Enhancing reference services with the support of your colleagues

The expertise of colleagues and experience gained through professional organizations is an overlooked resource for adding value to reference service. Collegial networks must be nurtured. They deserve the support and investment of the institution.     

Analysis of the use of reference services in an academic health sciences library

In 1991, the Reference and Information Services staff of the Alfred Taubman Medical Library at the University of Michigan gathered data on the use of the reference desk, including the frequency and types of assistance requested by different user groups throughout the year. Recommendations based on the results of this study led to improved service as well as more efficient use of staff resources.     

The literature of women and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS): implications for collection development and information retrieval

The purpose of the study was to identify the pattern of publication about women and AIDS in scientific journals. Bradford zones were identified in each of six databases. The study determined that journal scatter for this subset of AIDS literature differed from the scatter in the general literature; further, the information indexed in the six electronic sources demonstrated little overlap. Consequently, key journal and newsletter titles identified by this study should form the core of any collection focusing on women and AIDS. The assurance of quality patient care management demands that librarians consult multiple resources for information retrieval that can assist health care providers, patients, and caregivers to enhance quality of life as well as to provide optimum care.     

AAMC STAT: a brief description

AAMC STAT is a new, weekly electronic newsletter produced by the American Association of Medical Colleges. It provides coverage of national news related to academic medicine. This article briefly reviews the electronic publication and gives directions for subscribing to AAMC STAT.     

UnCover on the Web: search hints and applications in library environments

Among the huge maze of resources available on the Internet, UnCoverWeb stands out as a valuable tool for medical libraries. This up-to-date, free-access, multidisciplinary database of periodical references is searched through an easy-to-learn graphical user interface that is a welcome improvement over the telnet version. This article reviews the basic and advanced search techniques for UnCoverWeb, as well as providing information on the document delivery functions and table of contents alerting service called Reveal. UnCover's currency is evaluated and compared with other current awareness resources. System deficiencies are discussed, with the conclusion that although UnCoverWeb lacks the sophisticated features of many commercial database search services, it is nonetheless a useful addition to the repertoire of information sources available in a library.     

An SDILINE profile oriented to patient care.

Hospital physicians naturally require current medical information in order to treat their patients. An objectively obtained SDILINE storesearch was devised to obtain this information. A rank-ordered list of hospital discharge diagnoses, coded with ICDA terms, was translated into MeSH. The top two Bradford zones of journals defined as useful at the University of Missouri--Kansas City were ANDed to these MeSH terms. Citations retrieved from the storesearch are input into an in-house computerized data base. The method can be easily used by other medical or hospital libraries without access to computers.