Monday 16 December 2013

Prizes!


The Thames Valley and Wessex Health Libraries Network Christmas Study day at Winchester on 12/12/2013 was the venue for the grand 19Things prizegiving.



Nottingham Trainees - Prizes
Eversheds International Creative Commons License


Congratulations to all the Completers and Explorers who either received their certificates on the day or will shortly be receiving them from their managers.

Special congratulations to:
whatsallthisaboutthen    Best blog ,  
coffetimethings               Best reflective post
Newforestgateau            Best blog name (as voted for by TV &W staff on the day.)

Many thanks to all the people who helped make the course possible by writing content and helping with the blog and especially to Caterpillarlizzie for the original idea and much of the administration.

The blog will remain live for the foreseeable future to enable people to complete all their “Things” or for anyone who would like to re-use the content.

Finally, the 19Things Team would like to wish A Happy Christmas to all our readers

By Unknown 1932 (Scan old postcard) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons


Monday 2 December 2013

Thing 19: Registering your completion

To successfully complete the 19ThingsTVW programme you must have explored all the ‘Things’ and blogged about your experiences of using them.

Once you’ve done that, please register your completion by emailing tvwlibrarians@gmail.com

Thing 18: Final blog - What was it like for YOU?



Hopefully you have finished all your “19things”, some you will have enjoyed using and some not so much, some you will continue to use at home and at work, some you hope to never see again!

 All your experiences will be different and this is what we would like you to write down.
It does not have to be long and exhaustive but should include some of the following:

• Did you enjoy it? (There is no right or wrong answer here!) 

• Look at your first blog, how has your attitude changed since starting?

• What was the best Thing and the Thing you least enjoyed?

• What Thing would you use/adapt for work? If none, why not?

• How do you feel after completing this – proud/tired/frustrated/delighted? 


• How would you improve the whole “19Things” training package? We will not be offended but would welcome any constructive criticism.

To register your completed blog, you must blog about the 19ThingsTVW Experience, even if you perhaps skipped one or two Things because you were familiar with them. If you skipped anything for this 
reason please mention it in your blog post 

Monday 25 November 2013

Can you see the finishing line?




Use this catch-up week to explore and write about any of the ”Things” you haven’t yet looked at.  In case you needed any further motivation, all those registering completion next week will automatically:
  • Be entered into our prize raffle 
  • Qualify for entry into one of our prestigious awards: best blog, best post, best blog name, 
  • Receive a chocolatey treat!
File:Todos Santos Chocolates, Santa Fe NM.jpg
Attributed to John Phelan licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Monday 18 November 2013

Thing 17 CiteULike

CiteULike is a reference manager.   

What is a reference manager and why is it useful?

Reference management softwarecitation management software or personal bibliographic management software is software for students, teachers and authors to use for recording and utilising bibliographic references. Once a citation has been recorded, it can be used time and again in generating bibliographies, such as lists of references in scholarly books, articles,essays and reading lists.
Citations can be published in a variety of formats eg Harvard, APA, Vancouver, so that you can reproduce them in the format required by a University or publisher when handing in an essay or submitting an article  for publication.

Some expensive commercial reference packages such as Endnote or RefWorks, are often available free through universities and colleges. They both offer 30-day free trials to the wider public. However if you have no connections with an academic institution or need something more permanent a free online reference manager like CiteULike can save time and stress.

Useful for non-academics too.
We don’t all intend to produce high-level research or publish an article!.

There are several ways that a reference manager can help us as information managers in our day job, help organise our own work and improve things for our users too.

Register for MyCiteULIke


To take advantage of all CiteULike’s facilities you need to sign up for MyCiteULIke to create your own library.
Click on the  Join Now button. If you already have an account, log in at the top right.


Use the drop-down menus on the grey toolbar: CiteULike and MyCiteULike to explore other options.


 There are FAQs and a help page too if you get stuck.

Search citations added by other CiteULike users by clicking on the Search button further to the right on the grey toolbar. Enter a word or phrase eg nurse-prescribing and click search.
  • Click on one of the articles you want to read or keep for later. It will display the abstract and any links to full text.
  • Click the Copy button at the top of the display to save it to your own library.
  • Click the Citation button and you can choose to see how it looks in different formats eg APA, Harvard, Vancouver etc.
  • Click the Export button and choose the format you’d like your reference to appear in: RTF, PDF or plain text. 

