SEARCH · PubMed Health
Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
This annotated list of 178 items is compiled as a guide to the development of the reference collection in a small medical library.Arrangement, following the pattern of the previous revision, is by broad subject groups. Titles are chiefly in English. Textbooks in subject fields have been omitted since these are covered adequately in several comprehensive guides to the literature.
Gopher software has emerged rapidly as a powerful tool for providing library users with organized access to Internet resources. Building and maintaining Gophers is one way in which librarians' traditional knowledge and skills are being applied in a nontraditional area. In March 1992, the University of Michigan's ULibrary Gopher was created, mainly as a means of providing access to U.S. Census data and the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Bulletin Board. In an effort to broaden the scope of the Gopher, librarians were asked to submit ideas for new resources to access. The result was the ULibrary Gopher Working Group, a team of eighteen librarians from six libraries on campus. The Alfred Taubman Medical Library staff drafted a menu design for life sciences resources and received basic UNIX training. In March 1993, the life sciences section of ULibrary became fully operational and now is maintained by the Taubman staff. This paper describes the history of the ULibrary Gopher and the working group, the creation and ongoing maintenance of the life sciences area of the Gopher, staffing issues, and the relationship of Gopher building to traditional collection development.
A need for centralized access to biomedical databanks was identified at the Medical University of South Carolina. The library has taken a leadership role in administering selection, acquisition, storage, and dissemination of access to these databases. A discussion of established policies and procedures is included. The appendix describes the biomedical databanks and search software selected.
Brown was one of the first universities in the nation to combine its science collections into a single library in the interest of aiding interdisciplinary teaching and research. This paper discusses the evolution of the Sciences Library and its resources, the development of the medical education program, and the physical aspects of the new library building. A fifteen-story tower, housing the collections of the physical, biological, and medical sciences, symbolizes the interdisciplinary approach to teaching and research at Brown University.
Reference monographs in the Health Sciences Library of the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey were reorganized recently according to form, in order to enable both librarians and patrons to utilize these materials more efficiently. This reorganization reflects the unique characteristics of reference books as differentiated from the regular monographic collection, since reference materials are frequently consulted for quick "look-ups." A reference category scheme was developed and implemented, based on observations of and comparisons with reference collections of eight medical libraries in the New York metropolitan area. The reorganization enhances the retrievability of materials from this collection.
The preconditions for creating a preservation policy document in a health sciences library are an existing preservation policy for the institution of which it is a part and administrative support for preservation. The assumption underlying preservation activity, from the formulation of general guidelines to the detail of operating procedure, is that collection development and preservation are complementary functions. Documentation of operational procedures in some detail should be a part of the statement. Since preservation activity cuts across functional library structures, all management staff should be involved in the planning process and be made aware of their responsibilities. The creation of a preservation policy statement will highlight unaddressed issues, procedural inadequacies, and differences in staff perceptions of priorities, but a written statement provides a framework for setting priorities and making decisions.
Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, O'Connor v. Donaldson and Bounds v. Smith, hold important implications for health sciences librarians serving in mental health facilities. The first, O'Connor, with its many ancillary holdings, puts mental health personnel on notice that patients have certain basic rights, which courts all over the country will now be required to enforce. In Bounds the court has ruled that prison authorities must assist prison inmates in preparing and filing legal papers. The ruling will most likely benefit all mentally disabled prisoners, and future litigation may expand this category to include: (1) persons committed under the criminal code, (2) persons under involuntary commitment not related to the criminal code, and (3) persons voluntarily committed. A selective annotated bibliography, consisting of background readings in mental health and the law, basic rights, law library materials, and mental health legal services, has been compiled to help librarians establish and develop legal collections in anticipation of court decisions that will expand the conditions of Bounds to include all mentally disabled patients.
