Archive for Research

Lee | February 26, 2013
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ReadCube: Manage your Research Literature

Are you looking for a simple tool to organize your PDFs and facilitate your writing process?

ReadCube is a free app for Windows and Mac computers developed to help researchers quickly navigate research literature, and organize their PDFS to facilitate their writing.  (Similar free tools include Zotero and Mendeley Desktop.)

Read Cube Video

Use ReadCube to organize your PDF Collection. Import a file of PDFs and ReadCube will fetch the metadata from PubMed and Google Scholar for the citations.  Export individual or groups of citations directly to EndNote (or as a RIS file for other managers, like Zotero) to create bibliographies.

organize

You can highlight, annotate, and tag  each PDF in your PDF library.  These comments are fully searchable.

tools annotate add notesSearch PubMed and/or Google Scholar directly in ReadCube.  Download the articles (if free or licensed by UAB) in one click. Be sure to set your preferences to UAB. Note the links to related articles and forward citations in the record in your library.

searching

 

preferences

 

Other features include personalized article recommendations based on the PDFs in your library and the ability to automatically find supplemental material for a growing number of articles.

ReadCube is snazzy and simple to use. It seemed to find bibliographic information for most of the articles I added quite quickly and working with PDFS was straightforward and simple. There are other reference managers available that have similar functions available. Similar products you may want to review, depending on your needs, include:

EndNote X6 

Zotero: See the LHL Guide to Zotero,  Organize your zotero Library

Mendeley Desktop

 

Category: Free, Productivity, Research | Tags: , , ,
Liz | December 20, 2012
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Grammarly.Com

If you work in academia, you probably spend a lot of time writing.   The craft of writing is big business and can often be the most powerful tool of influence.   I recently found the Grammarly web site which has improved my ability to prepare my manuscripts for journal submission.   Grammarly sells itself as being “an automated proofreader and your personal grammar coach.”   My writing voice tends to be folksy, so I like Grammarly’s ability to provide other word choices and fix my style mistakes.     To test Grammarly, I recently wrote a 1,500 word essay for a trade publication in my field.  I had Grammarly proofread the text, and I made most of the suggested changes.   I then submitted the manuscript to the editor and within one week my paper was returned requesting one other edit.  Grammarly is no substitute for a human editor, but it has significantly sped up my time in delivering manuscripts ready for publication.  

Grammarly has a free preview feature, but I signed up for the monthly subscription plan at $29.95.   That might seem like a lot of money, but I write several essays, reviews and blog postings every month.   I am in the business of scholarly writing and this service helps to expedite the editing process.  Grammarly has a Microsoft Office plug in, so I  do not need to cut and paste my text in to its web site to be scanned.  The only disappointment with the product is that the plug in does not work for Mac. 

 – Liz Lorbeer, Associate Director for Content Management

 

Category: Productivity, Research |
Cara | October 3, 2012
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Internet Archive Adds TV News Service

Many people are familiar with the Internet Archive  and its Wayback Machine, which allows users to enter a URL and find previous versions of preserved websites in its collections.  In addition to the web archives, you can access video (for fun, see Tech.Blorge’s list of the Top 40 Best Free Movie You Can Download Right Now), audio, texts and other items in the public domain.  Now the archive has added a new feature – TV News Search and Borrow.

The New York Times recently spoke to Brewstar Kahle, the founder of the Archive. Currently, TV News archives 1000 national news shows, 350,000 programs on 20 different stations since 2009, including mainstream media such as CNN, ABC, FOX, etc.  You’ll find drop down menus of all of the shows and stations on the main page of TV News.

Although the service was designed to help voters sort through issues related to the current political landscape, its potential use extends beyond politics and the upcoming election.  Perhaps you have a patient who heard a news teaser for a new cancer treatment in the past week, but didn’t remember what show or network.  Or perhaps you are a marketer for XYZ company and wanted to review XYZ’s mentions in the national television media.  Or perhaps you’re a superfan of Twilight and want to find all news broadcasts related to those movies.

I searched “UAB” and found a clip from the November 18. 2010 episode of Nightline. Below is just a screen shot, but you can see the clip here.


The clip is 3:16 and does not reflect the entire content of the report.  As you can see, other options include borrowing a DVD of the story, a broadcast summary, and a link to the site of the original broadcast. Note that the fees involved in borrowing the DVD can be steep. The Archive uses closed-caption technology to map the search terms. Archived videos reportedly appear within 24 hours of the broadcast, but I didn’t try to test this.

