Inside this issue of SEA Currents   SEA Currents to be Blogged in 2006 When It's All Too Much Pubzilla, A Hurricane Disaster Relief Call for Medical Journals Where a Friend Is a Friend The DOCLINE Team Hears You Participants in Leadership Follow Program Announced Su vocabulario para noviembre NN/LM SE/A Professional Development Award: Workshops on Open URL and Metasearching FY 2005 AIDS Community Information Outreach Projects ACP Offers Easy-to-Read Shelter Tips Documents What's New at NLM, NN/LM and Their Partners? In every issue: Table of Contents for the NLM Technical Bulletin Upcoming Events November 2005 - May 2006 Publication Information

This is an archived copy of the November-December 2005 issue of SEA Currents. Document content is not current. Links may be broken. SEA Currents Volume 23, Number 6 -- November/December 2005 SEA Currents is a bimonthly publication of the Southeastern/Atlantic Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. SEA Currents to be Blogged in 2006 by Dale Prince, technology coordinator We are pleased to announce that, with the new year, SEA Currents will be blogged. This change will make the experience of reading more convenient and more immediate. Following the model of several other Regional Medical Libraries offices, we will be migrating SEA Currents to blog format to allow us to publish material as it becomes available and allow readers to subscribe to content that can be delivered to the reader rather than forcing the reader to come to the SEA Currents website. Blogs, a shortening of the term "weblog", are one of the fastest growing publication methods on the Internet, in part because anyone can establish a blog. The organizing principle behind a blog: a dated entry arranged with the latest entry or "post" on top, with links to archived entries, is an extremely efficient and timely way of delivering information to many people at once. Additionally, paired with RSS or Really Simple Syndication, blogs easily deliver this dated material to the reader rather than pushing or pulling the reader to come to the blog itself. The ease of creating blogs has generated some negative buzz about the value of the format. However, while there are thousands of blogs out there that are of little value to most readers, this is true of web pages in general. Though the latest Backstreet Boys homage is of limited use to most medical librarians, it's hard to deny that PubMed ® is of the utmost utility. The most serious-minded of SEA Currents readers will find much of interest in Siobhan Champ-Blackwell's blog, Bringing Health Information to the Community. There are dozens of blogs of interest to medical librarians and librarians in general, particularly in regard to keeping up with technological advances. To see some blogs of interest to medical librarians, read Terri Ottosen's article "When It's All Too Much " in this issue of SEA Currents. There are two main strengths in the blog format that newletters like SEA Currents can use to good advantage. One, as material comes in, it may be posted immediately. Our current bi-monthly model allows some information to languish for two months before our readers actually see it. The blog method permits us to get articles out to readers in a timelier manner: it arrives fresh and crisp. The second strong point is the inclusion of RSS, as noted above. RSS is an XML-based description of information that makes having the contents of multiple websites with XML feeds delivered to one place. This one place is known variously as a "feed reader" or as an "aggregator." For the general public, "feed reader" makes most sense, but for librarians familiar with the term, "aggregator" may have more meaning. Aggregators may be software applications that run on the desktop or PDA, or they may be web-based interfaces. The web-based aggregator is most useful, since it requires no wrangling with IT departments to have software installed and because it is "portable," able to be read wherever one is able to get an internet connection and a browser. A favorite web-based aggregator is Bloglines available at http://www.bloglines.com For more information on blogs, see the Wikipedia article on blogs, an excellent source, even if it does follow some demented form of organization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs Wikipedia is also a good source of information on RSS and its history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_%28file_format%29 The blog Better Days has a great illustrated tutorial on how to use Bloglines: http://tinyurl.com/ap42n For blogged newsletters see theses two NN/LM sites: The NN/LM Pacific Southwest Region has already implemented blogging for their newsletter; see Latitudes: http://nnlm.gov/psr/newsletter/ The NN/LM Pacific Northwest Region has converted their newsletter, Dragonfly: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/dragonfly/