We, four independent predictors, organized a team and tackled blind protein structure predictions using fold recognition methods. We tried to assign the homologous or analogous folds in the protein structure database for a number of target sequences that showed no apparent sequence homology to the proteins of known folds. After primary analyses by conventional softwares, these sequences were threaded through the structural library using three different programs developed by ourselves, which employed different compatibility functions. Collecting the results of our individual analyses, and the available biological knowledge about the target, we held meetings and discussed all plausible structures for the target. For 25 target sequences, we submitted 56 models including NONE: This was the first time the fold was determined. At the time of the meeting (CASP3), 19 protein structures (21 domains) categorized as the threading targets were available. We succeeded in predicting eight out of 18 targets (20 domains) that we submitted; however, alignment accuracies were not satisfactory for some of the models. We often obtained correct answers even if some of us missed the right prediction; therefore it would appear that our threaders compensated each other. When all the information is managed effectively, the prediction gains more accuracy.
The GaIN (Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Information) Hospital Libraries' Local Automation Project was a one-year, grant-funded initiative to implement an integrated library system in three Georgia hospitals. The purpose of the project was to install the library systems, describe the steps in hospital library automation, and identify issues and barriers related to automation in small libraries. The participating hospitals included a small, a medium, and a large institution. The steps and time required for project implementation were documented in order to develop a decision checklist. Although library automation proved a desirable approach for improving collection accessibility, simplifying daily routines, and improving the library's image in the hospital, planners must be sure to consider equipment as well as software support, staffing for the conversion, and training of the library staff and end users.
Benchmarking is based on the common sense idea that someone else, either inside or outside of libraries, has found a better way of doing certain things and that your own library's performance can be improved by finding out how others do things and adopting the best practices you find. Benchmarking is one of the tools used for achieving continuous improvement in Total Quality Management (TQM) programs. Although benchmarking can be done on an informal basis, TQM puts considerable emphasis on formal data collection and performance measurement. Used to its full potential, benchmarking can provide a common measuring stick to evaluate process performance. This article introduces the general concept of benchmarking, linking it whenever possible to reference services in health sciences libraries. Data collection instruments that have potential application in benchmarking studies are discussed and the need to develop common measurement tools to facilitate benchmarking is emphasized.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has a broad mission in biomedical information service. There are three major reasons for NLM, as a national institution, having an international program: first, the global nature of disease; second, the international scope of medical literature; and third, the universal goal of better communication. This paper reviews NLM's programs in relation to international medical information exchange: International MEDLARS Centers, collaboration with WHO and PAHO, NLM Special Foreign Currency Program, and development of the NLM collection.
The neural crest is of fundamental importance in the developments of the head and peripheral nervous system, in the evolution of the vertebrates, and clinically because it gives rise to developmental abnormalities and neoplasms in humans. We have established a resource for studying the development of the neural crest by systematically constructing cDNA libraries from spatiotemporally exact neural crest and related cell populations. Neural crest populations were obtained from vagal and thoracic axial levels and from branchial arches, at premigratory and early and late migratory stages, at localization stages, and after differentiation into dorsal root ganglion cells, Schwann cells, sympathetic neurons, adrenal medullary cells, and melanocytes. Libraries were constructed using several methods developed to approach the issue of making representative libraries from small amounts of tissue. The fidelity and usefulness of the libraries were tested, and this revealed that they expressed a variety of sequences such as integrins, CAMs, growth factors and their receptors, protein-tyrosine kinases, and phosphatases. Differential display also revealed a unique combination of cDNA species. We then selected libraries spatiotemporally appropriate for epithelium-mesenchyme transformation and probed for TGF-beta-related sequences. As anticipated, we confirmed the presence of TGF-beta 2 and dorsalin-1 but could not detect TGF-beta 1. We also revealed new expression sites, defined by the origin of the libraries, of receptors known to be expressed elsewhere (Tsk 7l; TBRII). We anticipate that this collection of cDNA libraries will be of use in studying normal and abnormal neural crest development, by both homology searches and differential expression approaches, with spatiotemporal expression information being inherent in the initial screen.