Eventually, the Internet Archive plans to archive all news shows in television history — a lofty goal that will be interesting to watch.

 

Category: Free, Fun, Research | Tags: , , ,
Lee | September 13, 2012
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NLM Mobile

Last week, Cara wrote about NLM’s newest iPAD/iPhone App “My MedList.” The National Library of Medicine has a growing gallery of apps and websites customized for mobile viewing.  See them here: http://nlm.gov/mobile/

I find the Guide to NLM Mobile Web App extremely useful. Use it to locate and open NLM Mobile Sites and Apps.NLM Mobile on Android phone

To get it, scan the QR Code below with your phone or tablet:

 

 

 

 

Then, add it to your homescreen (iPad/Phone) or bookmark it and add a bookmark widget to a screen (Android.)

NLM apps/web apps cover a variety of topics including drug information, health information for patients, PubMed apps, AIDS guidelines and glossaries, toxicology databases and information for disasters and emergency preparedness.

Among my personal favorites are the three educational apps (Available for iPad).

Embryo: Visually explore human embryo development.  Includes some videos.

NLM Native Voices:  Hear individuals share stories about Native American culture, including traditional healing ways and modern medical treatments.

Turning the Pages  Download and explore beautifully illustrated historical medical texts, with curator and historian annotations.

Turning the Pages Opened on iPad

 

Category: Free, Fun, Mobile, Productivity, Research | Tags: , ,
Gabe | August 13, 2012
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Tell Me Your Story… But Make it Fast!

Everyone has a story to tell. But telling a story in a concise manner is difficult for many of us. Some of us tend to ramble and eventually get to the point but maybe lose some of our audience in the process.

In 2006, Brady Forrest from O’Reilly Media and Bre Pettis from Makerbot.com, formerly of MAKE Magazine, hosted an event called Ignite to help presenters share their personal and professional passions. The “geek event” was meant to bring together people from a community to “ignite” awareness and thought on the subjects presented. The format was successful and has been used in cities all over the world.

Ignite format talks are a style of presenting where people speak on a subject of their choice for five minutes accompanied by 20 PowerPoint slides. The slides are automatically advanced every 15 seconds. At the end of five minutes, the Ignite talk is over!

Here is an Ignite presentation from O’Reilly author Scott Berkun on “How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk”

Talks in this format could be a great benefit in the classroom, clinic, or lab. In the classroom, Ignite can serve as a teaching and learning tool for students to talk about projects in a structured format. Clinicians naturally have to be brief in the practice setting. Training residents and trainees to adopt a concise presentation format for case presentation will benefit them later in their careers. Researchers can also benefit from using this format to discuss their latest findings and identify potential collaborators. The Ignite format can be intimidating, but with a little bit of practice you will be golden. Stay tuned for some teaching sessions on How to Give an Ignite presentation or contact Gabe at grios-at-uab-dot-edu. Here are some resources to help you put together your first Ignite presentation:

I have personally attended Ignite events at my national professional conferences and we had the privilege of co-hosting the very first Ignite Birmingham here at the Lister Hill Library in 2010. The Lister Hill Library is collaborating with the Edge of Chaos and Ignite Birmingham to host an Ignite event here in the Edge of Chaos (the fourth floor of the Lister Hill Library) on September 20, 2012. Check out the Ignite Birmingham webpage for more information about this event and videos of past events. Dust off your PowerPoint skills and get ready to IGNITE others with your passions!

Category: Research, Training |
Liz | June 18, 2012
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3 Services To Add To Your Research Arsenal

The Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting was held the last week in May in Arlington, Virginia.  As the name implies the conference is mainly for those involved in scholarly publishing, but they offer a discount to card carrying librarians who want to be involved in the discussion on how to advance scholarly communication.    I personally love this conference because I’m fascinated with the life cycle of a journal and the issues that society publishers grapple with to disseminate knowledge to their readers.    There were three services I learned about that I want to bring to the attention of the UAB community.

If you use Google Scholar, Scopus, or Web of Science then you’ll want to check out Microsoft Academic Search.   It is a free site that indexes “millions of scholarly papers.”  But, what captured my attention are the visualization features which establish relationships between and among authors, their scholarly papers and research interests. 

figshare is a web site that will allow you to publish 1 GB of research data for free.  They’re claim to fame is that they love all file formats and encourage you to publish your negative data.  This is a nice resource for graduate students looking to park their data in the cloud.  Let me know if you use figshare and what you like about it.