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When It’s All Too Much: Keeping Current in Consumer Health with Blogs

by Terri Ottosen, consumer health outreach coordinator

In the world of librarianship, there is very little time to keep up with the many developments and news regarding consumer health. The decision to stay well-informed is a time commitment with valuable professional benefits. An easy way to manage the onslaught of information is to make use of web logs or blogs. Using an RSS feed reader or aggregator, such as Bloglines or Feedster, to manage and view blog posts, makes it even easier.  The key is to find what interests you and customize your selections of what to read according to your needs and wants. Below I have listed some likely Blogs for you to peruse. For more information about blogs and RSS feeds, please see Dale Prince’s article "SEA Currents to Be Blogged in 2006" in this issue.

Consumer Health Blogs:

Consumer Health Informatics News - Produced by a physician and Health Informatics PhD candidate, this blog is updated weekly and is dedicated to those working to improve consumer health. http://phrnews.blogspot.com/

Krafty Librarian - A medical librarian from Ohio posts technology items and other library and health-related topics. http://kraftylibrarian.blogspot.com/

NN/LM® SCR - From the South Central Region, items are posted by NN/LM staff.
http://nnlm.gov/scr/blog/

Consumer Natural Health News - An advocate for health, healing and natural medicine posts about empowering the consumer. http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Reuters: Health - One of the most popular blogs. A wide variety of health news is posted.  http://today.reuters.com/news/newsChannel.aspx?type=healthNews

Confessions of a Quackbuster - This self-confessed quackbuster is concerned with healthcare consumer protection and regularly posts items about health care fraud and other items of interest.  http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/

Technology and Consumer Health Blogs:

Max Power Blogs - Tales from an oft-traveling Librarian/Trainer is one that caught my attention because he talks about technology, training and the traveling aspect of his job in an interesting way. http://www.sigurdis.com/

Stephen’s Lighthouse - Stephen Abram's presentations are some of the most interesting and thought-provoking I’ve had the pleasure of attending. He writes about trends in technology and other items that he talks about during his presentations all over the world. Especially informative are his observations about the millennials and their behaviors, the generation who are or will be visiting our libraries. As Vice-President of Innovation at SirsiDynix, he knows his subject and does a great job of explaining it to the rest of us. http://stephenslighthouse.sirsi.com/

Walking paper - Aaron Schmidt provides updates on libraries and technology.
http://walkingpaper.org/

Google Blog Search - In beta, this search engine will comb the blog world for any topic of interest.  
http://blogsearch.google.com

PubZilla, A Hurricane Disaster Relief Call for Medical Journals

by Merle Colglaizer, President IKNOSYS, info@iknosys.com

In consultation with NN/LM SE/A, PubZilla is pleased to offer free use of its online auction site for donating medical journals to help restore the libraries affected by the 2005 hurricane season.  Libraries or anyone with excess, useful medical journals may list them as "charity" items at the auction site and designate them for donation to the Gulf-states library relief project. 

Formerly called IKNOSYS Medical Journals Auction, I developed PubZilla to help libraries more effectively trade back volumes and issues of printed serials in biomedicine and the related sciences.  PubZilla offers several advantages for trading medical journals: an online interactive database, controlled bibliographic information, sophisticated transaction communications, dynamic and static pricing, and transaction accounting. 

Here is a web page for the hurricane relief project at the IKNOSYS domain: http://www.iknosys.com/html/charity.html. The page will transfer with everything else to the new domain for PubZilla in early December, 2005. At that time, please see http://www.pubzilla.com for more information on how to help library recovery efforts through donation and listing of your free back issues.

Where a Friend is a Friend

by Toni Yancey, outreach coordinator

This has been an extraordinary year for the Regional Medical Library - we’re fully staffed! So, we did not call for volunteers as often as we have in the past.  We would still like to take this opportunity to thank all the network members who through training, exhibiting, hosting open houses and technology fairs, and speaking at churches, schools and professional meetings have spread the word about NLM products and services. NN/LM SE/A reaches many health care professionals and consumers through your tireless efforts.

