NHFT virtual book club meeting #24 - Ghostwritten

Following our rather tense (and sometimes painful) visit to Syria with former CIA analyst David McCloskey's spy thriller, Damascus Station, we are moving around the globe with David Mitchell's extraordinary debut novel, Ghostwritten.

“Are you what you believe yourself to be?”

Ghostwritten is a novel of nine interconnected stories, taking us to Tokyo, Hong Kong, China, Mongolia, St Petersburg, London, New York and Ireland.

It weaves together a host of characters including a doomsday cult member in Japan, a Mongolian gangster, a woman on a holy mountain who talks to a tree, and a late night New York DJ.

Winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of literature, the novel was described as "an astonishing debut" by the Independent and "a dazzling piece of work" by the Washington Post.

The next meeting will be Thursday the 4th of May 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. 

Easter opening

 All the libraries will be unstaffed on Friday the 7th and Monday the 10th of April for the Easter bank holidays.

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 11th at all of our sites.

Health literacy data

Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions, and is a major issue for health care services. 

In the UK 43% of adults struggle to understand written health related information and this rises to 61% when numeric information is included (Rowlands, 2015).

Health Education England, along with the University of Southampton have created an online tool that provides estimates of low health literacy, which can be viewed at the level of local authorities. 

The tool can further be combined with low health numeracy to give an overall picture of the challenges in producing accessible health information for the local population.

As well as searching by area, the site has a clickable map that allows you to explore the data visually.

You can find the online tool here http://healthliteracy.geodata.uk/

NHFT virtual book club meeting #23 - Damascus Station

Following our aquatic adventure in 1940's Manhattan Beach, we are off to Syria with former CIA analyst David McCloskey's spy thriller, Damascus Station.

CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship creating danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of another American spy. 

But the cat-and-mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Asad’s spycatcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the Republican Guard.

Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with murder, fear, and rebellion, and drawing on real events and authentic CIA tradecraft, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.

"The power of this book is that it tells this devastating story through the eyes of those who suffered and survived because of love, the human relationship, and the power of what makes life worth living.“ Leon E. Panetta, former Director of the CIA and former Secretary of Defence

'One of the best - and most authentic - spy thrillers in years' The Times

The next meeting will be Thursday the 30th of March 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. 

It’s National Apprenticeship Week!

For those of you on your apprenticeship journey we want to make sure you know how the library can support you in your work and studies. We can give you ‘space to think and knowledge to act’:

If you need space to work, away from your department and home, we have 3 libraries (at Berrywood Hospital; Northampton General Hospital and Isebrook Hospital in Wellingborough) and you can use any or all of them. NGH has 24/7 opening for members so you can use it in the evenings or weekends. All 3 libraries have computers and Wi-Fi if you want to bring your own laptop.

You will need to find information throughout your course, we have a wide stock, both print and online, of clinical and non-clinical books and journals, including books on study skills. If you can’t find what you need locally we can usually get hold of a copy for you from another library. We can also help you develop the skills you need to find information from the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub.

Interested in how we can help?

Fill in the form linked from here to join the library or contact one of the libraries if you have any questions:

Berrywood Library | 03000 271585 | berrywoodlibrary@nhft.nhs.uk

Isebrook Library | 03000 272095 | isebrooklibrary@nhft.nhs.uk

Richmond Library, NGH | 01604 545929 | richmondlibrary@nhft.nhs.uk

Richmond Library book sale starts 1st of February

"Not had a word out of him since the library sale"

We are holding a sale of books recently withdrawn from our stock, starting at 9 am on Wednesday 1st February at Richmond Library, NGH

On offer will be a variety of titles, including previous editions of some Oxford Handbooks, some of the ‘Crash course’ series and many other titles, including some fiction books.

We are asking for a donation, mostly 50p a book so you could find yourself a real bargain.

If you aren't able to get to the library, we have a list of the titles available to buy on our web site here. Just contact us with any you would like to arrange payment.

The books do tend to sell quickly, so don't wait if there is something you want...

Berrywood Library - closed Friday 3rd Feb and opening at 10.30am Tuesday 7th Feb

Unfortunately due to staff shortages Berrywood Library will be closed on Friday 3rd February. Tuesday 7th February the library will open at 10.30am. All other days will be normal hours.

Richmond Library at NGH is available 24/7 (use your library card to swipe in out of hours). Isebrook Hospital Library is also available 9am-12.30 and 1pm-5pm, Monday to Friday.

Emails to berrywoodlibrary@nhft.nhs.uk will be checked.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Need help with referencing? We have updated our guide to Harvard.

Citing documents in the text, and referencing the resources you have used when writing can be tricky, but we can help.

Harvard is one of the most common forms of referencing for documents and academic assignments, and should be used for all trust policies, guidelines and reports.

We have updated our guide to Harvard, which will take you through the basics of citing and referencing, as well as providing numerous specific examples of the correct format for items such as:

• Books and reports
• Journal articles
• Act of Parliament, Statutory Instruments, and other government publications
• British Standards
• NICE guidelines, Cochrane reviews and UpToDate topics
• EU documents
• eBooks and online journals
• Podcasts and webinars
• Websites, online images, videos and streamed content

Whatever resource you have used in your document, our guide to Harvard will show you the right way to cite it in the text and add to your bibliography.

You can also find lots of other useful guides on our website here, covering eBooks and journals, literature searching, OpenAthens, the BNF and more. 

NHFT virtual book club meeting #22 - Manhattan Beach

Following our visit to Brixton and splashing around in The Lido, we are crossing the Atlantic to New York and stepping back to the 1930s/1940s with Jennifer Egan in the much deeper waters of Manhattan Beach.

Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men.

‎Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.

"At once a suspenseful novel of noir intrigue, a gorgeously wrought and richly allusive literary tapestry, and a transporting work of lyrical beauty and emotional heft, “Manhattan Beach’’ is a magnificent achievement.” The Boston Globe

The next meeting will be Thursday the 23rd of February 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. 

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.

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.

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?