Search  Pubmed  or Google Scholar for articles of interest to you . Use the Posting the URL link in the MyCiteULike drop down menu to add citations of your selected articles to your Library  by posting the URL, DOI , PMID code, ISBN or adding bibliographic details manually. 
You can tick the Privacy box if you want.

Privacy:Don't let other people see that I've posted this article


Library readers may like others to see what topic they are interested in; If they  leave this box unticked and save 20 favourite articles they can receive recommendations of relevant articles from other CiteULike users 

If you are using CiteUlike at home you can choose to add the CiteULike button to your browser or Favourites toolbar to make adding citations easier
  • Go to the CiteULike dropdown menu
  • Select the Browser Button option
  • Follow the instructions.

You can now add articles and books from the wider internet as you come across them. 

Exercise:
Collect some references into your MyCiteULike Library  and export them in your selected format.

Explore some of the ways you can use it to save time and tidy up reports, search results or reading lists.

Blog your experiences and share with others.

You can do other things with CiteULike too. Try some of these:
  • search using the term CiteULike for articles on how to use it and its many features
  • create a list of items you have come across or found useful during the 19 things
  • search for articles on a different topic you are interested in
  • join a group to post one of these articles or books you have found to share with people who have similar interests
  • Link to your Facebook profile 

If you have time, try using some other free reference managers eg http://www.mendeley.com and http://www.zotero.org

I even found another one www.hubmed.org  from signing up to CiteULike!
Citation with link to full text at http://www.citeulike.org/user/A_Hoogendam/article/781097  Maybe this could provide us with better results than we get from PubMed. Any offers to convert the doctors?

Monday 4 November 2013

Thing 16-LibraryThing

After completing Thing 16 you will have explored LibraryThing and understand how it can be used by libraries.

LibraryThing is an online service which allows users (libraries and/or individuals) to  catalogue and display book collections very easily.  In addition the site offers “social” features, enabling contributors to add reviews and discuss the books.

You’ll need an account at Librarything.com…it is quick to register.   The site is free to use for up to 200 books, a small charge for >200.  It does have good Help pages with clear, detailed instructions.

To add books to your account click the Add books tab. By default, the books will be added to the main collection (folder) called Your Library, but it is easier to define a new collection first.  Click Edit collections, then Add new collection.  The quickest way to select books is to swipe the ISBN with a barcode reader, or you can type in the title/author.  The identified book will appear on the right side of the screen. Click the book and it will appear in your collection.

Once you have completed your book list you are ready to generate the link. This picture shows the list in the covers format.  There is also a list format which gives more bibliographic details – but is not as eye-catching!  



To send a link to your page eg. to publicise your latest books, you have to use the Permanent link bottom left of the screen. Click on this button and the URL that appears in your menu bar is the one to copy and use in your publicity. 

Think about how LibraryThing could be used both in the Library or to record your personal reading or book collection.

As an example LibraryThing was used to consult librarians on the best textbooks to include for an updated Medical Core Collection: http://www.cilip.org.uk/health-libraries-group/core-collections/core-collections-detail

Thing 15 Add Meet-O-Matic to your Protopage

Login to Protopage

Click on the Add widgets tab at the top of the screen.
A menu will appear on the left of the screen. Scroll down the Add widgets menu and click on Web page.

Click on the Blue strip at the top of the new widget box and drag the new widget to add  to your Protopage.
Then click on the Edit link on the Blue strip at the top of the new widget box.
A new box will open lower down the screen. 

  • Cut and paste the web address of Meet-O-Matic into the Web site address box 
  • Type Meet-O-Matic into the widget title box
  • Click on Save



Thing 14: Time Management-Set up a meeting with Meet-O-Matic

What is Meet-O-Matic?
Meet-O-Matic  is a great way to schedule any event which includes several people – whether it’s a family get together, a night out with friends or a work meeting. You don’t need to register to use Meet-O-Matic and it’s very easy to use. The idea is that you set up an ‘event’ and input several days that are suitable. You then invite all attendees to go to a webpage and view the suggested times. They tick which they are able to attend, and by the end you should be able to see which time most people can make.