The DOCLINE Team Hears You

assembled by Beth M. Wescott, network access coordinator

Cost and Billing:

The strength of DOCLINE ® is in its routing of requests.  To date, billing has been handled at the local level by a library's ILL management system.  This has allowed NLM® to keep its focus on the primary functions of the system: institution database, serial holdings, and requesting. Billing has highly localized needs which DOCLINE was never intended to provide. 

However, DOCLINE understands the members’ desire for capturing cost information at the time of indicating a request is filled.  During the redesign of the Requests module which will begin next year, 2006, DOCLINE will be re-evaluating all of the current functions in "Requests", reviewing enhancement suggestions, and devising new ways to improve DOCLINE.  NLM will also be re-evaluating "Serial Holdings" functionality. 

In the meantime, the DOCLINE team is working on routing by library group and the ability to indicate more than one delivery method during "Borrow".  These features and more will be available in spring, 2006.

Routing Instructions, Tables and Imminent Enhancements:

Remember, a borrower's routing instructions and choice of delivery method are matched to a lender's holdings and supported delivery methods.  The request will only route to a library that reports owning the title and volume or year and delivers via the requested delivery method.  As a result, DOCLINE's overall fill rate averages 91.5% with a request routing to an average of 1.2 libraries before completion.  

Realistically, NLM knows that libraries are searching Serial Holdings for titles not owned by libraries in their Routing Table.  The addition of the enhancement of routing by library group next spring should reduce the need for libraries to make this manual effort by widening the pool of potential lenders in your Routing Table.  Routing by Library Group will allow libraries to add their library group(s) to a Routing Table cell.  This should also reduce or eliminate the need for frequent updating of Routing Tables to balance the impact on lenders by rotating their position in Routing Table cells. 

Additionally, in the spring release DOCLINE will be adding libraries categorized as "Other" to the Refer On After NLM algorithm.  The logic will still randomly select 20 libraries - first from Resource Libraries, then Primary Access Libraries, then Other libraries (primarily Canadian libraries and some special collections libraries).  If a library chooses Refer On After NLM, then *every* active DOCLINE library would be in the pool of potential lenders.  For more information on the current functionality of Refer On, see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/doc_refer_after_nlm.html

DOCLINE’s design philosophy continues to be automated routing of requests to reduce staff time and labor with the goal of helping libraries provide more efficient and cost-effective interlibrary loan service among DOCLINE libraries and all users. 

Searching Serials Holdings in DOCLINE:

The DOCLINE Team has received, reviewed and planned implementations for your suggestions and comments on how and when you search Serial Holdings in DOCLINE.  The Team is working on changes to the search screen to add the ability to limit searches by: delivery method, rush service providers, and format.  These changes are scheduled for release in spring 2006.

Also scheduled for spring 2006 is just one Serial Holdings search page - there will no longer be a View tab and Add/Update tab.  The "My Library" checkbox will continue to be checked by default.  Current search logs show that searches are more often performed in Add/Update mode.  NLM expects the ability to route by library group will significantly reduce the need for libraries to search holdings before placing a request that their Routing Table partners could not supply.  DOCLINE coordinators and the Team will be monitoring the Serial Holdings search logs after the spring release and listening to your feedback to determine what further changes are desired.

The ability for libraries to individually define search preferences is out of scope for the spring 2006 release, however it is in the long-term plan. 

The change to the serial holdings search screen is a preliminary step in a major redesign to the Serial Holdings and Requests modules scheduled for late 2007 to make them more efficient and to increase functionality.  The design phase will begin  summer 2006. 

