An application form for membership and renewals is available on the MAHSLIN Web Page at http://nnlmner.uchc.edu/mahslin/memreg.html . Please fill out all information completely and send your check and form to the address indicated on the bottom of the form. If you do not have web access, please contact Cathy Guarcello or Marybeth Edwards at the address given in "MAHSLIN Executive Board Notes." It is important that you send in your form as soon as possible so that the next Directory will include updated information.
As we hurtle towards 2000, medical librarians find ourselves using electronic equipment as if we had been doing it for decades. ELHILL has become an old friend whom we are sad to see thrown to the boneyard. Every day we face questions about electronic products and procedures which have no easy answers. ELECTRONIC JOURNALS and the INTERNET present particularly thorny issues.
Our MAHSLIN ANNUAL MEETING on APRIL 29 will explore these issues. People are excited about this meeting..we have received many registrations already. To avoid a late fee, send your registration form to Sue Dhanjal at Salem Hospital Library by April 15. For complete registration information, visit MAHSLIN's web site at http://nnlmner.uchc.edu/mahslin/registeran.html . See you in Lexington on April 29!
- Florence Mercer, [1-978-463-1000 x2480; fmercer@ajh.org ]
By putting the MAHSLIN Network News on the web, and mailing only the issues to those not on MAHSLIN-L, the last issue of the News cost half of the previous issue to produce. Please join MAHSLIN-L; very few messages, but all of high importance to the membership, are posted to the list per week. Help us improve communications with you, the members, and keep our costs [and, therefore, dues] down. Appended to the end of the News are instructions on how to join MAHSLIN-L.
Please forward any membership or ULS directory changes to either Cathy Guarcello or Marybeth Edwards, Membership co-chairs at:
Stohlman Library
St. Elizabeth's Medical Center
736 Cambridge St.
Boston, MA 02135
Tel: (617) 789-2177; Fax: (617) 789-5081; Email: cguarcel@world.std.com or mbedward@world.std.com
The Executive Board will be meeting at Newton-Wellesley Hospital at 9:30 a.m. on the following dates [meetings are open to all MAHSLIN members]:
April 14, 1998
The minutes of each meeting are posted to MAHSLIN-L approximately a month after the meeting. If you are not a subscriber to MAHSLIN-L, contact Anne Lima for a copy [tel: 617-522-8110 x225; fax: 617-524-9779].
Nancy Fazzone, director of Library Services at Salem Hospital has been invited to join a group of medical librarians at NLM on April 16, 1998 "... to identify and discuss the problems accessing and searching MEDLINE using the library's free Web-based search interfaces PubMed and IGM." The request is for constructive feedback on problems encountered with either of these systems. Nancy will be contacting as many people as possible before the meeting, but would love for librarians to call with input as well. Please contact her at:
The North Shore Medical Center
Salem Hospital
81 Highland Avenue
Salem, MA 01970
Tel: 978-741-1215 x4951; Fax: 978-744-9110; Email: Nancyf@NSMC.partners.org
From Christine Fleuriel: The Baruj Benacerraf Library, formerly the Professional Staff Library of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, moved into a new and larger facility in November. Along with the move, the Library also acquired the Clinical Oncology and Nursing collections, expanding its journal holdings to 240 titles. The Library, named for the Farber's former president, was dedicated in February. The Library also has the Benacerraf Reading Room, which holds Dr. Benacerraf's archives, as well as his Nobel Prize, which he won in 1980.
The Dana Farber Cancer Institute has a new staff member, Susan Metcalf, who started in September. She has been busy developing a Web page for the Library. With luck and cooperation from other departments, it should be up in the summer.
Brenda Collins, formerly of the Countway Library, has become the Director of Library Services at New England College of Optometry [not Pharmacy, as erroneously stated in the last issue]. She reports that the renovation of the Sears Residence at 420 Beacon Street, the future location of the Library, is on schedule and should be complete in early Fall of 1998.
