitable Fund

Disruption to OpenAthens services Saturday the 18th April

The providers of OpenAthens will be conducting some maintenance on the service between 8am and 10 am on Saturday the 18th of April.

During this time there could be some disruption and you may have problems accessing online resources.

April 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 might mean for current practice.

In the April issue you can find:

• Social integration and the risk of suicide in men
• Surgical versus non-surgical treatment for fracture of the heel
• Improving cardiovascular disease through networks of general practices
• Antibiotics in fetal and early life and subsequent childhood asthma
• Detecting atrial fibrillation in people who have had a stroke

There are also new Evidence Updates highlighting new information worth considering along side current guidance:

• Fertility (NICE Clinical Guideline 156)
• Psychosis and schizophrenia in children and young people (NICE Clinical Guideline 155)
• Occupational therapy and physical activity interventions to promote the mental wellbeing of older people in residential care and primary care (NICE Public Health Guidance 16)
• Promoting physical activity for children and young people (NICE Public Health Guidance 17)

You can find subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

Web site of the month: OpenLearn

OpenLearn provides access to all of the free elearning modules and material provided by the Open University.

www.open.edu/openlearn/

The site contains over 800 free courses, as well as video, audio and other learning materials. There are a large selection of health related courses with topics covered including:

• Ageing
• Family health
• Mental health
• Public health
• Healthcare computing and data

Other relevant topics covered include:

• Social care
• Psychology
• Management
• Education
• Maths and statistics

OpenLearn also has cultural, arts, language environmental, science, politics and finance courses.

To access OpenLearn you will first need to create a free account via a simple online registration process, but once you have done that you can access all of the OU's free content. 

OpenLearn is a really useful source of free educational material, whether with a work focus or more for personal interest, the site is well worth a look.

Easter opening

All the Libraries will be unstaffed on Friday the 3rd and Monday the 6th of April for the Easter holiday.

www.metmuseum.org/

24 hour access will be available as usual to registered members over the Easter period via our swipe card system at the Berrywood and and Richmond Libraries.

Isebrook Library will be closed over the bank holiday.

We reopen as normal on Tuesday the 7th at all of our sites.

New ebooks: Oxford psychiatry books now available online

The Library Service has just purchased three new electronic books to add to our collection.

Access it online

The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry covers all major psychiatric conditions and sub-specialities, and provides practical and comprehensive guidelines and in-depth coverage of psychiatric assessment, psychopathology, evidence-based practice, therapeutic issues, and transcultural psychiatry

It is indexed alphabetically by ICD-10 / DSM-IV classification codes and acute presentations for quick access. It reflects the recent major changes to psychiatric training and examinations.

Access it online

The New Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry brings together over 200 chapters from the leading figures in the discipline, it presents a comprehensive account of clinical psychiatry.

Throughout, accounts of clinical practice are linked to the underlying science, and to the evidence for the efficacy of treatments. Physical and psychological treatments, including psychodynamic approaches, are covered in depth. The history of psychiatry, ethics, public health aspects, and public attitudes to psychiatry and to patients are all included.

Access it online

The Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry is a the standard text for trainee psychiatrists. The resource provides an introduction to all the clinical topics required by the trainees, including all the sub-specialties and major psychiatric conditions. Throughout, the authors emphasize the basic clinical skills required for the full assessment and understanding of the patient.

Discussion of treatment includes not only scientific evidence, but also practical problems in the management of patients their family and social context. It emphasizes an evidence-based approach to practice and gives full attention to ethical and legal issues.

Introductory chapters focus on recognition of signs and symptoms, classification and diagnosis, psychiatric assessment, and aetiology. Further chapters deal with all the major psychiatric syndromes as well as providing detailed coverage of pharmacological and psychological treatments. It also gives equal prominence to ICD and DSM classification - often with direct comparisons.

Like our other ebooks (find them all on our catalogue), you will need an Open Athens password to access the book. If you don't have one you can register online here.

Medical Masterclass out of action Friday the 20th to Monday the 23rd of March

www.medical-masterclass.com/

Due to hardware changes in the Royal College of Physicians data centre, Medical Masterclass will be unavailable from 6 pm on Friday the 20th until 9 am on Monday the 23rd of March.

Medical Masterclass is an on-line resource from the Royal College of Physicians designed to support trainee doctors and those studying for the MRCP (UK) examinations (but is available to everyone). 

We have a number of logins that we can give out to library users for a monthly loan period. Access to the website includes:

• 3000 practice questions for MRCP (UK) parts 1 and 2 (written examination) with the option to select individual specialties if there are particular areas you want to focus your revision on
• Timed mock examinations
• Screencasts aimed specifically to help you with the MRCP (UK) PACES examination

New questions and practice exams are regularly added to the site so there is plenty of material here!

If you would like to find out more or would like a login to access the site please contact the Richmond Library.

March 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 might mean for current practice.

In the March issue you can find:

• HIV testing in healthcare settings other than specialist clinics
• Allopurinol for chronic gout
• Genetic testing for foetal chromosome abnormalities
• Child safeguarding in acute health services
• Local food environment and diet in children and young people
• New NICE evidence search

There are also new Evidence Updates highlighting new information worth considering along side current guidance:

• Feverish illness in children (NICE Clinical Guideline 160)

You can find subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

New ebook: Drugs during pregnancy and lactation: treatment options and risk assessment

Access it online

We have just added the 3rd edition of the popular  Drugs in pregnancy and lactation by Schaefer, Peters and Miller to our ebooks collection.

The book is a quick reference guide for anyone who may be involved in prescribing to pregnant or breast feeding women. It makes evidence-based recommendations to support prescribing decisions and was recently updated to include the latest research.

Each chapter includes information on drugs that are safe to prescribe during pregnancy or breast feeding, and a risk assessment when exposure to the drug has already occurred.

Like our other ebooks (find them all on our catalogue), you will need an OpenAthens password to access the book. If you don't have one you can register online here.

Exploding subject headings - a new video on our YouTube channel

We've added a new video to our YouTube channel. Exploding subject headings shows you how to expand your search results by using the explode option to include all the related narrower subject headings in the thesaurus.

You can follow the whole process of conducting a literature search by using our literature searching and literature searching using subject headings play lists. Most of our individual videos are around 2 minutes in length (the longest is just over 4).