Adobe Prompts:

As for those Adobe prompts you’ve been getting, please know that DOCLINE does not currently use Adobe Acrobat Reader for any of its functionality, including documentation.  Prompts to install the latest version of Acrobat products are generated from Adobe.

Participants in Leadership Fellows Program Announced, Three Are from the SE/A Region

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/lfpannouncement06.html

The fellows and mentors selected for the fourth class of the leadership program jointly sponsored by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) have been announced.

The NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program, offered in cooperation with the Association of Research Libraries Office of Leadership and Management Services, is focused on preparing emerging leaders for director positions in academic health center libraries. The program provides a combination of in-person and virtual learning opportunities for fellows and offers the opportunity to work collaboratively with the class of participants. Fellows are paired with mentors who are academic health center library directors and will visit the libraries of their mentors. Information about the program is available at http://www.arl.org/olms/fellows/

Congratulations to the Leadership Fellows from the SE/A Region:

Jane Bridges
Clinical Campus Librarian
Memorial Health University Medical Center, Savannah, GA
Mercer University School of Medicine

Teresa L. Knott
Deputy Director
Health Sciences and Human Services Library
University of Maryland, Baltimore

Francesca (Fran) Allegri
Head of User Services
Health Sciences Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Recognition for a Program Mentor from the SE/A Region:

Jane L. Blumenthal
Assistant Dean for Knowledge Management
Director, Dahlgren Memorial Library
Georgetown University Medical Center

Your vocabulary for November - Su vocabulario para noviembre

by Becky Hebert, community outreach coordinator

If you liked learning these words, you can find more on the Flashcard Exchange site under the vocabulary lists that I have setup on medical and library vocabulary. http://www.flashcardexchange.com/tag/nnlm

¡Buena suerte!

NN/LM  SE/A Professional Development Award: Workshops on OpenURL and Metasearching

by Alvin Hutchinson, Smithsonian Institution National Zoological Park Library

The National Information Standards Organization September workshops on OpenURL and Metasearch featured speakers from libraries where innovative uses have been implemented. Over 200 attendees listened to presentations from, among others, the California Digital Library’s Roy Tennant and North Carolina State University libraries’ Andrew Pace. Vendors that have developed products for these applications also made presentations; including Serials Solutions, Ex-Libris, and EBSCO.

OpenURL is designed to facilitate linking from one bibliographic source to another, most commonly from a bibliographic database to the full text of an article. While searching an abstract/index database, users frequently want to click on a link and bring up the full text of the cited paper. OpenURL intends to ease that by transmitting, within the web link (URL) the bibliographic information necessary to identify the item. OpenURL is nothing more than a web address which begins as normal (http://www . . . etc) but toward the end contains seemingly cryptic information such as: &issn-0031-5439&issue=5&vol=21&page=139. This information contains parts of the bibliographic description of the citation and it links to the correct article. Because it is still relatively early in its use for bibliographic information, OpenURL link resolvers seem to be most economical for large libraries such as universities which subscribe to a variety of abstracting and indexing databases and a correspondingly large body of full text e-journals.

At the workshop, most OpenURL presentations and ensuing discussions revolved around university libraries and what might be called the “undergraduate experience” of subject searches with large result sets and subsequent retrieval of the text of the articles.

Both the OpenURL and metasearch workshops included speakers who addressed Google Scholar and ways to link from its search results. While Google Scholar will link to an article (or several versions of it) a link resolver using OpenURL will find the version that the user’s institution has subscribed to. This is frequently called the “appropriate copy” since some links may lead the user to a dead end or to restricted content. With aggregators and other vendors re-packaging publications from often overlapping sources, users cannot always be sure they are directed to the version of an article provided by the vendor from whom their organization has licensed content. An interesting aside: one presenter predicted with some certainty that Google Scholar will soon begin selling advertisements on its results screens.