The Library of the New England College of Optometry
welcomes the following new staff:
Michele Melia, Assistant Librarian [formerly with ERIC
Clearinghouse]
Marc McGee, Library Assistant [formerly with Borders
Books]
Cindy Hutchison, Systems Librarian [formerly with Silver
Platter]
Melanie Liu, Educational Media Coordinator [recent
Masters in Communications from Ithaca College and internship at
Parametric Technology Corp.]
Selena Rose, Web Site Coordinator and Webmaster, wishes to inform the members that the New England College of Optometry has a new web site: http://www.ne-optometry.edu .
The 1998 slate of officers for CMCHRL includes:
Mary Ann Adams, President [Harrington Memorial Hospital]
Andy Dzaugis, Vice President [Memorial Healthcare]
Tim Rivard, Treasurer [Allmerica Financial]
Nancy Callander, Secretary [Emerson Hospital]
Cheryl Duggan, Co-Secretary [Astra Pharmaceutical]
CAPE COD HOSPITAL LIBRARIAN HONORED [submitted by Pat Vigorito]
The Cape Cod Hospital Medical Library has been named in honor of the person who has built it over the past eighteen years - Librarian Nancy Frazier. The honor is shared with Mr. Richard Grant, who has made considerable donations to the library for over ten years. The new name of the Library is the Frazier-Grant Medical Library. This honor was announced at the annual meeting of the Medical Staff in December, 1997.
Nancy is one of the founding members of SEMCO and has served as President [1985-87] and as Treasurer [1990-97]. Nancy began her career in medical libraries at Cardinal Cushing Hospital (now Good Samaritan) in 1973. From 1975-79, Nancy was an Assistant Professor of Library Science at Bridgewater State College. After coming to Cape Cod Hospital in 1979, Nancy built the Medical Library from a small collection of books and periodicals to a state-of-the-art resource for the entire area.
Our congratulations to Nancy on this well-deserved honor.
NEW SEMCO MEMBERS:
Kimberly Lavoie is the new Librarian at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro. Kimberly received her MLS from Simmons and was previously the Outreach Coordinator for the NN/LM NER in Connecticut.
Nancy Ling is the new Librarian at New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton. Nancy is also a graduate of Simmons and most recently worked for KPMG Peat Marwick in Boston.
Dolloff Medical Library, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, has a new Library Assistant, Elaine Aldrich. Donna Kurkul has also been hired as Internet Coordinator, in addition to her responsibilities as Medical Librarian and Knowledge-based Information Services Coordinator.
Thomas A. Horrocks was appointed Associate Director for Special Collections and Curator of Rare Books in the Countway Library of Medicine. Mr. Horrocks, formerly Director of Historical Programs and Services at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, received a B.A. in History from Villanova University, an M.S. in Library Science from Drexel University, and is currently a doctoral candidate in American History at the University of Pennsylvania. The title of his dissertation is "Views of the Body, Health, and Disease in American Almanacs, 1750-1850."
Cooley Dickinson Hospital has a new FAX number: 413-582-2985.
Florence Mercer has a new email address: fmercer@ajh.org .
The VA Medical Center at Northampton has a new
address:
Library Service, 142D
VA Medical Center
421 North Main Street
Leeds, MA 01053-9714
Volunteers are needed on site for NAHSL'98, September 27-29, 1998, at the Park Plaza, Boston. If you wanted to volunteer, but couldn't find the time for pre-conference planning, now you can help out during the conference. Volunteers are needed for the Hospitality Table [always fun with quality schmoozing], changing signs for meeting rooms [tell them where it's at], running AV equipment [the true challenge], and catching those "photo ops" [your chance to be papparazzi]. Contact Anita Loscalzo at aloscalz@bu.edu or Debbie Sibley at dsibley@library.ummed.edu if you are interested.
NAHSL'98 has pages on the NAHSL web site at http://nnlmner.uchc.edu/nahsl/98nahsl.html .
