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PubMed1998

Ion transporters and receptors in cDNA libraries from lens and cornea epithelia.

PURPOSE: To construct tissue-specific cDNA libraries containing copies of genes of ion transporting and receptor proteins in lens and cornea epithelia. To screen the libraries for the cDNA of these molecules and to deduce the protein sequence from the cDNA sequence. METHOD: Lens and corneal cDNA libraries are not commercially available and are difficult to prepare from microdissected single animal eyes or cadaver human eyes due to the small amount of tissue. To overcome these problems, we refined an approach for preparing high efficiency, non-PCR amplified plasmid cDNA libraries, where only nanogram quantities of poly (A) RNA are required. Plasmids were electrotransformed into DH10B bacteria and routinely yielded >10(6) independent colonies with typically >90% recombinants. Randomly selected colonies were subjected to colony PCR analysis to determine the libraries average insert size (typically approximately 1-kb). Primers to known genes were used in PCR amplification to check for representation of the genes in the cDNA libraries. RESULTS: Using libraries from rabbit cornea epithelium and endothelium, cultured human lens epithelium, and alphaTN4 cells, we have found the libraries to contain the cDNA for 3 common housekeeping proteins expected to be at high copy numbers in all cells. In addition, we identified 22 rare proteins and for many we determined the complete coding regions. These include K+ channels, Cl- channels, Ca++ channels, Na+ channels, three exchangers, the Na+-HCO3- cotransporter, and three kinds of receptors. CONCLUSION: Cornea and lens libraries have been constructed from single cornea or lens preparations. The libraries often contain the cDNA sequences for ion transporting and receptor proteins which are expected to be relatively rare in these cells. Many of these cDNA's have now been sequenced and the encoded proteins identified.

Animals↗

PubMed2001

Study to assess the compensation and skills of medical library professionals relative to information technology professionals.

PURPOSE: The study seeks to determine how medical library professionals performing information-technology (IT) roles are compensated and how their positions are designed compared to information technology staff in their institutions. METHODS: 550 medical library directors in hospital and academic medical libraries were surveyed. The data was then compared to survey data from other compensation studies of the IT industry. RESULTS: There is a gap in compensation between medical library professionals and IT professionals performing similar functions using information technology. Technology-intense library jobs are compensated at higher levels than more traditional jobs. CONCLUSIONS: To compete with IT salaries, managers of medical library professionals will need to be ever more cognizant of the employment practices of IT professionals in nonmedical library disciplines. It is typically in the medical library's best interest to ensure that IT-related jobs, accountabilities, and capabilities of the medical library are known and understood by others, especially in the human resources and information technology staff departments.

Humans↗

PubMed1992

The impact of the hospital library on clinical decision making: the Rochester study.

In these times of economic constraint, libraries of all types are under increasing pressure to evaluate their services. Hospital libraries face a particular challenge because the goals of the health care system demand that the relevance of library services to patient care be determined. The hospital librarians in Rochester, New York, responded to this challenge by developing a research project that explored the impact of library services on clinical decision making. A systematically sampled group of 448 physicians in the Rochester area agreed to participate in the study between September 1990 and March 1991. The physicians were asked to request some information related to a current clinical case and then to evaluate its impact on the care of their patients. Senior medical staff or administrators acted as study facilitators in each of the fifteen participating hospitals. As a result of the information provided by the library, 80% of the 208 physicians who returned their questionnaires said that they probably or definitely handled some aspect of patient care differently than they would have handled it otherwise. Changes in the following specific aspects of care were reported by the physicians: diagnosis (29%), choice of tests (51%), choice of drugs (45%), reduced length of hospital stay (19%), and advice given to the patient (72%). Physicians also said that the information provided by the library contributed to their ability to avoid the following: hospital admission (12%), patient mortality (19%), hospital-acquired infection (8%), surgery (21%), and additional tests or procedures (49%). The physicians rated the information provided by the library more highly than that provided by other information sources such as diagnostic imaging, lab tests, and discussions with colleagues. In addition to confirming earlier research findings that information provided by hospital libraries is perceived by physicians as having a significant impact on clinical decision making, the results increase our store of scientific knowledge about the specific nature and extent of the impact of information provided by the hospital library.