The second day dealt with metasearch for which a standard was recently approved by NISO, promising to ensure a more rapid development in this equally immature library application. Searching more than one database at one time requires a good deal more behind-the-scenes coordination than is obvious to the end-user. Search results, for example, should have duplicates eliminated and where the same citation is presented from different databases, one must determine the best citation format to present to the user. Sorting results from disparate sources presents another series of issues for librarians to resolve and, of course, controlled vocabularies and thesauri that are specific to certain databases can be rendered almost useless in implementing a metasearch tool.

Several presenters covered not only recent initiatives and innovative applications but planning and testing that must take place in any implementation. Although there are commercial services available, it appears that most require at least some tailoring to each specific library needs. For example, many metasearch products will include notes on each resulting citation as to whether the item is available online or in the library itself (by including the catalog in the search results). Others go further and include a link to automatically generate an interlibrary loan request of the item, where there is no immediately available copy online or in the library stacks.

The good news is that the establishment of NISO standards for these two library applications means that in the future, the evolution of services such as link resolvers and multiple-database searches should move more quickly and uniformly. However, at this time it appears that only the largest (read: well-funded) libraries can afford link resolver and metasearch capabilities although it is apparent that several organizations have developed their own solutions in-house. Up until now, the success of many projects has depended largely on finding a staff member with the technical aptitude to develop and implement an in-house service.

With only a small number of bibliographic databases and more frequent known-item searches encountered in many health science libraries, metasearch and Open URL may need further refinement before they are cost-effective projects to pursue.

Note: the author is grateful to the National Network of Libraries of Medicine®, Southeastern Atlantic Region’s Professional Development Award for making attendance at the workshop possible.

FY 2005 AIDS Community Information Outreach Projects

NLM Funds 5 AIDS Community Information Outreach Projects in the Southeastern/Atlantic Region, September 2005

NLM has continued its HIV/AIDS-related outreach efforts to community-based organizations, patient advocacy groups, faith-based organizations, departments of health, and libraries. For 12 years this program has provided support to design local programs for improving information access for AIDS patients and the affected community as well as their caregivers. Emphasis is on providing information or access in a way meaningful to the target community. Projects must involve one or more of the following information access categories: information retrieval, skills development, Internet access, resource development, and document access.

Awards were made for the following SE/A Region projects:

Standard Award Projects in the SE/A Region:

• Partners for Health Information – “Partners for Health Information” (Washington, DC), http://www.gwumc.edu/partners/

• River Region Human Services, Inc. – “HIV And AIDS Resource Center (HARC)” (Jacksonville, FL), http://www.rrhs.org/aids.htm

Express Award Projects in the SE/A Region:

• Community Service Network, Inc. – “RURAL AIDS Resource Connection” (Dunn, North Carolina), http://www.communityservicenet.org/Home.asp

• Manna House, Inc. – “The Information for Survival Project of Manna House Inc. (INFOMANNA)” (Baltimore, MD), No URL.

• Mobile AIDS Support Services – “Knowledge eNables Our Wellness (KNOW)”(Mobile, AL), http://www.masshelps.org/

ACP Offers Easy-to-Read Shelter Tips Documents

The American College of Physicians Foundation has produced two very useful documents in English and Spanish that can assist volunteers working with displaced persons from Hurricane Katrina. These handouts, available with and without graphics are written at a third grade reading level and contain health tips for those living in shelters. Physicians volunteering at shelters after the disaster reported a general lack of information at an appropriate reading level to explain the importance of hand washing, not sharing medicine and preventing additional health problems while there. These documents were created by physicians and health literacy experts in response to this need. These documents can be downloaded from the ACP Foundation web site: http://foundation.acponline.org/sheltertips/

What's New at NLM, NN/LM and Their Partners?