Outlook calendar or Meet-O-Matic?
Outlook provides the facility for you to suggest a time for an event, and e-mail it out to a number of participants. They can then accept or decline the invitation, or suggest a more suitable time. 
Advantages to using Outlook: 
  • it’s integrated within your e-mail, so there is no need to visit a website, 
  • Outlook can be set to notify participants as events are about to take place
Disadvantages to using Outlook: 
  • only one date/time can be suggested at once, so it may take several attempts to find a mutually convenient time
  •  all participants must be set up to use Outlook, which may not always be the case. 

Task for Thing 14 

Use Meet-O-Matic to set up a meeting with colleagues to share your experiences of exploring some of the 19Things.
If you are the only person in your library participating, invite colleagues to a meeting to demonstrate one or two of the 19Things you’ve been exploring.

On the Meet-O-Matic page enter your Meeting name ( include a time if you wish)  and your Email address.
Select the days you can offer for the meeting and Click on Go




Meet-O-Matic will email you with one Web address for you to forward to your invitees and another Web address for you to keep track of the progress of responses. Meet-O-Matic also emails you every time a fresh individual response has been received, i.e. whenever someone fills in and submits the response form.

Remember to email your invitees with confirmation of the date that is best for most people.

Hope you have useful meeting!


Extra things you might like to Explore:

We have asked you to explore Meet-O-Matic as it is accessible on NHS Network PCs.
Doodle is similar scheduling tool. Doodle allows you to offer meetings at specific times (You need to subscribe to Meet-O-Matic to be able to use this feature.)

Using Meet-O-Matic  is all about helping with time management. If you’re feeling really keen have a look at JISC’s infokit on time management. 
 

Monday 28 October 2013

Thing 13: Reflection week

Picture from www.Landscape-Photo.net (CC BY-NC-ND)

Spend some time this week:

Writing your thoughts and experiences on some of the recent "Things" you’ve explored. If you’ve created a blog, publish your reflections as a new post.

Exploring one or two of Things 1-12 that you haven’t got round to looking at yet. If you would like to create a blog but need one-to-one help, email tvwlibrarians@gmail.com and one of the team will contact you.

Reading some of the Participants' Blogs .  If you've created a blog yourself, try adding a comment to another participants' blog.

Monday 21 October 2013

Thing 12: Adding a Pubmed search alert to My Library

After completing Thing 12, you will have:
-done a simple search on PubMed, and set up an alert on My Library which will inform you of new relevant articles as they are indexed.

Why don’t I just set up an alert direct via PubMed?
·         Using My Library will mean that all updates from your favourite feeds and your PubMed alerts will come in the one email. 

Part one: doing the search

Firstly, go to the PubMed homepage:

We are going to use three search lines when setting up our alert, so click on the ‘Advanced’ search link: 
We are interested in finding anything that discusses
  • information skills
  • or information literacy
  • in a health environment.   

So that’s (‘information skills’ OR ‘information literacy’) AND health

 We’re not going to use MESH headings, but we are going to use the indexing list.
In the first search box, type information skills then click ‘Show indexing list’ – the list of indexing terms will be displayed.

BEWARE!!!
this is not the same as a thesaurus function; it just lets us jump into the (alphabetical) indexing list at this particular point.  We are going to have to look elsewhere if we want to add related terms


 Use the Ctrl key and the mouse to select information skills, information skills instruction, and information skills training – note that they are automatically added to the first line of the PubMed Advanced Search Builder using the Boolean operator ‘OR’.


Click ‘Hide index list’ to clean the page up a bit, then go to the next search box; we are going to search for information literacy as a related term;

  • Use the drop down menu to change the operator from “AND” to ‘OR’  and type information literacy into the search box 

Display the indexing list for our second line, and using the Ctrl key and mouse again select information literacy, information literacy education, information literacy instruction, and information literacy skills (you will need to scroll down the list a little for this one...


Click ‘Hide index list’ to clean the page up a bit, then go to the next search box
Lastly, type in the third part of our search – health.  No need to change the ‘AND’ as the Boolean operator when adding the line this time. 

Then click the Search button...
We have a lot of hits (222 on the day of writing this!) but don’t worry –we’re setting this up to receive updates, not to go through everything that’s already there in PubMed.