As part of its expansion to a multi-type library service network, the
Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners will
soon solicit interested health sciences libraries for their interest in
contracting with the State for the provision of
health-related information and reference service through a structured
referral hierarchy - probably library-to-library. The
contracting library will be designated as the "health" specialist and
will provide high level services (library of last resort) to
the requestor. Details related to funding, staffing, and service will be
determined through the RFR process. Interested
libraries should follow the MLIN web site for the RFR application details
and deadlines at http://www.mlin.lib.ma.us
---- Chris Bell, Newton-Wellesley Hospital
*Please note that the following procedure was cleared and accepted by BPL before implementation.
BPL rerouted ILL requests.
Policy
For almost two weeks a policy was instituted at Carney Hospital that all ILL requests that normally would be routed to charging libraries would be rerouted to Boston Public Library to be filled free of charge. Colpoys Library changed their Quickdoc ILL Max. Charge Line from $10.00 to Free. When items were rejected on-line because of cost (DOCLINE code CST) they were then rerouted to Boston Public Library via e-mail. The expected turn-around time was one to two weeks. We had used BPL's ILL Department in the past for fulfilling article requests that we were unable to obtain from our usual channels, and had found the turn-around time satisfactory.
Results
There were 21 requests rerouted to BPL during the period of 2/4/98-2/18/98. Of the 21 requests, 18 requests were filled by BPL with an average turn-around time 9.6 days. If this data is broken up by requests that normally would have been filled by charging libraries and requests that would have had to been fulfilled by BPL's ILL department because they were not fillable through our normal channels, the results are as follows: requests that would have been normally been filled by charging libraries were outstanding 11.5 days; and requests that would have had to have been fulfilled by BPL because they were not available through normal channels were outstanding 6.5 days (1). Three of the requests that would have normally been filled by charging libraries were withdrawn from the BPL system and rerouted to charging libraries via DOCLINE. They were filled in an average of 5.3 days, and cost the Library $24.00 dollars in Ill fees.
Outcome
The plan to use BPL as an alternative method of obtaining materials that we would have normally received from charging libraries has been abandoned. The main reasons for our decision were: (1) length of time required to receive materials from BPL; (2) increased work-load of the ILL staff at Carney; (3) inefficiency of the system; and (4) loss of control during the tracking phase of outstanding ILLs.
1. Length of time required to receive materials from BPL. While in the past the turn around time of two weeks had been sufficient for non-medical materials or materials not available through our normal channels, it had proven itself not sufficient for more routine ILLs. The primary reason for this is that patrons were less inclined to wait for materials that they had previously obtained in three to five days. Many of our patrons are house officers who often request research-related materials from charging libraries. They can not wait two weeks for an ILL because they usually need materials in a few days for clinical work or presentations. In the past our requests to BPL had been primarily from attending physicians who were working on long-standing projects. For them the turn-around time of ILLs was not an overwhelming factor in their need for the material.
2. Increased work-load for ILL staff at Carney. The ILL staff at Carney found that the work-load had increased to intolerable levels with the new policy of rerouting requests to the BPL ILL Department. In the past requests were sent via DOCLINE with relatively little work by the staff. The old procedure was to check the title of the request against the holdings of the Carney library, verify the citation if there was no unique identifier submitted with the request, and then enter the UI or SERHOLD number into Quickdoc. The new procedure included verifying the citation, trying to verify the location of the material, finding an ISSN if material could not be found, and then manually recording data that included: date, number of request, type of request, first word of title, journal title, volume, date, pages, article author, title, your institution name, and your card # as given by BPL, for every article requested. Carney chose to use an e-mail format because it seemed more expedient than mail or fax (2). Verifying the location of the material was the most burdensome part of the new procedure because of the need for a web browser with telnet capabilities. The procedure included connecting to the BPL web site, browsing their on-line journal list and their research collection. One could not browse both collections at the same time, and both collections utilized different search programs (both of these programs require a telnet connection). If you determined that the item was not at BPL, you searched via the BPL web site the on-line collections of other Boston consortium members. This elaborate procedure was made even more challenging because Carney has only one computer with a reliable telnet connection--a general access computer open to the public and well used by it.