Decision Making↗

PubMed2006

Online medical books: their availability and an assessment of how health sciences libraries provide access on their public Websites.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to determine the number and topical range of available online medical books and to assess how health sciences libraries were providing access to these resources on their public Websites. METHOD: The collection-based evaluative technique of list checking was used to assess the number and topical range of online medical books of the six largest publishers. Publisher inventory lists were downloaded over a two-day period (May 16-17, 2004). Titles were counted and compared with the 2003 Brandon/Hill list. A sample of health sciences libraries was subsequently derived by consulting the 2004 "Top Medical Schools-Research" in U.S. News & World Report. Bibliographic and bibliothecal access methods were evaluated based on an inspection of the publicly available Websites of the sample libraries. RESULTS: Of 318 currently published online medical books, 151 (47%) were Brandon/Hill titles covering 42 of 59 Brandon/Hill topics (71%). These 151 titles represented 22% (N = 672) of the Brandon/Hill list, which further broke down as 52 minimal core, 41 initial purchase, and 58 other recommended Brandon/Hill titles. These numbers represented 50%, 28%, and 12%, respectively, of all Brandon/Hill titles corresponding to those categories. In terms of bibliographic access, 20 of 21 of sampled libraries created catalog records for their online medical books, 1 of which also provided analytical access at the chapter level, and none provided access at the chapter section level. Of the 21 libraries, 19 had library Website search engines that provided title-level access and 4 provided access at the chapter level and none that at the chapter section level. For bibliothecal access, 19 of 21 libraries provided title-level access to medical books, 8 of which provided classified and alphabetic arrangements, 1 provided a classified arrangement only, and 10 provided an alphabetic arrangement only. No library provided a bibliothecal arrangement for medical book chapters or chapter sections. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that the number and topical range of online medical books is reaching a point where collection-level consideration is warranted to facilitate efficient use and to prevent the problem of split files. However, the results also show that few efforts are underway on the publicly available Websites of the surveyed health sciences libraries to provide the analytical access necessary to meet the structural needs of clinical information seekers.

Access to Information↗

PubMed2006

Medicus Deus: a review of factors affecting hospital library services to patients between 1790-1950.

QUESTION: What are some of the historical societal, medical, and public health trends leading to today's provision of hospital library services to patients? DATA SOURCES: Literature from the archives of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association and other library sources, medical journals, primary historical documents, and texts from the history of medicine form the core of this review. STUDY SELECTION: The period of review extends from about 1790 through 1950 and focuses solely on trends in the United States. Of primary concern are explicitly documented examples that appear to illustrate the patient-physician relationship and those between librarians and their patient-patrons during the earliest years of the profession's development. DATA EXTRACTION: An historical timeline was created to allow the identification of major trends that may have affected library services. Multiple literature searches were conducted using library, medical, and health anthropology resources. When possible, primary sources were preferred over reviews. MAIN RESULTS: Juxtapositioning historical events allows the reader to obtain an overview of the roots of consumer health services in medical libraries and to consider their potential legacy in today's health care libraries. CONCLUSION: This review article highlights early developments in hospital library service to patients. Further research is needed to verify a preliminary conclusion that in some medical library settings, services to the general public are shaped by the broader health care environment as it has evolved.

Bibliotherapy↗

PubMed1989

Preservation activities and needs in U.S. biomedical libraries: a status report.

A national sample of health sciences and other types of libraries having significant holdings of biomedical literature was studied to determine the status of library preservation programs. Findings pertaining to 134 basic health sciences libraries and to ninety-seven resource libraries in the Regional Medical Library Program network are reported and discussed. Basic health sciences libraries participating in the study were primarily hospital libraries; resource libraries were primarily academic health sciences center libraries. Findings include information on topics perceived to be of greatest need for staff training and for informational or educational materials; on levels of preservation activity, staffing, and funding; and on capabilities for participating in a national cooperative preservation program. Efforts to identify general and special biomedical collections of potential importance to a national preservation program met with limited success.

Corrosion↗

PubMed2005

Design of combinatorial protein libraries of optimal size.