Part two: adding the RSS feed to My Library
Click on the RSS icon at the top of the screen; you’ll get a display box like this:

  • Set the number of items to be displayed (15 is the default) and
  • don’t worry about naming it – you’ll be doing that in My Library
  • Then click the ‘Create RSS’ button.

You get a second display box that looks like this:

  • Click on the orange XML button , then copy the URL of the feed
  • Go to My Library; click the blue ‘Add feed’ button
  • Paste the URL into the box
  • Give it a name that will remind you what the search was about
  • Then click ‘Add feed’ underneath the URL box, just like we did with the RSS feeds we added in the last post 

You will now get your updates as part of your My Library email! 

! TIP: Remember we set a number of hits we wanted to see in our update?  My Library only shows the first few by default, but clicking on ‘List all’ when logged in to My Library will show you the number that you asked for...

Thing 11: Adding RSS feeds to NHS My Library



After completing Thing 11, you will have:
practised using  NHS My Library as an RSS feed reader

Why use My Library as a feed reader when I’ve just set up ProtoPage?

Because: 
  • My Library will save you a little bit of time, and will make it even easier to find new content from your feeds.
  • It emails you to show you the latest updates from your RSS feeds; you can click on the link to the new content directly from the email.
  • We can show our readers how to set up RSS feeds to MyLibrary.

Step-by-step instructions:
·         Go to www.evidence.nhs.uk ; click on the ‘Journals and databases’ tab.
·         Click on ‘Sign-in to NHS Athens’ and enter your Athens login and password.
·         Scroll down the page, on the left under the heading ‘Your Health Information Resources’ you will find the link:
My Library – access your links, alerts and library information
Click on the link to open the page
Now we can start adding our chosen feeds. 
ProTipIgnore the invitation to ‘Select your favourite updates from our feeds library’ as it does not work .

·         Open another browser window and find the site you are interested in.  I’m using this as an example – it’s a really interesting blog by library marketing guru Ned Potter, a subject librarian from York University.
·         
 There is a little orange RSS icon on the right-hand side 
fof the page, where it says ‘Subscribe’;
hover over it with your cursor, and you will see this:


·         My Library isn’t one of the feed readers listed in the box, but that doesn’t matter; just click on the top left-hand link – the one which says ‘Feed’.
·         This will give you the URL for the blog feed – copy this from the address bar at the top of the screen.
·         Back in your My Library window, click on the  Add feed button; paste the URL you have just copied into the box, and give the feed a name, like this:

Click the ‘Add Feed’ link under the URL box and you will get a message saying that your feed has been successfully added to My Library.


You can then tell My Library how often you would like to receive an update email, and where to send it to:



Here are some more feeds for you to practice with - some are health library type ones for resources which might help with your own CPD; others are feeds to which we might like to suggest to some of our readers:

Health Information and Libraries Journal – this will give you a ‘table of contents’ feed;
-       Click on the ‘Get RSS feed’ link on the left-hand side of the screen; copy the URL of the feed and add it to your My Library feeds.

Behind the Headlines – a discussion, via NHS Choices, of the evidence behind health related news stories. 
-       Look for the RSS link on the left; copy the URL and add to your My Library feeds.

The Learning Disabilities Elf – a good current awareness feed for healthcare staff working with people with learning disabilities:
-       Look for the RSS icon on the right-hand side. Don’t worry that the screen just shows a load of code when you click the icon – copy the URL, add it to your My Library feeds and your updates will read just as they do on the LD Elf home page.  Trust me J

The RCN news feeds - a range of national, regional and subject-specific nursing feeds.
-       Look for the RSS icon on the right-hand side; once you have clicked it, you can choose which feed(s) you want



Thing 10: Adding RSS feeds to Protopage



the orange RSS Icon
As well as being able to add widgets to your Protopage you can also add news feeds.

News feeds are generally known as RSS ('Really Simple Syndication') feeds which are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people. News feeds allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest headlines or journal tables of contents in one place, as soon as they're published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.


To identify whether a website has an RSS feed look for the icon:







Most sites that offer feeds use a similar orange button, but some may just have a normal web link.

To add the newsfeed for the 19thingsTVW blog to your Protopage go to

On the left hand side you will see the RSS symbol next to some drop down menu boxes



Click on one of the drop down arrows to subscribe to new posts or new comments.

From the drop down menu click on  Atom. 

