Test out our proposed new search feature on JEFFLINE and let us know what you think of it.  You could even win a prize . . .  We’re giving a $50 gift certificate to the lucky Jeffersonian who wins our drawing.

New Homepage Search

JEFFLINE’s current interface has been active for just over a year. While it’s been a big improvement overall, we’ve learned from usability tests that the search box isn’t intuitive to users. We’ve talked to faculty, staff and students in focus groups asking questions about what resources to include, where to put it, and how to present the choices.

Now it’s time to kick the tires and see how it actually works for you. 

Please try out the searches (especially the all-in-one option), follow the results, compare the homepage sample with the secondary page sample, and then let us know what you think.

ALL comments are welcome!  Feel free to write a free form comment on this blog entry, or use the online comment form to answer specific questions (and enter the drawing!).

The comments form will be available from now until December 13^th.  The drawing will be held and the recipient notified on Monday, December 14^th.

All-in-One Search Results

 RoMEO, a web tool used by Jefferson authors to determine publishers’ copyright policies, has been upgraded to include:  

• A new field for the self-archiving of the Publisher’s Version/ PDF
• Expanded journal coverage
• New search options for journal abbreviations and electronic ISSNs
• New tabular browse view for publishers
• Selective display of publishers’ compliance with funding agencys’ mandates

Previous versions of RoMEO have concentrated on highlighting information on the use of the pre-print and post-print.   Now, information about the use of the publisher’s version/PDF is featured as a distinct field.   The information is available in both individual publisher entries and in a new Tabular Browse View.

RoMEO has also expanded its journal coverage. The aim is to enable users to draw from both the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the Entrez journal list for the Life Sciences, along with the existing resource of the British Library’s Zetoc service.

The new Tabular Browse View displays comparative charts of publishers, to quickly determine and compare what different publishers allow, and whether the publisher has a paid open access option.

Authors who receive funding from any of the 50 plus agencies listed in JULIET — a companion database of research funders’ policies — can now restrict  search results to display publishers’ compliance with any of the funding agencies’ policies listed in JULIET.

The RoMEO service employs a simple color code to classify policies and inform authors of what can be done with their articles. It also offers users the ability to view summaries of publishers’ copyright policies in relation to self-archiving; view whether publisher policies comply with funding regulations,  (some publishers are too restrictive in their contracts and cannot be used to publish some funded research); and to search journal and publisher information by journal title, publisher name and ISSN.

Jefferson authors are encouraged to check on publisher policies BEFORE choosing a publisher;  RoMEO is a great resource for doing this.  If your chosen publisher has a policy that prohibits fulfilling your deposit requirements under the terms of your grant, RoMEO can warn you so that you know you need to customize your author agreement (See JEFFLINE’s advice on retaining your copyright).  

Read the full press release.

Two scientific publishers have announced special tributes to Charles Darwin, on this 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, and the 200th year of Darwin’s birth.  The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is offering open access to two peer-reviewed articles in BioScience, and Springer is providing limited free access to a special issue of Naturwissenshaften.

‘Ten Myths About Charles Darwin,’ appeared in the October issue of BioScience and is available at caliber.ucpress.net/doi/full/10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.10.  Kevin Padian of the University of California, Berkeley, explores some common inaccuracies and untruths about Darwin and his life’s work, painting in the process a clear portrait of the man and his struggles to develop a theory to explain the diversity of nature.

‘The Darwinian Revelation: Tracing the Origin and Evolution of an Idea’ appeared in the November issue of BioScience and is available at caliber.ucpress.net/doi/full/10.1525/bio.2009.59.10.10.   James T. Costa of Western Carolina University draws on Darwin’s letters and notebooks and other sources to trace the origins of Darwin’s key insights over the years.

Springer’s special issue of  Naturwissenschaften  commemorates the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in November 1859.  All articles in this special issue will be available for free until December 30, 2009 at www.springerlink.com/content/ph5w541k7876/

The December 2009 issue of the journal Nursing & Health Sciences has released a special issue devoted to the critical and contemporary topic of disasters and emergencies.  The issue entitled ‘Disasters and Emergencies: Preparing, Managing and Experiencing’, is available to all Jeffersonians via JEFFLINE’s journal subscriptions.

Connect directly to the special issue.

Did you know?
The best way to prevent infection and illness is

Handwashing

Studies between 1994 and 2000 indicated less than 50% adherence to hand hygiene guidelines in health care settings.

Join us in our discussion of how to improve adherence at Jefferson

JSPH Chapter of the IHI Open School Meeting

Monday, November 16th at 5pm
-OR-
Tuesday, November 17th at 12pm
(Choose the time that best fits your schedule)

JSPH Conference Room,
Curtis Building (1015 Walnut), Sutie 115

For more information contact Valerie at valerie.pracilio@jefferson.edu.

Every month, Psychiatry Online offers Jeffersonians a free e-text from the APPI Bookstore.  For November, the free e-book is Changing American Psychiatry:  A Personal Perspective, by Melvin Sabshin, MD. 