In this article we introduce a computational procedure, OPTCOMB (Optimal Pattern of Tiling for COMBinatorial library design), for designing protein hybrid libraries that optimally balance library size with quality. The proposed procedure is directly applicable to oligonucleotide ligation-based protocols such as GeneReassembly, DHR, SISDC, and many more. Given a set of parental sequences and the size ranges of the parental sequence fragments, OPTCOMB determines the optimal junction points (i.e., crossover positions) and the fragment contributing parental sequences at each one of the junction points. By rationally selecting the junction points and the contributing parental sequences, the number of clashes (i.e., unfavorable interactions) in the library is systematically minimized with the aim of improving the overall library quality. Using OPTCOMB, hybrid libraries containing fragments from three different dihydrofolate reductase sequences (Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, and Lactobacillus casei) are computationally designed. Notably, we find that there exists an optimal library size when both the number of clashes between the fragments composing the library and the average number of clashes per hybrid in the library are minimized. Results reveal that the best library designs typically involve complex tiling patterns of parental segments of unequal size hard to infer without relying on computational means.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed1964

LIBRARY TECHNICIANS: NEED, TRAINING, POTENTIAL.

The desperate shortage of librarians could be alleviated by training library technicians to work under the supervision of qualified librarians. Just as the training and accreditation of practical nurses have elevated standards of the registered nurses and freed them from routine duties, so could the training and accreditation of library technicians favorably affect programs of librarians. Courses have been given to assist untrained personnel supervising small libraries. However, our goals should be (1) to train technicians to perform nonprofessional library tasks; (2) to set standards for accreditation, ensuring a clear differentiation, one obvious to the librarian, the technician, and the administrator; (3) to advise administrators of the possibilities of developing small but effective libraries under a local system, using a trained librarian as supervisor and trained technicians in individual institutions; (4) to persuade doubting administrators of the worth of an efficient library. Action should come from authoritative bodies such as library schools and library organizations.

Accreditation↗

PubMed1995

Implementing hospital library automation: the GaIN project. Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Information.

The GaIN (Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Information) Hospital Libraries' Local Automation Project was a one-year, grant-funded initiative to implement an integrated library system in three Georgia hospitals. The purpose of the project was to install the library systems, describe the steps in hospital library automation, and identify issues and barriers related to automation in small libraries. The participating hospitals included a small, a medium, and a large institution. The steps and time required for project implementation were documented in order to develop a decision checklist. Although library automation proved a desirable approach for improving collection accessibility, simplifying daily routines, and improving the library's image in the hospital, planners must be sure to consider equipment as well as software support, staffing for the conversion, and training of the library staff and end users.

Catalogs, Library↗

PubMed1964

MEDICAL LIBRARY SERVICE IN THE HOSPITAL.

Because of the extent of the medical literature and the wide-ranging interests of medical scientists, it is not feasible today for a hospital library to provide from its own shelves all of the books and journals that are requested by its doctor clientele. The suggested alternative is for the hospital library to select an appropriate medical research library to serve as its reservoir library and to develop a realistic plan for using its collections to supplement its own smaller, working collection. A realistic plan embodies a clear understanding with the reservoir library and a contractual relationship that provides payment for services received. An important part of the plan is a clearly stated policy defining the level and quality of service to be expected from the reservoir library. An essential ingredient is a feasible system for overcoming the inconveniences and delays which tend to be imposed by the distance between hospital library and reservoir; certain devices are suggested for overcoming the distance barrier.

Books↗

PubMed2001

Developing a general practice library: a collaborative project between a GP and librarian.

The authors report on a self-completed questionnaire study from a North Yorkshire based general practice regarding the information needs of its clinicians. The work was carried out with a particular focus on the practice library, and the findings identified that a new approach to maintaining and developing the library was needed. The literature regarding the information needs of primary care clinicians and the role of practice libraries is considered, and compared to those of the clinicians at the practice. Discussion follows on how a collaborative project was set up between the practice and a librarian based at the local NHS Trust library in order to improve the existing practice library. Difficulties encountered and issues unique to the project are explored, including training implications presented by the implementation of electronic resources. Marketing activities implemented are discussed, how the library will operate in its new capacity, and how ongoing support and maintenance of the library will be carried out. It is concluded that although scepticism still exists regarding librarian involvement in practice libraries, collaboration between clinicians and librarians is an effective approach to the successful development and maintenance of a practice library, and recommendations are therefore made for similar collaborative work.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

New roles: professional staff sharing between a hospital and an academic library.