3. Inefficiency of the system. The new system of rerouting ILL requests was very inefficient. The most glaring inefficiency is the need for a third party. Carney would locate the material, but instead of querying the institution that actually had the material, we would hand our request to a third party. The material would then be sent to the BPL, who would then send it back to us. In the past we dealt directly with the library that had the items that we needed. Any problems with routing, content, or verification could be handled quickly and efficiently. This brings us to the fourth problem with our new policy of re-routing requests to BPL.
4. Loss of control during the tracking phase of outstanding ILLs. In the past if ILLs were taking an extended amount of time in reaching the Carney, we had a method of tracking requests through DOCLINE. DOCLINE provided an excellent opportunity to keep track of our wayward ILLs, through its status function. With a status report we could tell if an ILL was received by an institution, rerouted, filled, or rejected. If it was reported filled by a library, and sufficient time had elapsed, we could always contact the library and asked for it to be resent. If it had been rerouted we could account for the delay, and if it had been rejected unbeknownst to us, we could resend or cancel. This control was taken away with the new system. Days and weeks would pass and we could not tell the status of our ILL requests. Phone calls to BPL were always cheerful accepted, but the process of personally checking up on every overdue ILL became overwhelming. Also, BPL does not send a confirmation message after you have sent an e-mail ILL request, so it was impossible to determine if they had ever even received your e-mail request in the first place.
Conclusion
We have decided to abandon our plan to use BPL as a method of obtaining free ILLs for materials we would normally have had to pay for. The time factor was one consideration in our decision, but many other issues such as efficient use of ILL staff time and the ability to track ILLs contributed to our decision. We still plan to use BPL to fill ILL requests that are not obtainable through normal channels.
Notes
1. The reduced turn-around time for some of these non-medical titles is partially due to the availability of some of these journals at BPL. The journals that were part of BPL journal holdings had an average turn-around time of 2 days. Those non-medical journals that had to be obtained from outside sources took an average of 8.5 days to fulfill.
2. To fax, you must submit all the same information, but determine which fax number to send it to, ILL or Fax department. At the time, Carney did not have a fax in the library, so this did not seem a viable option. The mail seemed to slow, for an already slow process.
-- Kim Portonova, Library Assistant, Colpoys Library, Carney Hospital, Boston
The new Brandon-Hill List will be available at the MLA Annual Meeting. Dorothy Hill will continue to produce the list, retaining Alfred Brandon's name in the title .
According to Vijay J. Roach, 57.8% of the citations in obstetrics and gynecology journals sampled had at least one error ["The quality of citations in major international obstetrics and gynecology journals" Am J Obstet Gynecol 1997;177:973-5].
Two new consumer health services [http://www.medixpert.com and http://www.Mediconsult.com ] are described in "Doctors on e-mail" Internet World 1998;9(2):48-9.
The U.S. Copyright Office has created a listserv; information on subscribing to it may be found at http://www.loc.gov/copyright .
An updated DOCLINE manual is available on the Web at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/psd/cas/docline/contents.html .
The editors of The Economist, in "Publishing, perishing, and peer review" [Jan.24, 1998, pp.77-8] believe that new kinds of electronic publishing could rescue academia from its "journals crisis."
Almanacs, an encyclopedia & dictionary are offered at the Information Please web site at http://www.infoplease.com .
If you are curious about what it is like to administer an Internet-based reference service, read the article by the developers of the Internet Public Library ["Questions and quirks" Computers in Libraries 1998;18(2):24-7].
"Negotiating the deal and price from an end-user point of view" appears in Information Outlook 1998;2(3):25-8.
My personal favorite editorial headline is "You're a nerd? Hey, cool!" [refers to computer experts].
NIH Consensus Statements are routinely published on the day of their public release at http://consensus.nih.gov .
The NLM Technical Bulletin moved to NLM's web site [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/tb.html ] on January 5, 1998.
Walt Crawford presents a convincing case for why we will be shuffling paper and shelving books for some time in "Paper persists: why physical library collections still matter" Online Jan.1998 (my copy came off the web at http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/JanOL98/crawford.html , hence no complete citation).
