The TMC Library will be closed on Monday, July 4th in observance of Independence Day. Regular hours resume Tuesday, July 5th .Have a good holiday.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Library Closed Monday, July 4th
The TMC Library will be closed on Monday, July 4th in observance of Independence Day. Regular hours resume Tuesday, July 5th .Have a good holiday.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The TMC Library Upgrades Public Access Computers
Did you ever wonder if it would be more cost-effective to upgrade your computer than it would be to buy a new one?As computers begin to age, they begin to slow down, and can eventually fail completely. The hardware is generally designed for a useful life no longer than 5 years. The parts most prone to failure are the mechanical elements, the internal devices—like hard drives, power supplies and cooling fans.
Fifty-two public access computers were purchased by The TMC Library in 2006 and 2007 for about $1,200 each, making them now 4-5 years old. Unfortunately, with a very tight budget and at an estimated replacement cost of $52,000, we needed to investigate alternatives-- ways to extend the life of the current computers until we could resume following the Library’s ‘technology refresh’ plan.
On the first floor units, we have increased RAM to 4 gigabytes, which has allowed us to install Windows 7 (64-bit), Office 2010, Firefox 4.0, Google Chrome 10.0, and Internet Explorer 9.0 along with other additional software. The most important step to extending the useful life of these machines was our installation of very fast, solid-state drives (SSDs).
The upgrades have added at least 2 years to these computers, and at the same time, they now deliver a performance very similar to that of a brand-new system. Dual-core systems with additional memory, solid-state drives and modern software are providing a user experience like that of machines with eight cores, the same amount of RAM and conventional hard disk drives— and at an 88% savings over the price of 52 new computers.
What happened to the parts that were removed? We added those parts to the computers in the Street Level Lab to increase their performance, and this enabled the same Windows, Office, etc. software upgrades to be added to them. By doubling each one’s memory to 3 gigabytes and using a high-performance disk configuration called RAID 0, or striping, the performance of these even older computers has also been significantly enhanced. Because they are slightly older, though, and their hard drives have been reused, the life of these computers will not be extended much beyond an additional year.
So, if you’ve ever wondered whether upgrading a computer was cost effective, whether solid-state drives were worth the extra money, or if you just would like to reacquaint yourself with the valuable people and services at The TMC Library, please come by, and while you’re here, see how your Library was able to save money and still increase user satisfaction by judiciously upgrading your computer labs.
Chris Young
Associate Director,
Information Technology
The TMC Library
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Scholarly Communications Forum - July 14, 2011
The forum Library Space: Evolving the Way We Use Physical and Virtual Spaces will be held on Thursday July 14, 2011 from 8:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. in the McMurty Auditorium, Duncan Hall at Rice University.
Keynote presentation: Forget About Green Features! What Makes a Library Truly Sustainable? by Wendy Heger, AIA, LEED™ AP, Assistant Director for Planning & Facilities for the Houston Public Library.
Roundtable discussion topics include:
- Library remote storage
- Centralized service desk
- Electronic books
- Cloud computing
http://resource.library.tmc.edu/forum/index.php
Library Classes June 28 - July 26, 2011
PubMed - BasicTuesday, June 28, 2011 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
This class teaches how to use PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's search service, which provides access to the 20 million citations in MEDLINE and Pre-MEDLINE (with links to participating on-line journals), and other related databases. How to search subject headings, keywords, and authors use limitations and search for clinical queries will be covered.
Taught by: Emmanuel Onwuachi, Night Manager - Circulation
Phone: 713-799-7150
Register Here
PubMed - BasicTuesday, July 14, 2011 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
This class teaches how to use PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's search service, which provides access to the 20 million citations in MEDLINE and Pre-MEDLINE (with links to participating on-line journals), and other related databases. How to search subject headings, keywords, and authors use limitations and search for clinical queries will be covered.
Taught by: Allen Lopez, Education Librarian - Reference & Outreach
Phone: 713-799-7170
Register Here
RefWorksThursday, July 21, 2011 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
RefWorks is a web-based citation management program that allows you to organize references in one convenient location, and also format your paper and bibliography. RefWorks contains several hundred citation output styles such as APA and AMA, in addition to individual journal submission formats. This class will teach you to set up an account, import citations, build your bibliography and format your paper. *It is highly recommended that participants in this class have experience searching PubMed or other databases, and using Microsoft Word.