From the publisher’s blurb:

Psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, other mental health workers, behavioral scientists, and university medical and neuroscience professionals will benefit from this articulate insider’s view of post–World War II psychiatry in Changing American Psychiatry: A Personal Perspective by Melvin Sabshin, M.D. Dr. Sabshin served as Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for 23 years, from 1974 to 1997, during a period of perhaps the greatest change in psychiatry since the World War II produced a dramatic modification of practice.

The author describes in detail two extraordinary periods of change, the first stimulated by laudatory efforts to understand the high rate of psychiatric casualties among World War II veterans and to provide treatment for them. Psychiatry grew quickly during the postwar years, considerably influenced by the immigration of many Central European psychoanalysts. Gradually, however, psychiatry began to weaken its ties to medicine and lost much of its public respect. By the 1970s, postwar optimism had been replaced by widespread concern that psychiatric practice was being dominated by unsubstantiated formulations rather than reliable evidence. Psychiatry was dramatically impacted by enormous pressure for therapeutic accountability exerted by a managed care reimbursement system. The profession recognized the need for a new direction and resolved to change.

In the foreword to the book, current APA Medical Director James H. Scully Jr., M.D., notes that Dr. Sabshin has woven a personal journey of the history of the intellectual conflicts and changes in the field of psychiatry in the post–war era, culminating in the remedicalization of psychiatry and the development of the DSM-III.

Dr. Sabshin encourages psychiatric professionals to change the field so it can employ an empirically based “bio-psycho-social” model that has the potential to revitalize the next phase of American psychiatry. He details how the potential for the future of psychiatry can be enhanced by today’s practicing professionals, stressing the:

• Need to incorporate the rapid developments of neuroscience into a professional practice that is increasingly integrated with empirically demonstrated psychological and social influences upon mental illness.
• Importance on continued research that is fed back into practice and keeps the professional evidence-based.
• Need of psychoanalysis to make its beliefs explicit, formulating hypotheses that can be tested scientifically in order to be employed reliably in evidence-based practice.

This well-crafted historical account describes how the profession has become a more respected and accountable part of medicine and how it scientific credentials have risen as a result. Dr. Sabshin concludes that the use of psychological understanding and psychotherapies must play a major role combined with psychopharmacology in the treatment of psychiatric patients.

Read the full description, contents, and reviews.

To obtain your free copy, visit Psychiatry Online, and look for the download icon under Book of the Month.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services invites you to comment on the DRAFT set of objectives for Healthy People 2020.

For three decades, Healthy People has provided a set of national 10-year health promotion and disease prevention objectives aimed at improving the health of all Americans.

Visit http://www.healthypeople.gov/HP2020/Comments/  to

• View proposed draft objectives for Healthy People 2020
• Comment on the proposed objectives
• Comment on the topic areas
• Suggest additional objectives
• Suggest topic areas you feel are missing from the draft set

Your comments will help ensure issues important to you are included in Healthy People.   Establishing objectives and providing benchmarks to track progress motivates, guides, and focuses action.   Be part of the change. Comments will be accepted through December 31, 2009.

Visit http://www.healthypeople.gov/HP2020/Comments today.   Your feedback will help define the vision and strategy for building a healthier Nation.

Need to calculate a dose, interpret an abbreviation, apply an equation, or use a decision tree with some test results?  MedCalc 3000 is for you.

You’ll find numerous evidence-based calculations, calculators, decison trees and more when you visit STAT!Ref and select MedCalc from the Resources tab.   If you do a search on any STAT!Ref page, any relevant MedCalc resource will be included in the side bar of the results:

Try the MedCalc 3000 Tutorial (uses Flash Player)

MedCalc 3000 is just one of the dozens of resources available in STAT!Ref, via JEFFLINE. All Jeffersonians may access STAT!Ref from home, office, or mobile — all it takes is your campus key. Look for STAT!Ref in the Quick Links on JEFFLINE.

Scott Memorial Library is preparing to withdraw almost 50 years of the print version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and over 100 years of the Annals of Surgery:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
volume 43, 1957  – volume 103, 2006

Annals of Surgery
volume 3, 1886 – volume 246, 2007

The Library provides access to an electronic copy of each title for use by all Jeffersonians.  We plan to withdraw the print copies  since the electronic version complies with the quality standards outlined in our Print Withdrawal Policy.

If you are interested in obtaining the print version of one or more years of these titles, please contact Diana Ryan (Diana.Ryan@jefferson.edu) before Friday, November 13, 2009.

Note that in the process of converting print to electronic in the case of PNAS, the Library has been able to double its years of coverage, extending our subscription back to the very first issue (1915), in addition to making the content much more accessible for all Jeffersonians.  In the case of the Annals of Surgery, the electronic version spans the entire life of the journal from volume 1 to present. 

