Throw out those notecards and scraps of paper with your citations on them! Stop struggling with APA format and hanging indentations! Use RefWorks – it’s FREE!

Thanks to support from the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work, the Graduate School, the Thurgood Marshall Law Library and the HS/HSL, RefWorks is now available to UMB students, faculty and staff. RefWorks is a web-based personal citation manager that allows users to create, manage and organize a personal database of citations and easily generate reference lists in your chosen citation style.

If you need help using RefWorks, HS/HSL is offering multiple instruction sessions in the coming months:

• February 19th, 11:00 am to 12:30 pm
• March 8th, 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm

To arrange for a customized class to meet your school’s needs, contact the library liaison to your school.

Throughout my life I have been blessed and cursed by my ability to see both sides of an issue. In the past, compared to many of my respected academic library colleagues, I have taken a moderate approach to the subject of open access. I believe that open access is the right way to go, but also understand that publishing is a business. Society publishers use revenues to support their activities and services to members and commercial publishers need profits to return money to investors and shareholders.

The recent revelation in the January 25 issue of Nature that the Association of American Publishers, on behalf of its Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire Eric Dezenhall, "the pit bull of PR," to fight the growing support for public and open access, appalls but does not surprise me. Desperate people do desperate things.

Through my service in the Medical Library Association and on library advisory boards for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and the New England Journal of Medicine, I have participated in and facilitated countless panels where reasonable people from both sides of the table have had civil discourse on how the scholarly publishing model needs to change. This latest revelation has engendered more discussion and disgust than I have seen in the almost five years of debate.

With this recent turn of events, it’s time to take a firm stand and set the record straight on open access!

Some open access facts:

• Open access journals are peer-reviewed.
• Peer review is not an expense for the publisher. It is based almost completely on free labor from the research community.
• Publishers typically do not pay authors for their articles and authors frequently have to pay additional publication charges.
• The Cornyn-Lieberman Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) only affects federally funded research. The current NIH policy "Enhanced Access to NIH Research Information" only affects NIH grant recipients, and is voluntary.
• The world has changed. If the noble goal of scholarly communication is the dissemination of research and important discoveries, isn’t it imperative and morally right that this information be disseminated as widely as possible and shared for the greater good?

The Association of Research Libraries has prepared a response to this issue.

Here’s how you can get involved in this discussion:

• Today, February 15, students across the country will be rallying for a "National Day of Action" for access to publicly funded research. Freeculture.org, the international student movement for free culture, in collaboration with the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA), have organized the event. Learn more and attend the event at the HS/HSL.
• Make a commitment to educate yourself and others about this debate. The HS/HSL scholarly communication web page is an excellent way to start.
• Additionally, on February 20 from 9-10, staff from the library will offer a class on Open Access Publishing. Registration for this session is free to UMB.

As always I welcome your thoughts and comments on this important issue.

Contact us through your school’s liaison or Ask Us!

Students, take a break from your work and join us as we raise awareness of the importance of public access to taxpayer funded research.

From 2:00-3:00 p.m. today in the lobby of the Library we will be serving hot chocolate and cookies and sharing important information as we join campuses nationwide in recognizing a "National Day of Action," to support the open sharing of scientific and scholarly research and the passage of the Federal Research Public Access Act.

We hope to see you there!

The HS/HSL has joined a group of Maryland libraries sharing a pooled list of Elsevier journals through ScienceDirect. We’ve added 589 shared titles in addition to 258 Elsevier titles that the HS/HSL subscribes to independently. Accessible content begins with 1995, if available.

This Elsevier "Unique Title List" (UTL) contains many chemistry, biology and basic science journals to which the HS/HSL does not maintain its own institutional subscriptions. The library was able to acquire access through the shared support of University System of Maryland and other academic libraries collectively known as the Maryland Digital Library consortium.

The license is set to run through 2011.

The HS/HSL is working with Primal Pictures, a UK based software company, to introduce UMB faculty to the Primal Pictures interactive, 3D human anatomy resource.

Primal Pictures was established in 1991 with the goal of creating the only complete and medically accurate 3D model of the human anatomy.