A page of computer readable code will open. Ignore the content of the page and copy the URL from the address bar.
Now return to your Protopage page and click on Add Widget.



In the pop-up menu underneath where it says "Add a news feed directly" there is an address bar. Paste in the address you have just copied and click on "Go".
The news feed from the 19ThingsTVW blog should appear in a widget, ready to be dragged onto your page.

If the widget can't find the feed just drag it onto your page anyway. Then click on the "Edit" button at top right and paste the address into the first line under "Multiple news feed configuration" then click "Save". 




You can also edit the Title, Heading colour and how the feed is displayed.

Now see if you can do the same thing with a journal of interest to you or your readers. It can be one you access via My Journals or you might want to take a feed straight from the publisher's website. 

Once you've added the feed try clicking on the links to see how they work.

Finally, blog about the experience of creating a start page. Can you see the usefulness of one? Some commentators think they have had their day - what do you think?

Monday 14 October 2013

Thing 9: Creating a Protopage page


Below you will find step by step instructions to creating a Protopage start page. If you would prefer you are welcome to try out any of the other start pages you have come across instead.

 Go to www.protopage.com

Your first impression will probably be of something very messy. Don’t worry. it will look fine when you've tidied it up.

 .
Protopage initial start page



Register your page and choose a name for it by clicking on the link at top left and completing the form. You will need to respond to an activation e-mail so choose an email address you can access. You will also need to decide if you want your page public or private. You can always change this later.

Now delete most or all of the existing widgets and ads by clicking the X button in their top right corners. Unfortunately the ads do come back when you move away from the page but they are fairly unobtrusive. 

You will end up with a page which looks something like this:




Now for the fun part.

Have a look at the Colors/Settings tab and choose which colours and wallpaper you like.
Practice adding an extra tab by clicking on the New Tab tab. Give the tab a name by clicking in the box and  typing then choose a colour and layout for the tab by clicking on the dropdown menu.

When you are happy with the colours and layout add some widgets to the page.

To see the list of available widgets, click the 'Add widgets' button at the top of the page then select a widget from the pop-up menu or click on "Explore the Widget Showcase" to see more. When you select a widget from the pop-up menu you will need to drag it onto your page.
NB: For this Thing please select Widgets from the bottom half of the menu rather than adding feeds in the top part of the menu. We will look at adding RSS feeds in the next Thing



Widgets are arranged into columns according to how you have set up your tab options. You can drag and drop them to re-arrange them by clicking and dragging the title bar. You can also resize them by dragging the corner.


Some widgets have settings that you can edit. For example, a weather widget will let you choose your city by clicking 'edit'.

Experiment with the different widgets. For example you can add sticky notes on your page. To edit the text, simply click inside the widget and start typing. You can also add to-do lists, calendars, photos, and much more. Be sure to try out the Protopuppy widget


If you decide a widget is no longer wanted you can remove it by clicking the 'x' button as we did to get a clear page to start with.



RBH Protopage


The picture above show the Royal Berkshire Hospital Library's Protopage  with some handy widgets which is under development as an alternative to Netvibes. How does your page compare?




Thing 8: Protopage - what is it?


Protopage is an internet start page. You can use it as your own personal home page which you can access from any computer or mobile phone or you can make it public and share it with other people. If you made it public you could create a customised start page which would signpost  library users to the most relevant and reliable content on the web 





Signpost
Signpost
photo by JMC Photos on Flickr
used under a Creative Commons licence
You can use a start page to bring together current awareness services such as journal tables of contents, search alerts, web pages, RSS feeds and other web content. You can include feeds from Twitter and other social networking sites (but these will probably not work inside the NHS) .

You can also add widgets which do a range of things from adding a cute puppy to your page to generating a quote for the day.

There are some other start pages which you could use if you prefer.  

For example Netvibes is very popular with healthcare libraries but does not work well with IE6 or 7. For the practical element of this Thing we will be providing step by step instructions for setting up a Protopage which does work with NHS standard browsers. 

For an idea of how Protopage can be used in a library context have a look at what South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust library services have done with their page:

They have a readers guide here:

To have a look at some start pages using different platforms check out the NHS Library Web Portals directory, set up by Catherine Ebenezer from Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, 

Now blog about which start page you have decided to use and if you can think of any ways in which you could use it for yourself or your library service