If English is not your first language, or you find the entire editing and copyediting cycle painful, there is a service for you.   Editage is a much nicer experience than your grade school teacher’s use of red pencil to correct your grammatical errors.  It’s a professional scientific editing service that helps authors get published.  If you need help pulling your research together, this may be a service for you to check out. 

Let me know your thoughts on Microsoft Academic Search, figshare, and Editage.    I’m @lizlorbeer on Twitter.

Liz Lorbeer

Associate Director for Content Management

Category: Research, Uncategorized |
Liz | April 19, 2012
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Who Do You Think You Are?

I’ve always been curious about my ancestry and family history.  My family has only been in the U.S. for about hundred years, so I have a pretty good idea of where my great-grandparents and grandparents are from.   What prompted me to explore my heritage recently was a recent program on PBS called “Faces of America” with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.   

I particularly liked that Dr. Gates combined the traditional tools of genealogy with genetics to explore family histories.   So for my birthday, I asked my family for a membership to Ancestry.com.    A nice feature of this site is that it allows you to explore the site for free for 14 days and view original records.  Alternatively, most local libraries subscribe to Ancestry Library Edition which is a sister product and allows for public use within the library.  There are some minor content and functionality differences between the products, however.  I prefer Ancestry.com because I can search it from home and save specific documents to my account.    Personally, another reason I like the site is that it contains pictures of the ships that carried my ancestors  to America.   You can really get carried away researching the ships, via subscription, on ShipIndex.org.   And, don’t discount FamilySearch.org.  It’s free to search as well and has link outs to Ancestry.com if you want to look at the original documents.

Before you get started on researching your roots, I recommend you read the Birmingham Public Library’s Tips on Genealogical Research.  I have to admit that as a librarian I thought my searching super powers would be enough, but the BPL offers classes on beginning genealogy and a helpful tutorial on how to start.  Public libraries tend to be hot spots for genealogy activity and the BPL has a web site and staff devoted to answering local genealogical questions. There is also a week long course offered at Samford University this June.

I am also interested in the genetic aspect of my family history.   Eight years ago my doctor discovered that I was a carrier of a mutated gene.  Only 2% of Americans carry this gene and it’s passed from parent to child.  Through a literature search in PubMed, I learned that the mutation happened in humans over 24,000 years ago and is prevalent in Middle Eastern populations.    I realize Ancestry.com’s record keeping doesn’t go back that far in time, but to be able to discover the origins of a paternal ancestor was neat.  I am in the midst of researching DNA testing kits to establish my ancestry and genealogy.  There are two tests on the market that trace paternal and maternal lines by testing Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA.   

Through genealogy, I’ve been able to learn where my great-grandparents and grandparents were born, what they did for a living and the original spelling of family first and last names from the comfort of my home computer.    There have been a few surprises, but that’s what makes genealogy so fun.

Liz Lorbeer, Associate Director for Content Management

Category: Fun, Research |
Cara | April 10, 2012
One comment

New CDC iPad App

Last week, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first ever app designed specifically for the iPad.  The app, available for free from the iPad App Store, features nine major sections or tabs: Health Articles, Vital Signs, PCD Journal, Public Health Matters, MMWR, Newsroom, CDC Podcasts, Social Media and Image Library.

Health Articles features articles written on timely topics.  Today’s headlines include information on food safety at fairs and festivals and safe gardening techniques.  Right now, you can access ten articles from this tab which are also available on the CDC website.

Vital Signs is a monthly feature that offers data on public health issues.  The March issue covers health care-associated infections (HAIs).  Each issue covers the problem, who is at risk and what can be done and by whom, ranging from the federal government to a health care provider to an individual patient.

Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) Journal is a peer-reviewed journal addressing the link between public policy, research and and public health. It doesn’t appear that you can access the entire archives of the journal through the app, but you can access the most recent articles.

Public Health Matters is a blog written by CDC employees who share their experiences on a variety of public health topics.   Currently, you’ll find blog articles on running, disaster movies, and floods in Thailand.

MMWR- In this tab you can access the latest articles published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.  The CDC provides access to previous issues on its website.

Newsroom- As the title of this tab implies, this is a running list of articles and/or press releases on the results of CDC research, reports and telebriefings.

CDC Podcasts – You can also access CDC podcasts on a variety of health topics.  Current offerings include sexual assault awareness month, the CDC nutrition report, and adult immunization.