"Rating Health Information on the Internet" is extremely difficult, with the only available evaluation instruments being very poor, according to AR Jadad and A Gagliardi in JAMA 1998;279(8):611-4.
Topics ranging from determining risks to developing and implementing security policies for your computers are covered in "Building a secure library system" by AC Benson, Computers in Libraries 1998;18(3):24-9.
One of the links mentioned in the January News has changed drastically. To reach the "Internet Tutorials" page at the University of Albany, go to http://www.albany.edu/tree-tops/docs.library/index.html and click on "Internet Tutorials" under the heading "Internet Resources." The new direct address has been changed to something a mile long! A thank you to Donna Kurkul for pointing out the dead-end.
Regional ILL/Document Delivery Meeting
Sponsored by NN/LM NER & NAHSL
Publick House, Sturbridge, MA
April 16, 1998
Contact: Cheryl Sinkler [tel: 1-800-338-7657; email: sinkler@nso.uchc.edu ]
National Library Week
April 19-25, 1998
International Special Librarians Day
April 23, 1998
"The Human Genome Project: Science, Law and Social Change in the
21st Century"
Kresge Auditorium, MIT
Cambridge, MA
April 23-24, 1998
Contact: Katie Ansbro [tel: 617-262-4990; fax: 617-437-7596; email conaslme@bu.edu ]
"The Emerging Health Information Infrastructure: Managing Change
through Information"
Sponsored by the Friend of the National Library of Medicine
Georgetown University Conference Center, Washington, DC
April 27-29, 1998
tel: 202-462-0992 x56; fax: 202-462-9043
MAHSLIN Annual Meeting
Lexington Sheraton Tara, Lexington, MA
April 29, 1998
Contact: Florence Mercer [tel: 978-463-1000 x2480; email: fmercer@ajh.org ]
National Library Legislative Day
May 4-5, 1998
Medical Library Association
Annual Conference [Centennial]
Philadelphia, PA
May 23-27, 1998
Special Library Association
Annual Conference
Indianapolis, IN
June 6-11, 1998
American Library Association
Annual Conference
Washington, DC
June 25-July 2, 1998
"Introduction to Web-based Searching for the Librarian and Information
Specialist: Using PubMed and Internet Grateful Med"
Farmington, CT
August 18-19, 1998
"Making the Transition: Converting to PubMed and Internet Grateful Med
to Search NLM's Databases"
Farmington, CT
August 20, 1998
NAHSL [North Atlantic Health Science Libraries]
Annual Conference
Boston Park Plaza, Boston, MA
September 27-29, 1998
Medical Library Association
Chicago, IL
May 14-20, 1999
IFLA [International Federation of Library Associations]
Boston, MA
Summer, 2001
Beginning with the July 1998 issue, Terri Niland will assume the editorship of the MAHSLIN Network News. Any omissions or errors in this issue are still my responsibility. I wish to thank all of the contributors to the News over the past two years, Joe Harzbecker for figuring out how to launch our web edition, and Cathy Guarcello and Marybeth Edwards for their patience with my frantic requests for mailing labels.
-- Anita B. Loscalzo Tel: (508) 785-1407, fax: (508) 785-1429, email: aloscalz@bu.edu
The editor encourages your input of news and comment to future issues of MAHSLIN Network News. If you would like these considered for publication, please contact:
Deadline for submissions is June 20 for the July 1998 issue.
MAHSLIN Network News Address: http://nnlmner.uchc.edu/mahslin/news.html
MAHSLIN-L is the mailing list of the Massachusetts Health Sciences Library Network. Notices of publication of the MAHSLIN Network News are posted to this list.
To subscribe, send a message to: LISTSERV@LIBRARY.UMMED.EDU
with one line (only) in the message: JOIN MAHSLIN-L Your name (i.e., Jane Doe)
It is not necessary to put anything on the message line. You will receive a confirmation message that you are signed onto the list by return e-mail. You will receive information back about how to use the list and confirmation that you are on.
If you have any questions or problems contact Debbie Sibley or call 508-856-2435.