Library Bulletin

February 1999

The Library + 183 Medical Students + MEDLINE Practice: A Formula for Learning
By Anita Ondrusek

Starting with this Spring semester, first-year medical students will be introduced to MEDLINE through an online tutorial and practice exercises. The tutorial grew from a vision shared by co-ordinators from the Doctoring Experience and the Library's Educational Services program - namely, to combine the teaching of MEDLINE with content relevant to the curriculum.

The online tutorial is also partly based on learning issues drawn from the College of Medicine's Medical Informatics Literacy recommendations. Medical Informatics Literacy is a concept which, on the simplest level, refers to the ability to find and manipulate computerized information relevant to medicine. One consequence of the acceptance of informatics literacy as a factor in the teaching of health care is that medical educators now face new curricular issues such as: What knowledge is pre-requisite to learning the more complex aspects of medical informatics? How is that knowledge best presented? How can it be effectively assessed?

The Library's MEDLINE tutorial uses biomedical database searching techniques to help students gain those pre-requisite searching skills. To reinforce student understanding, the tutorial is followed by practice and culminating exercises. By pursuing this line of instruction, we join ranks with a dedicated group of medical educators who recognize the importance of both teaching and evaluating information retrieval skills.

The MEDLINE tutorial may be viewed from the Library's LRC, the HEB Teaching Labs, and any home/office computer which has connection to the Internet. The URL is http://servers.medlib.hscbklyn.edu/medtut/medtoc.htm - no proprietary passwords required. The tutorial was developed by Anita Ondrusek with special acknowledgments to: Dr. Michael Selzer, Ellen Telesca, Dr. Felix Barroso, Dr. Margaret Clark-Golden, Mary Doherty, Julie Semkow,
Christopher Stewart and Scott Mendelsohn.

Providing access to electronic journals is an ongoing concern of the library. Unlike many of our traditional resources, this resource is a new and evolving one which is proving quite a challenge to those concerned with managing the library's information resources.

On the library's web page (GRID) users may select the option of  'Journals'  which opens a drop-down box showing an alphabetical list of journals which are accessible through the library.  Each title has a 'holdings statement' indicating what physical volumes are in our collection and lists varying electronic access modes,  e.g.
Lancet (PRINT: 1823 - )
Lancet (OVID/Journals@OVID: 1996 - )
Lancet (FIRSTSEARCH/HEALTH REFERENCE CENTER: 1995 - )
Lancet (DIRECT: 1996 - )
This example indicates that the library has the print versions of Lancet from 1823 to present.  It also tells the user that this title is available in three other ways, viz., through the OVID/Journals@OVID: 1996 - with coverage beginning in 1993; through
FIRST SEARCH/HEALTH REFERENCE CENTER with coverage beginning in 1995; and through direct access i.e. through the publisher with coverage beginning in 1996.  The user, therefore, has four options from which to choose.

At the time of this writing, the number of journals with electronic links from the journal list is as follows: 200+ titles through OVID/Journals@OVID, 455 titles through FIRSTSEARCH and 22 titles directly from the publishers' servers.  The number of titles will continue to grow especially through OVID and through direct access from the publisher.

These three kinds of electronic access mean that the user has to learn three different kinds of searching routines which are not as cumbersome as it may sound. Reference librarians offer consultations and classes on these routines. With OVID or FIRSTSEARCH the user must
navigate other databases which are quite different in structure and require different searching techniques.  The third electronic option, through the publisher, allows access to the journal directly in some cases, while in others it may offer access to the suite of journals by the publisher.The user may well ask why all the complexity and confusion.  The reality is that the publishers have their business interests to maintain and must observe the constraints of Copyright
Law and Fair Use policies. They are also rightly concerned with the security of their publications and therefore require some type of validation for users to access their electronic resources.

While the username/password protocol may be good for the individual subscriber, it is not the most efficient for institutional access.  We have been trying as far as possible to have IP validation for the entire campus.  Some publishers have been amenable to the idea while others will only grant IP validation for users who are physically in the library.

Please bear with us as we go through these changes, and please let us know how your searches of electronic journals have fared.

We would like the Downstate community to be aware that experienced librarians are available, by appointment, to provide consultations about the library's resources, including literature searching  (Medline and the many other databases we offer), printed library materials, use of the Internet, and classes in library skills and resources taught cooperatively with SUNY- HSCB instructors in their courses.

Please call Reference voice mail (x7405) and ask for further information. We encourage faculty, staff and students to take advantage of this service in order to make optimal use of all the
information riches the library offers. We look forward to hearing from you.