Frequent and timely dispatches from Virginia Tech's Newman Library for members (faculty, students, and staff) of the Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise Department, supporting the mission of delivering, translating, and disseminating health-related advances in the nutrition, food, and exercise sciences.
I’m delighted to share with you the 2010 ADA Nutrition Care Manual® update summary! Beginning October 4, there will be several new sections and updates to your NCM subscriptions. Many of the new sections and additions to the NCM come from feedback received from subscribers.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me--hnfelibrarian (at) vt (dot) edu. For product feedback, please email editor@nutritioncaremanual.org
I'm working on a post that will showcase Newman's new September 2010 books, but until I get that finished, here's another list of books for you to enjoy: Booklist Online's Top Ten Food Books (list by Donna Seaman). You can view the entire list here, but here's the list, with Addison records linked when appropriate:
Earlier this week, I presented during the ACC Interdisciplinary Forum for Discovery in Life Sciences. I know that several of you HNFE folks are presenting today, and I was really hoping to be able to attend your sessions! Because the schedule got moved around a bit, and there was some confusion over who was presenting when, I wanted to post the presentation that I gave on Tuesday.
Entitled "Discovery of Technology: Tools for Research Management and Interdisciplinary Collaboration," the presentation really could have been called "From the Library to the Lab..." After listening to many of the presentations from Monday and Tuesday, I thought a lot about how important it is for you all to be able to quickly and efficiently consume and disseminate relevant literature. The tools mentioned in this presentation should help with that. In case you don't make it to the very end of the presentation, I'll go ahead and let you know what I think the most important tool for you may be: the librarian!
Enjoy the presentation (below) and let me know if you have any questions, or would like to know anything more about the tools mentioned below. A big thanks to Allison Scripa for assisting in developing the presentation. Update: it looks like SlideShare interpreted a few of the images/slides strangely...let us know if you have any questions or trouble interpreting the information!
Wednesday, October 27 (3-4 pm) The New Medline Plus: An In-Depth Look (Infopeople)
Join Kelli Ham, the Consumer Health Coordinator for the National Libraries of Medicine, Pacific Southwest Region (NN/LM PSR), to learn more about all of the resources available on Medline Plus.
It feels like I've been focusing a lot on EndNote lately, but that's because 1) a new version (with some of the expected bugs) was just released and 2) it's still the beginning of the semester, which means that a larger than usual number of people are experimenting with it. There are a lot of "insider" tips that can help you use EndNote efficiently, and one of those is:
Import PDFs, or entire folders of PDFs, into EndNote to automatically generate entire references.
Now, like all other EndNote functions, the "import PDF/PDF folders" option doesn't work right 100% of the time. Nevertheless, utilizing this EndNote X4 feature can save you a lot of time, energy, and frustration. Basically, if you already have a PDF or a folder of PDFs that you would like to add to your EndNote library, you should be able to generate an entire reference, with the PDF attached, by following these steps:
1) Open the EndNote library you'd like to add to
2) Go to the Import option (located in the File menu)
3) Select the correct option (File or Folder)
4) Make sure the Import Option box has the "PDF" option as the drop-down selection
5) Navigate to the file or folder you'd like to import using the "Choose" option
6) Select the file or folder you'd like to import, then click "Import"
7) Voila! The file/folder you've selected should now be in your selected EndNote library.
There are a few things that are helpful to keep in mind about using this method. EndNote uses crossref.org to pull metadata (basic information about a document, in this case, the DOI or "digital object identifier") from the PDF to fill out the reference information. This means that the PDF must be created by the publisher AND be entered into the crossref.org database. If not, then the PDF will still be added to your EndNote library, but without any of the related information (i.e., without the author, title, journal title, dates).
There are a few good tutorials that discuss using this method of importing references. First of all, EndNote released a "What's New in EndNote X4" tutorial that is very helpful. Go to minute 1:06 of this video for detailed instructions about importing a PDF (or folder of PDFs) into EndNote:
And, you can always search the EndNote help files (the "Help" menu at the top toolbar when you open EndNote) for information about this option. Simply go to "Help" and then select "Search for help on..." and then type in "Import PDF folder."
Because I will be out of town at a conference, there will be no Librarian Office Hours in Wallace 342-A this Thursday (tomorrow). I will, however, be back NEXT Thursday, available to answer all your questions from 3-5 p.m. in Wallace 342-A.
A Library News article published this morning on the VT Libraries website describes how two databases by Thomson Reuters (both of which we subscribe to) can provide valuable information for faculty members working toward promotion and tenure. Both Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports contain information that can help assess the impact of a particular author, article, or periodical. The full Library News article is accessible from the link above.
These databasees, Web of Science and JCR can also provide valuable information for students just beginning research in a particular discipline or area of research. JCR relates a journal's impact factor and a general overview of the landscape of literature in a particular field, while Web of Science offers cited reference searching and other ways to track an author's influence within his field of research.
Although these databases do have limitations (not every journal that is published is listed in JCR, for example), they can provide a great deal of valuable information for both the new researcher and the more experienced faculty member applying for tenure.