National Library of Medicine

1. New NLM Fact Sheet for ChemIDplushttp://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/chemidplusfs.html

   ChemIDplus is a free, web-based search system that provides access to structure and nomenclature authority files used for the identification of chemical substances cited in National Library of Medicine (NLM) databases, including the TOXNET® system. ChemIDplus also provides structure searching and direct links to many biomedical resources at NLM and on the Internet for chemicals of interest. The database contains over 379,000 chemical records, of which over 257,000 include chemical structures, and is searchable by Name, Synonym, CAS Registry Number, Molecular Formula, Classification Code, Locator Code, and Structure.

   There are two new versions of this database. The ChemIDplus Lite version is available for simplified Name and RN searching without the need for plugins or applets. ChemIDplus Advanced allows chemical structure and biological/chemical property searching.

2. FDA, NLM cooperate on “DailyMed”
   http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov
   

   In a continuing effort to use modern information technology to help inform the public and health care providers and to further improve patient safety, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now requires drug manufacturers to submit prescription drug label information to FDA in a new electronic format. This electronic format will allow healthcare providers and the general public to more easily access the product information found in the FDA-approved package inserts ("labels") for all approved medicines in the United States.

   These new electronic product labels will be the key element and primary source of medication information for "DailyMed" -- a new interagency online health information clearinghouse. Information can be accessed through the National Library of Medicine at http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov. DailyMed provides high quality information about marketed drugs. The site provides health information providers and the public with a standard, comprehensive, up-to-date, look-up and download resource of medication content and labeling as found in FDA approved medication package inserts.

3. MedlinePlus.gov
   The site has a total of 707 health topics with over 7.6 million monthly users in September 2005 and MedlinePlus espanol follows with 659 topics.  There are 30 new English and 34 new Spanish health topics.  Other new activities include:

   • Natural Standard is an evidence-based, peer-reviewed information on herbs and supplements.  It will become available in late fall 2005 with over 100 monographs in English and Spanish.
   • MedlinePlus users have been asking for a drug interaction checker.  NLM has requested information and upon review will proceed with acquiring an appropriate checker.
   • MedlinePlus has received the World Summit Award in the e-health category.  The award is sponsored by the United Nations World Summit on Information Society.  NLM is very pleased with this recognition.

   MedlinePlus’ pre-recorded web casts of surgical procedures by OR-Live show surgeries performed at medical centers in the U.S.  Consumers can view the video or read the transcript.  At least one broadcast a month is live.

   http://www.nlm.nih.gov/psd/nihmplusadvisory/advisoryupdateoct2005.ppt#426,9,OR-Live Surgery Videos

4. MedlinePlus Go Local: Released and in progress: 22 states

   http://www.nlm.nih.gov/psd/nihmplusadvisory/advisoryupdateoct2005.ppt#414,21,Slide 21

5. The new NCBI Search Toolbar is now available for download from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/toolbar/
   The Toolbar is an optional addition to your Web browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox) that expedites searching the NCBI's resources. It also highlights search results and provides shortcuts to NCBI resources. There is no version that works with Internet Explorer on Apple Mac computers.

   The NCBI Search Toolbar has four features:

   • searching with the search box
   • searching with the right mouse button
   • highlighting search results
   • shortcuts to NCBI resources
     
     
6. Journal Search Links to be Added to PubMed® Displays the journal abbreviation displayed on PubMed's Abstract and Citation formats will soon be available as a search link. If you click on a journal abbreviation search link, a menu will display three options You can search for this journal in PubMed or in the Journals database.

NN/LM

1.  In DOCLINE, when asking to be set to ‘temporarily inactive’, please clear out your requests at the end of your last active day.  If it is a planned outage, try to fill as many requests as you can.  Minimally, you should receipt any requests and update all pending requests as ‘Not Filled’ so those can immediately route on.  There may be cases where even this is not practical or even possible, but when possible, clear out requests to help borrowers.