Taught by: Allen Lopez, Education Librarian - Reference & Outreach
Phone: 713-799-7170
Register Here
PubMed - BasicTuesday, July 26, 2011 6:30 PM - 7:30PM
This class teaches how to use PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's search service, which provides access to the 20 million citations in MEDLINE and Pre-MEDLINE (with links to participating on-line journals), and other related databases. How to search subject headings, keywords, and authors use limitations and search for clinical queries will be covered.
Taught by: Emmanuel Onwuachi, Night Manager - Circulation
Phone: 713-799-7150
Register Here
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
National Library of Medicine Celebrates 175 Years
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) celebrated 175 years. For a brief history of NLM and some of its recent achievements, see the recent JAMA article:Slomski A. The National Library of Medicine: 175 years of advancing biomedical knowledge. JAMA 2011 Jun 1:305(21):2158-61. PubMed PMID:21632476
Friday, June 10, 2011
Victorian Madness and Women Lecture
Join us on June 15, 2011 from 12:00 – 1:00 pm at the Texas Medical Center Library for a lecture on Victorian Madness and Women by Helena Michie, PhD., Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor in Humanities at Rice University.
 |
| Helena Michie, PhD |
The author of numerous books, Dr. Michie has published articles on feminist theory and Victorian literature and has been an NEH and Guggenheim fellow. She is the co-editor, with Ronald Thomas, of the essay collection Nineteenth-Century Geographies: The Transformation of Space from the Victorian Age to the American Century (Rutgers UP 2002). Professor Michie teaches courses in feminist theory, literary theory, and Victorian literature and culture.
Professor Michie teaches courses in feminist theory, literary theory and Victorian literature and culture. She also holds classes and workshops on professional writing.
RSVP is required for this free event. Lunch will be provided.
To RSVP for the lecture, please go to: http://www.library.tmc.edu/exhibit/rsvp.php
Caring for the Mind: Providing Mental Health Information at Your Library
Caring for the Mind: Providing Mental Health Information at Your Library (Taught by the NN/LM SCR)Wed, June 15, 2011 9:30AM - 11:30AM
Responding to mental health reference questions is challenging for even the most experienced librarian. In this class, participants will learn the best electronic resources to consult as well as ways to improve their print collections. Best approaches to handling interactions with emotional patrons will also be discussed. Other topics covered include bibliotherapy, assessment/testing, and the future of mental health. This class will increase your skills for providing mental health information for care providers and the public. MLA CE accredited class. For more information, call 713-799-7880.
Taught by: Karen Vargas, MLS, Consumer Health Coordinator - NNLM/SCR
Phone: 713.799.7198
Register Here
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Update of TMC Library's Top 25 Journals by Usage Jan-Dec 2010
The TMC Library’s “Top 25 Journals” list has been updated with complete publisher statistics on full text downloaded articles from January through December of 2010. The New England Journal of Medicine remains in the lead with a total of 65,528 full text article downloads for 2010, Science ranks second with 39,945 and the Journal of Biological Chemistry third, with 39,584.
| Title | Full text article downloads | |
| The New England Journal of Medicine | 65,528 | |
| Science (New York, N.Y.) | 39,945 | |
| The Journal of Biological Chemistry | 39,584 | |
| Nature (London) | 32,306 | |
| PNAS : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 31,960 | |
| Circulation | 25,746 | |
| Cell (Cambridge) | 25,474 | |
| JAMA : the Journal of the American Medical Association | 24,737 | |
| Pediatrics (Evanston) | 22,190 | |
| Journal of Neuroscience | 19,869 | |
| Cancer Research | 19,011 | |
| The Lancet (British edition) | 16,328 | |
| Blood | 16,131 | |
| Development | 12,139 | |
| Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 11,910 | |
| Clinical Infectious Diseases | 11,505 | |
| Journal of Immunology | 11,302 | |
| Journal of Clinical Oncology | 11,252 | |
| Annals of Internal Medicine | 10,942 | |
| Circulation Research | 10,760 | |
| Neuron | 10,389 | |
| Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications | 9,844 | |
| Stroke | 9,785 | |
| Journal of Cell Science | 8,350 | |
| Molecular Cell | 8,004 |
Monday, June 6, 2011
New Database: Health Research Funding
Health Research Funding, is a new database developed by the National Health Council (NHC) with input from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The database is designed to bring researchers with peer-reviewed, worthwhile unfunded projects together with patient advocacy organizations and other funding resources.The goal of this site is to foster the funding of new research that will provide hope to millions of people in this country with chronic diseases and disabilities.
Researchers with promising projects that have been scored but not funded by the NIH or Researchers with proposals that have been peer-reviewed but not funded by a NHC member patient advocacy organization, are encouraged to apply.
For more information visit: http://healthresearchfunding.org/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)