UMN: Bio-Med Library - Public Health

IBM is sponsoring two initiatives intended to bolster global public health efforts to avoid pandemics. In fall 2005, IBM hosted an event for leadersof the health community to share ideas about what contribution a technology company could make to support their efforts. The results are the Interoperable Health Care Information Infrastructure (IHII) and the Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeller (STEM).

IHII mines health data and looks for patterns in symptoms, forexample, that might anticipate the spread of a particular illness. Then the STEM applies that information to data about such topics as human travel patterns to help formulate efficient plans to limit the spread of the illness. A committee representing the World Health Organization, the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Scripps Research Institute, and the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biodiversity oversees these programs. Scripps and IBM will construct a facility in Florida to support the initiatives.

CNET, 14 May 2006

Posted by Lisa McGuire at 04:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Libraries are currently conducting a trial of BioMedCentral’s "Faculty of 1000 Biology" and "Faculty of 1000 Medicine" products. These literature tools "highlight and review the most interesting papers published in the biological sciences and medicine, based on the recommendations of a faculty of well over 1000 selected leading researchers in each field." Currently 24 U of M faculty are F1000 reviewers.

The trials are available at www.f1000biology.com and www.f1000medicine.com through June 8.

Current users have found the Faculty of 1000 products useful in prioritizing their reading of the literature, particularly researchers entering interdisciplinary areas where they may be less familiar with "what’s important" in the crossover field. The products can also be a valuable tool in graduate and undergraduate education, helping to steer students towards high quality and/or novel articles for journal club presentations, class research papers, and other needs. The reviewer comments can also be helpful in demonstrating the peer review process, traditionally out of view of students and trainee scientists until they author papers.

In addition to searching for articles on the F1000 web sites, PubMed can now be set up to activate F1000 linkouts for articles which have been reviewed by F1000.

For example, see this sample record. Use this link to PubMed to activate the F1000 links during your search session: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?otool=umnbmlib&holding=f1000

Please take a look at www.f1000biology.com and www.f1000medicine.com from on campus, and let us know what you think. Comments can be submitted to Kevin Messner at messn006@umn.edu.

(One access caveat ­ there have been some troubles accessing our trial of F1000 through a VPN over U of M wireless. Certainly this is something that would be hammered out if we purchase the product; for now, though, you may save yourself some trouble by accessing the trial site over a hard line on campus.)

Posted by Lisa McGuire at 10:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lectureship

The Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lectureship was established in 1983 to stimulate intellectual liaison between Medical Library Association (MLA) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

This year’s lecture is particularly poignant due to the death of Joseph Leiter on May 27, 2005. He was a major contributor in cancer research at the National Cancer Institute and then a leader at NLM as a champion of medical librarians and an informatics pioneer. Through this annual lecturership named in recognition of his excellence, his memory and spirit will remain alive.

2006 Joseph Leiter Lecture - May 10, 2006 - 1:30 ­ 3:00 pm
Lister Hill Auditorium/ Building 38A - National Library of Medicine/NIH - Bethesda, MD

Webcast available on day of lecture at http://videocast.nih.gov

Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Pandemic Influenza and Other

Emerging Infectious Diseases: Public Health Threat and the Research Agenda

Since 1984, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the Director of NIAID, where he oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.

Dr. Fauci’s lecture will provide an overview and status of the pandemic influenza and our nation’s ability to detect and counter bioterrorism based on information generated by biomedical research on disease-causing microorganisms and the immune system’s response to them.

Posted by Lisa McGuire at 03:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hello SPH!

My name is Lisa McGuire and I am the (somewhat new) library liaison to SPH having taken over this fine duty from Chad Fennell. You may be asking yourself - what is a library liaison? Well, in effect I work as SPH's "personal librarian" which means I am more than happy to help you with any of these tasks:

*literature searching/lit reviews
*instruction sessions on how to use information resources such as Medline searching, using RefWorks to create bibliograhies, or how to search for the best-evidence on a topic
*creating CourseLib pages that link students to relevant information resources (see this example
*one-on-one consultations either at your office, in the library, via phone/email on any information problem you may have
*purchase suggestions for the library's collection

You can contact me via this web page or directly at:

email
phone: 612-626-3643
fax:612-626-2454

Lisa McGuire

Posted by Lisa McGuire at 02:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)