2. The RML is pleased to announce the availability of a new class, Geeks Bearing Gifts: unwrapping new technology trends. The 4 hour course, taught by Dale Prince, is an overview of new technologies that have a bearing on libraries and the delivery of library services. The class provides a fast-paced, informative, and fun overview of today’s hottest technology trends. Class attendees learn to identify technology trends and understand how these trends will impact or can be integrated into traditional library services. Content is presented with a “can-do” focus intended to encourage participants to investigate at least one technology for implementation in their institution. Course structure includes brief vignettes and demonstrations of a wide variety of technologies. Topics covered include instant messaging, podcasting, open source software, spyware and other malware, developments in mobile computing, blogs and wikis, radio-frequency identification, and more.

   The course was successfully presented to a packed house at the Southern Chapter Meeting in San Juan, PR. Sessions are currently scheduled for December 9 in Knoxville, TN, and the April 5 FHSLA meeting. Call or email to have one at/for your institution.

   For more information, see the course page at: http://nnlm.gov/train/geekgifts/.

   To see a list of all classes available to the region, see: http//:nnlm.gov/sea/edn/

Partners

1. What's New at AHRQ - Really Simple Syndication brings you the latest postings from three AHRQ-sponsored Web resources:
   
   
   • National Guideline Clearinghouse™: a public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines
   • National Quality Measures Clearinghouse™: a public repository for evidence-based quality measures and measure sets.
   • QualityTools™: a clearinghouse for practical, ready-to-use tools for measuring and improving health care quality.
     
     
2. Patient Safety Network Web Site
   http://psnet.ahrq.gov/about.aspx

   The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Patient Safety Network (PSNet) http://psnet.ahrq.gov is a national resource to improve patient safety and prevent medical errors. PSNet includes patient safety news, literature, tools, and resources, and is the first comprehensive effort to help healthcare providers, administrators, and consumers learn more about the many aspects of patient safety.

   The What’s New This Week section offers updates of patient safety literature, news, meetings, and Web resources. The Collection provides annotated links to patient safety research that can be browsed by resource type, or by subject area, such as error type, setting of care, or target audience. The Patient Safety Classics section contains the most influential, frequently cited articles, books, and resources in patient safety.

   Search results are ranked so that “classic” resources (the most influential), recently published resources, resources with longer annotations, and resources most relevant to the topic of interest are displayed at the top of a results list.

   AHRQ PSNet provides both a basic and advanced searching interface. In addition, users can create and customize a “My PSNet” page according to their interests, and request e-mail alerts when new content that matches their areas of interest has been added to the customized page.  For instance, if you are a pharmacist interested in bar coding to prevent medical errors, you can set up the site to collect the latest articles, news, and conferences on this topic. Anesthesiologists, surgeons, nurses, and hospital administrators can tailor the site to best meet their needs and interests.

   AHRQ PSNet is linked to its companion journal, AHRQ WebM&M: Morbidity & Mortality Rounds on the Web http://webmm.ahrq.gov/. This popular Web-based monthly journal features user-submitted cases of medical errors, expert commentaries, and perspectives on patient safety.

3. Congressional Research Service Reports Available
   http://www.opencrs.com/

   The Congressional Research Service(CRS) is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works exclusively for members of Congress to provide comprehensive analysis, research, and information services.

   The reports produced by CRS do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report. A number of libraries and non-profit organizations have sought to collect as many of the released reports as possible. Open CRS www.opencrs.com/  is a new Web site that brings together these collections to make previously restricted CRS research results more readily available to the public.

   Recently released reports of interest to the health sciences community include:

   • Veterans Health Care Issues in the 109th Congress (June 24, 2005) www.opencrs.com/rpts/RL32961_20050624.pdf
   • Federal Protection for Human Research Subjects: An Analysis of the Common Rule and Its Interactions with FDA Regulations and the HIPAA Privacy Rule (June 2, 2005) www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32909.pdf
   • Stem Cell Research (May 20, 2005) http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/47811.pdf
   
   
4. The Maternal and Child Health Library released a new knowledge path edition about racial and ethnic disparities in health. This electronic resource guide includes information on (and links to) Web sites, electronic and print publications, Webcasts, and databases. It is intended for use by health professionals, policymakers, program administrators, researchers, and families. The knowledge path is available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_race.html
   
   
5. Health Literacy Public Health Forums announces Partners for Action http://www.ncsall.net/fileadmin/resources/HL_PH_Forums.pdf

   This guide is designed to assist public health professionals and members of departments of health to conduct a forum on health literacy and raise awareness about health literacy and links to health outcomes. It includes the materials needed for planning and implementing the forum.

