Thing 13: Reflection week

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.

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:

www.pubmed.gov

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. 

ProTip:  Ignore 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.

http://thewikiman.org/blog/

·         
 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;

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1471-1842

-       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. 

http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx

-       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:

http://www.thelearningdisabilitieself.net/

-       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.

http://www.rcn.org.uk/

-       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

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

http://19thingstvw.blogspot.co.uk/

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?

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
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:

http://www.protopage.com/southteeslibraries

They have a readers guide here:

http://southtees.nhs.uk/content/uploads/Guide-to-using-Protopage.pdf

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

Thing 7; Creative Commons Images

Image cut and pasted from Google images

As you are no doubt aware, images are covered by copyright law – and even though it’s common practice to reuse images from the web quite freely on web pages or printed leaflets, in many cases this is actually illegal. There are, however, several ways that you can get round this problem:

• Buy images-there are a number of places where you can buy "royalty-free" images-you pay a one-off charge, but no subsequent usage fee
• Get permission from the copyright owner
• Use images that are in the public domain
• or you can use images under a Creative Commons (CC) licence

What is Creative Commons?

To learn about  Creative Commons visit the website: creativecommons.org/ 
read the “About” section: creativecommons.org/about 
The Licences section is also worth a read – it may seem a bit daunting, but it’s important to understand that there are various flavours of Creative Commons Licence: creativecommons.org/licenses/

In very simple terms, the most common symbols and their (very) broad meanings are:

You have to credit me as the original author of this work

You can’t reuse my work for commercial purposes

You can use this, but you can’t change it – use it whole and unedited

Anything you create has to carry the same Creative Commons licences that I’ve used

When people make their work available under a Creative Commons licence, they can use any combination of the symbols to specify exactly what restrictions they want placed on its use.

Finding & Using Creative Commons Licenced Resources

The Creative Commons website lists several places that you can obtain CC-licenced resources (“Explore”: search.creativecommons.org)… you’ll notice that it’s not just images: videos, sound, music… pretty much anything can be made available under a CC licence.
You can search the resources from this page, but I think it’s better to go to the resources themselves directly. I’ll focus on just two of the resources listed on that page – Google Images and Wikimedia Commons – both of which are good for finding images.

Your task will be to find an interesting image and blog about it. If you want, and the licence allows, you can modify the image – or you can insert it as-is directly into your blog (if you are on an NHS pc you will probably have to copy and paste the image into your blog). You can use either resource …or even try both if you’re feeling really adventurous.

Google Image search 

Read Google's blog about finding creative commons images

To find images use the Advanced image search

Enter a search topic  and then scroll down to the Usage rights field , use the drop down menu to select "free to use or share" and click on the Advanced Search button.
Use the mouse to hover over the pictures and see which web site they come from.
Repeat your search with the Usage rights field as "not filtered by licence". Notice that some images have a owners watermark across the picture. If you click on the picture you will see more information about the picture including sometimes the creators name.

Saved to desktop and inserted into blog

Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

You’ll find that Wikimedia Commons looks similar to Wikipedia – but rather than being an online encyclopaedia, Wikimedia Commons is a resource for CC-licenced or public domain resources.
Try a search for a topic that interests you (e.g. “Southampton”) and select a result you like
I found this picture of a Southampton Corporation tram
Scroll down the page to see the section on Licensing" , which shows you what you can do with it.
In this case 

You are free:

• to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to remix – to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

• attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
• share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

Tip
When saving an image to a folder and the creator has asked you to attribute their work, a useful practice is to save the image with the creator's name as the filename, then you won't forget it!

The captions on the images in this post tell you how I added them to the post. If you were adding images and wanted to give them captions, the captions are more likely to be along the lines of  "My pet dog Rover"  or "Attributed to Martin Smith". 

Thing 6: Browsers: Interner Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox

Some NHS Libraries have Internet Explorer and Google Chrome installed on pcs, one or two librarians also have Firefox installed on their pcs.

Why do people want to use browsers other than Internet Explorer?

Azadeh Brown is a Library Assistant at the University of Southampton. Read Azadeh's reflections on Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox –you may be inspired to use a new browser for searching at work or at home. 

There’s a lot you can do with browsers these days. Use the Browser help pages to learn more about using short cuts, tabs and favorites/bookmarks  more effectively
Internet Explorer Help
Google Chrome Help
Mozilla Firefox Help
When accessing Internet Explorer Help use the drop down menu to select help for the version of IE you are using.                                                                                                                                     

Keyboard shortcuts

Try clicking a link with your mouse wheel… you should find that this opens the link in a new tab, but keeps your focus on the current page – ideal for opening links that you want to investigate, when you’ve finished reading the text in front of you. Notice I didn’t tell you which browser to try this in…

Working With Tabs

All modern browsers allow you to work with several tabs, each containing a web page. See if you can find out how to:

•  Cycle forwards and backwards through the tabs you have open
•  Rearrange the order of the tabs
•  Pull out a tab into a new, standalone browser window
• Can you then drag the window back into the tab list for the original window?

Favourites & Bookmarks

One of the things I find most annoying about using a new browser is working out how the favourites or bookmarks system works – it’s probably the biggest factor in my own reluctance to change browsers more regularly.

To help you get over that hurdle, we’ll have a play with the bookmarking systems on our three browsers… of course, you’re probably quite familiar with at least one of these (most likely IE), so feel free to skip any bookmarking task that you’re comfortable with – but please do give the others a go.

For each browser:

• Bookmark a few of your favourite pages
• Organise them into a couple of folders
• If you’re feeling adventurous, try importing all your bookmarks from your current browser 

Trying New Browsers at Home

There’s not a lot we can do  to get the latest versions of browsers at work  – just bear in mind that if you keep your browser up-to-date at home, then you’ll get a slightly different (usually better and safer) experience than with the same browser at work.

[If you don’t do so already, make sure you keep your computer at home updated with all the latest patches for Windows and whichever browser you use. And make sure you have good, up-to-date antivirus software – the free versions of Avast and AVG are both popular and very good.] 

At home you will have the freedom to use whichever browser you like. Search Google to find free downloads of the browsers below:

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox (Mozilla Firefox)
• Chrome  (Chrome is the default browser on android tablets and phones)
• Safari: for Mac users only
• Opera: www.opera.com 

Reflecting

On your blog, write a post about your experiences with the different browsers: 

•  Which one(s) have you been using mostly until now?
•  What did you think about any of the new browsers that you tried? Are you likely to make a permanent switch to one of the new ones? 
• Did you try any different browsers at home? What did you think of these?