Electronic articles are now available 24 x 7 for all Jeffersonians, whether or not they are on campus, and no matter how many want to use it concurrently.  The Library’s databases such as PubMed and Scopus link their results to the online article, for greater ease of retrieval.

From the BioMed Central blog:

BioMed Central has recently launched the Stem Cell Gateway, providing easy access to all the latest stem cell related research published across BioMed Central’s journals.  The Gateway complements the new journal  Stem Cell Research & Therapy – the major forum for translational research into stem cell therapies – which is now accepting submissions.

The Stem Cell Gateway includes research highlights, as well as profiles of authors in the field and an interactive map, AuthorMapper, which enables you to explore based on author locations and to discover wider relationships and find experts in your field.

Due for launch in early 2010, Stem Cell Research & Therapy is an international peer-reviewed research journal. Visit the Stem Cell Research & Therapy website to receive regular updates, and to  submit original research articles.

The next Jefferson Book Club meeting will discuss the book “Purple Hibiscus: A Novel” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.   About the book:

Fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.

When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili’s father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a University professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father’s authority. The visit will lift the silence from their world and, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways. This is a book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred, between the old gods and the new. (description from the author’s website)

As a further resource, listen to the  “The Danger of a Single Story,” a TED Talk by author Adichie.    Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories.  Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. 

Please join us:
Thursday, November 19th
Noon – 1:00 p.m.
Room 200B Scott (behind the fish tank)

If you have not yet picked up a copy of the book, the University Bookstore offers it at a discounted rate and the Library has a copy for loan.

Please feel free to bring your lunch to the meeting, and please let Joanne Gotto know if you plan on attending:

Joanne L. Gotto, EdM
215-955-8769
joanne.gotto@jefferson.edu  

Did you miss Scott Library’s exhibit of artworks by Trudy Kraft?

Though the physical exhibit is gone, the online exhibit is now OPEN for all to view, at http://jeffline.jefferson.edu/SML/Art/Kraft/. 

Visit the Garden of Delights any time of day or night – the garden gates never close.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of  Science, has launched a pair of online social networking sites to accompany the journal:

• CTSciNet is a community for people pursuing careers in clinical and translational research.
• MySciNet supports aspiring scientists from diverse backgrounds.

From the news release:

Both sites are expected to help scientists and students network, find other scientists with similar or complementary interests, form partnerships and collaborations, and discuss career-related and scientific issues.   The new social networks offer free, secure virtual communities for scientists at all career stages. After registering, users can post and respond to questions on career-related, academic, scientific, or social subjects; join virtual groups on specific topics or for specific organizations; read articles on navigating a career path; and pass along articles and hyperlinks from outside resources.

Both sites were developed by AAAS along with contributions from several scientific societies and with corporate and foundation funding. CTSciNet was funded by a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund while MySciNet was sponsored by Genentech and Pfizer.

The networks contain features similar to those offered by Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social networks. But since it is monitored by Science Careers staff and populated exclusively by scientists, science trainees and science career experts, science professionals are projected to find CTSciNet and MySciNet considerably more focused.

 Read the full news release.

Arthritis Research and Therapy (AR&T) is celebrating 10 years of publishing with a new collection of reviews.  The collection of 38 articles provides an in-depth overview of the current status of basic and clinical research in rheumatology, and focuses particularly on developments in the past decade, during which there has been an explosion of new information in the field.

Spanning more than 400 pages, the reviews are freely available to all Internet users.  Written by an internationally recognised group of experts, the collection is expected to become an essential educational tool for students,  clinicians and researchers.

View the reviews at http://arthritis-research.com/series/sbr2008 

Open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS) has introduced 3D molecular animation technology in its flagship journal, PLoS ONE.   Starting with a kernel of 5 articles in structural biology, this represents a new collection within PLoS ONE:   “Structural Biology and Human Health: Medically Relevant Proteins from the SGC” (Structural Genomics Consortium).

The SGC is an international public-private partnership that determines three dimensional structures of medically important proteins from both humans and human parasites and places this information into the public domain, free from restrictions on use. The peer-reviewed articles, which include some of the research highlights from the SGC, describe new protein structures. These include a protein involved in the survival and proliferation of cancer cells, a protein associated with hereditary paraplegia, and a protein involved in degrading foreign compounds and pollutants in the body.

Readers need to download a free browser plug-in to view the animations. They can then click on hyperlinked text within the article to ‘spot’ the relevant position within the molecule, and interact with it at will, by zooming, rotating and exploring as desired. Knowing the 3D shape of a protein is considered crucial to understanding how it functions in the body.

The SGC at the University of Oxford and its sister programs at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, are dedicated to finding the structures of human proteins of medical relevance which could be targets for new drugs. The SGC has over 500 datapacks already available over the web and plans to publish a significant number of academic papers incorporating these datapacks over the next four years with PLoS ONE.

Visit Structural Biology and Human Health: Medically Relevant Proteins from the SGC