NLM Technical Bulletin Table of Contents

September-October 2005
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so05/so05_issue_cover.html

Technical Notes: e1

"US-Mexico Border" Neighborhood Added to NLM's Tox Town

NLM Highlights Hurricane Katrina Information

NLM Announces a New Version of the PubMed Tutorial

Papers of Nobel Laureate Salvador E. Luria Added to Profiles in Science®

Gene Symbol will be Removed from the PubMed Citation Display

New Feature for OLDMEDLINE

New Books Added to NCBI Bookshelf

New Design for ALTBIB (Bibliography on Alternatives to the Use of Live Vertebrates in Biomedical Research and Testing)

SAMHSA/CSAT Treatment Improvement Protocol Added to NCBI Bookshelf

New Version of NLM Gateway Released

Choosing a Display Name for the Filter Tab in PubMed to Represent Your Library Holdings

NLM Gateway Adds Five New Searchable Resources

Change to Health Services Research Queries Filters in PubMed

2006 MeSH® Now Available

New PubMed Filter Coming to My NCBI

AHRQ Evidence Report Added to NCBI Bookshelf

Articles:

PubMed®: New Journals Participating and New Content Added - e2
New journals participating and content from already participating journals has been added.

PubMed Subject Searching Avoids Conflicts with Journal Titles - e3
Some journal titles conflict with subject searches.

MEDLINE®/PubMed End-of-Year Activities - e4
Activities include changing MeSH headings on existing MEDLINE citations to agree with the 2006 version of MeSH, changes to Supplementary Concept Substance Names, and other global changes.

Search Links Added to PubMed Displays - e5
Some fields on PubMed's Citation format will become "search links" to other resources.

Subject Headings in NLM MARC 21 Products - e6
String construction to be simplified beginning with 2006 MeSH implementation

Issue Completed October 27, 2005

Publication Information

Please send items and contributed articles for SEA Currents to Beth M. Wescott, Editor, at: bwescott@hshsl.umaryland.edu

NN/LM SE/A Region
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Health Sciences and Human Services Library
601 W. Lombard Street
Baltimore, MD 21201-1512

Phone: 410-706-2855 or 1-800-338-7657 Choose 1 for Regional Network Office
Fax: 410-706-0099
URI: http://nnlm.gov/sea/

NN/LM SE/A Staff:

MJ Tooey, Director, mjtooey@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-7545

Janice Kelly, Executive Director, jkelly@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Becky Hebert, Specific Populations Outreach Coordinator, bhebert@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Terri Ottosen, Consumer Health Coordinator, tottosen@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

J. Dale Prince, Technology Coordinator, dprince@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Sheila Snow-Croft, Outreach Coordinator, ssnowcro@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Beth Wescott, Network Access Coordinator, bwescott@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Toni Yancey, Outreach Coordinator, tyancey@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Colette Becker, Assistant to the Executive Director/Technology Assistant, cbecker@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Ruth Collins, Secretary, rcollins@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Evelyn Peyton, Secretary, epeyton@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-2855

Network members may subscribe to the SE/A electronic mailing list by following the instructions found at: http://nnlm.gov/sea/aboutus/nnlm-sea.html

SEA Currents: Newsletter of the Southeastern Atlantic Region, National Network of Libraries of Medicine® (NN/LM) is published bi-monthly by NN/LM SE/A.