Prior to the 1950's, there existed no formal system for poison prevention or treatment in the US. Estimates place the number of pediatric poisoning fatalities at over 400/y at that time. After World War II, urbanization and modern technological methods brought forth over 250,000 different brand name products on the market. Health care professionals presented with cases of acute poisoning usually had little knowledge of what ingredients were contained in these new products, making it difficult to treat these patients. In the 1930's, pharmacist Louis Gdalman established a poison information service at St Luke's hospital. Because of Gdalman's training in pharmacy and chemistry, physicians throughout Chicago and the US called on him in search of assistance. In the late 1940's, Gdalman began recording information on small cards, and developed a standard data collection from. By the 1950's he had established an extensive library on the management of acute and chronic poisonings. In 1948, a national effort to reduce the number of accidents in children was started by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and a committee was formed in Chicago to address this public safety need. In November, 1953, the poison center at Presbyterian-St Luke's Hospital was formally recognized, and the poison program model spread nationwide. As the number of poison centers grew, coordination was achieved through the National Clearing House for Poison Control Centers, founded in 1957, and the American Association of Poison Control Centers, created in 1958. By 1970, the number of poison centers in the US was reported to be 597. The need for large and better centers led to regional poison control centers. Other outgrowths were the formation of the National Poison Prevention Week Council, the enactment of the Poison Prevention Packaging Act, development of "Mr. Yuk" and other symbols, and formation of the National Animal Poison Control Center. As a result, the number of children dying from accidental poisoning has dropped to under 50/y.
An automated interlibrary loan statistics compilation system used at the Health Sciences Library at the State University of New York at Buffalo is described. The system provides standardized input to produce various statistical reports as well as additional information for collection development and improved user service.
The Medical Center Library contracted to provide bibliographic information services for the Tobacco and Health Research Institute of the University of Kentucky. This new department is now an integral part of the Medical Center Library providing reference and literature services in the tobacco and health area. Operating as a quasi-independent unit of the Medical Center Library, THIS (Tobacco and Health Information Services) functions separately in all areas of library operations, or more specifically, as a special library within a library. Its collection differs from that of most libraries in that it consists almost solely of periodical reprints instead of books and journals. The diversity of disciplines which tobacco and health literature encompasses has created the need for the development of a current awareness service for researchers. It is the belief of the author that there is a definite trend toward library collections such as THIS within larger medical libraries, as more institutes with special areas of interest are being formed.
The problem of deciding which journal titles to select for acquisition in a biomedical library is modeled. The approach taken is based on cost/benefit ratios. Measures of journal worth, methods of data collection, and journal cost data are considered. The emphasis is on the development of a practical process for selecting journal titles, based on the objectivity and rationality of the model; and on the collection of the approprate data and library statistics in a reasonable manner. The implications of this process towards an overall management information system (MIS) for biomedical serials handling are discussed.
We constructed an equalized cDNA library from Arabidopsis inflorescence shoot apices including inflorescence meristem, floral meristem and flower tissue collected before stage 5 of flower development. The cDNA clones were arrayed on membranes and were differentially screened using cDNA pools from vegetative and inflorescence tissues as probes. Each clone was classified by expression specificity and expression level. By removing the clones that displayed hybridization signals, 384 out of 3264 clones in this library remained as candidates for inflorescence-specific mRNAs expressed at low levels. Sequence analysis of all selected clones indicated that 53 were identical and 120 were homologous to genes in public protein databases. The remaining 211 selected clones had no significant amino acid sequence similarities with those deduced from any reported genes, though 62 of them appeared in Arabidopsis expressed sequenced tags (ESTs). About 40% of the selected clones were novel, validating the present approach for gene discovery. Northern blot analysis of 22 randomly selected clones confirmed that most were expressed preferentially in inflorescence tissues. In addition, many clones were transcribed at relatively low levels. We demonstrate that the screening method of the present study is useful for systematic classification of cDNA species based on expression specificity.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.