Social Media – This tab hooks you up to the CDC’s various Facebook pages and twitter feeds.  You can point your Spanish speaking colleagues or patients to the CDC en Español Facebook page.

Image Library –The CDC has provided a limited number of images available through the iPad app.  You can see images of people doing yoga, gardening, a cutaneous pigmented lesion and more.  I don’t recommend the cutaneous pigmented lesion unless you’re just into that sort of thing.

Category: Free, Mobile, Research, Social Media | Tags:
Liz | March 21, 2012
One comment

Print vs. Electronic Textbook: What should faculty recommend to their students?

I’m often asked by instructors about students’ attitudes towards digital textbooks.  Many of the print textbooks used in a course are available in electronic format for either purchase or rental and offer attractive reasons for use such as cost, convenience and enhanced functionality.     Yet, anecdotally, instructors report mixed results on student satisfaction with using e-textbooks.  What I hear from our instructors is very similar to what I’ve read in the library science and higher education literature. 

Students like the option of purchasing a required textbook in either print or electronic format, but left to decide on their own, many  still select the print textbook.  However, this decision can be swayed if the instructor shows the class the e-textbook on an electronic device.   This includes the instructor recommending, but not endorsing, sites where the e-textbook can be purchased, demonstrating popular web-based functionalities of the e-reader, and letting students know a print copy is available at the library should they need it.   (Make sure to communicate with your library liaison should you need a print copy of the textbook available in the Lister Hill Library Schools Collection).

To buy or to rent?  Many of the e-textbook web sites offer the ability to purchase chapters or rent an entire work for a prescribed amount of time.   This benefits both instructor and student if only a portion of the textbook is being assigned or the book is for a special topics course.  Many instructors seem reluctant to lengthen their required reading lists, but the flexibility in being able to rent or purchase select portions of a textbook allows for a cost-conscious approach for students.  Where the rental model may not be ideal is for the health sciences student that uses their fundamental textbooks later for preparing for licensing exams or as reference during residency.  

What students generally dislike about e-textbooks is the perceived monotony of reading on an electronic device and poor functionality of the e-reader.  Both will strongly dictate whether the student will abandon the digital book for the print copy.   Students who have no choice but to acquire the e-textbook generally report less satisfaction with the course.  This is why selecting a textbook that is available for purchase in both print and electronic format is so important. 

Recent studies, however,  show students are generally satisfied with e-textbooks and that overall satisfaction and use is increasing.  I believe the reason for the increase in satisfaction is two-fold.   First, electronic devices and e-readers are improving to support content distribution and secondly, instructors are becoming savvier in using technology in the e-learning environment.   By no means are digital textbooks better than their print counterpart.  Most e-textbooks still lack value-added, interactive features, such as image manipulation, short videos, and the ability to add customized content and this is where most instructors still voice their frustration.

Liz Lorbeer, Associate Director for Content Management

 

Category: LHL Resource, Productivity, Research, Uncategorized |
Lee | November 21, 2011
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Scopus Applications

The SciVerse platform offers over 50 apps to assist researchers and enhance their literature searches. Although many have been developed primarily for the Science Direct platform, a growing number are available to augment Scopus searches.  To see them, browse the application gallery here.

I have experimented with some of the Scopus applications.  My favorites include:

 

Emtree

The Emtree Query Analyzer helps you focus your search in SciVerse by analyzing your query and suggesting synonyms for terms that it recognizes. You can select Emtree terms to add to recognized terms and then re-run your query.  (Emtree is the controlled vocabulary used by the international biomedical database, EMBASE.) Scopus records include both MeSH terms and EMBASE vocabulary as shown in this record:

 

The Emtree app provides EMTREE terms for your topic and reruns your search.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Venn Search application pictured above, helps visualize your search, by representing your search terms as a Venn Diagram. You can click on any subset to search it.

 

 

After you have identified an article, use the PubMed Related Citations application to find additional articles.This application retrieves the same related citations that are displayed on PubMed record pages. PubMed uses a powerful word-weighted algorithm to compare words from the Title and Abstract of each citation, as well as the MeSH headings assigned. The best matches for each citation are pre-calculated and stored as a set.

Scopus provides related citations based on shared references so this offers a additional citations.

Other interesting Scopus applications include “Top Review Articles” and “Most Downloaded.”

 

Category: Productivity, Research |
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