The Primal Pictures representation of the body is unique because of its accuracy and detail. The anatomy is accompanied by 3D animations showing function, biomechanics, and surgical procedures.

The HS/HSL will be hosting a demo on March 14th, 12-2pm. This is an invitation only event. If you or someone you know would like to attend, please contact Stefanie Warlick at swarlick@hshsl.umaryland.edu OR 410.706.8865

February is American Heart Month. To find out what events will be taking place in the Baltimore area visit the American Heart Association – Maryland web site.

Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week™ was February 7-14, 2007. The HS/HSL provides a view of congenital heart disease from a public health perspective. In collaboration with Dr. Charlotte Ferencz, staff at the HS/HSL developed a web site about congenital heart disease. Dr. Ferencz, a world-renowned expert on the subject, lent her expertise to create the site. Her longitudinal viewpoint and lifelong devotion to this topic have provided the HS/HSL an opportunity to present a valuable and, in Dr. Ferencz’ words, "timely" resource. Visit the site, Congenital Heart Disease: A Public Health Perspective.

The library administration is pleased to welcome the following new members to the Library Advisory Committee (LAC):

• Gary Schwartzbauer, PhD, MS IV, School of Medicine (Student Representative)
• Stephen W. Hoag, PhD, School of Pharmacy (Faculty Representative)
• Howard A. Palley, PhD, School of Social Work (Faculty Representative)
• Rosalie Scalia, Office of External Affairs (Ex Officio)

In January 2007, the HS/HSL held our first orientation for LAC members. Learn more about the Committee and who serves on it.

In order to accommodate renovations on the 1st through 5th floors every book and journal will be moved (some slightly, others to different floors). Theses and dissertations have already been moved from their former home on the 5th floor to our compact shelving closed stacks. Reference indexes are being consolidated and some withdrawn when reliable online access is available. Selected pre-1982 books from the circulating collection will be moved to closed stacks. Circulation staff are available for pulling these items. We will also assist in searching for items that may be in transition.

Please bear with us while we complete this shift!

Each semester the Library offers instructional sessions to help UMB faculty, staff, and students improve their searching skills and better manage information. For complete information about the classes, visit the Spring 2007 Class Schedule. Classes are free and there is an easy online registration process. For more information, call 410.706.7996 or email hshsl@umaryland.edu

Upcoming sessions included:

• Google: Finding Scholarly Information on the Web
• Ovid Medline: the Basics
• PubMed Basics and Advanced
• Locating the Evidence
• Test & Measurements
• SciFinder Scholar

In late February 2007, look for new computers to replace the existing Library Commons computers. The new computers feature 17" flat panel monitors, a DVD read/write drive and 1.0 gigabytes of memory. Join the library in saying goodbye to floppy disk use in the Commons computers. Floppy drives are out, but users will be able to save files to USB drives or to CD. Both types of media are available for sale at the Circulation Desk.

The new computers will appear in groups of twenty until all Commons computers are replaced. The new computers will feature an interface that gives users direct access to the desktop after entering their library barcode and acknowledging the University of Maryland Baltimore’s Information Technology Acceptable Use policy. You can find your barcode on the back of your UMB1One Card or by asking at the Circulation Desk. Eight computers will be available on the first floor for use by non-University System of Maryland visitors.

Debra R. Berlanstein received her Master’s of Library Science from Long Island University in New York. Before joining the staff at the Health Sciences and Human Services Library in October 2006, she was the Head of Information Services at the Hirsh Health Sciences Library, Tufts University in Boston.

As HS/HSL’s Liaison to the School of Public Health, Debra supports the school by teaching classes on research skills, providing consultations, and purchasing materials for the Library’s collections. She can help students become more efficient in navigating the wealth of research data to identify answers to their specific research needs and locate evidence-based information. She offers consultations by appointment, where students, staff or faculty can get more in-depth instruction and help with specific research.

Debra is enthusiastic about being involved with the new School of Public Health and would like to meet as many faculty, staff and students as possible. Please email her at dberlans@hshsl.umaryland.edu, or call 410.706.8862 if you would like to discuss how she can help support your information and instructional needs or outreach projects.