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is a pediatric hospital and research institute affiliated with the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). Historically, the library at Childrens Hospital was staffed by a hospital-employed librarian. In 1999, the library position was outsourced to USC's Norris Medical Library. The new position is staffed by a librarian who divides her time equally between two locations: the Childrens Hospital Library and the Norris Medical Library. This staff sharing arrangement has three primary goals: increase the collaboration between the libraries; improve access to resources and library staff expertise; and provide faster document delivery service to the Childrens Hospital library. This paper presents the details of the position, and addresses the pros and cons for both libraries and the librarian.

Academic Medical Centers↗

PubMed2004

Building a bioinformatics community of practice through library education programs.

This paper addresses the following questions:What makes the community of practice concept an intriguing framework for developing library services for bioinformatics? What is the campus context and setting? What has been the Health Sciences Library's role in bioinformatics at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill? What are the Health Sciences Library's goals? What services are currently offered? How will these services be evaluated and developed? How can libraries demonstrate their value? Providing library services for an emerging community such as bioinformatics and computational biology presents special challenges for libraries including understanding needs, defining and communicating the library's role, building relationships within the community, preparing staff, and securing funding. Like many academic health sciences libraries, the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill Health Sciences Library is addressing these challenges in the context of its overall mission and goals.

Academic Medical Centers↗

PubMed1968

Implications of planning for regional libraries: our underlying philosophy.

The National Library of Medicine Extramural Program in administering the Medical Library Assistance Act of 1965 has developed the following specific program objectives: provide financial assistance for improving biomedical libraries; encourage and assist the establishment and functioning of a responsive national biomedical information network by strengthening present biomedical libraries and their interlibrary relationships; and assure that the biomedical library network is linked to related science information systems. The ultimate goal is to develop the role of the library as a full learning resource center for education, research, and service. The regional library program aims to augment present capability of existing medical libraries so that information can be made available more extensively and more rapidly. Comprehensive and thorough advanced planning is a basic element in the development of regional medical libraries.

Libraries, Medical↗

PubMed1984

Medical library services in Kuwait: history and future prospects.

Despite immense resources and a growing interest in education and libraries, library development in Kuwait has been restricted by the problems common to all developing countries. These include an overdose of bureaucracy, lack of trained librarians, and little perception of the library's importance in the educational system. Medical librarianship is virtually a new field. The only medical library of any significance in the country is the Faculty of Medicine Library established in 1974 to serve the newly organized Faculty of Medicine of Kuwait University. In recent years, the Faculty of Medicine Library has gone through several reassessments and many changes. It has expanded its collection, begun computerized searching, and recruited several professional librarians. Now semiautonomous from the university's Libraries Department and housed in a new, modern building, the library has the potential to become the main medical library in the Persian Gulf area.

History, 20th Century↗

PubMed1993

Expanding the DOCLINE network to include nonmedical libraries in the state of Nevada.

Most libraries cannot meet patron demands for biomedical information using only their in-house collections. Consequently, many types of libraries request biomedical information through interlibrary loan, and these include not only academic health sciences libraries, hospital and special libraries, but also general libraries. In Nevada, with its small population spread over a large geographic area, it has become critical to develop a statewide network for sharing biomedical information. As the state resource library, the Savitt Medical Library launched an effort to establish a network, via DOCLINE, of all Nevada libraries that have health-related collections. The process of convincing academic and community college libraries to join DOCLINE and the resulting benefits of improved resource sharing and cooperative collection development are discussed.

Computer Communication Networks↗

PubMed1972

Document delivery capabilities of major biomedical libraries in 1968: results of a national survey employing standardized tests.

The standardized Document Delivery Tests (DDT's) developed earlier (Bulletin 56: 241-267, July 1968) were employed to assess the capability of ninety-two medical school libraries for meeting the document needs of biomedical researchers, and the capability of fifteen major resource libraries for filling I-L requests from biomedical libraries. The primary test data are summarized as statistics on the observed availability status of the 300 plus documents in the test samples, and as measures expressing capability as a function of the mean time that would be required for users to obtain test sample documents. A mathematical model is developed in which the virtual capability of a library, as seen by its users, equals the algebraic sum of the basic capability afforded by its holdings; the combined losses attributable to use of its collection, processing, relative inacessibility, and housekeeping problems; and the gain realized by coupling with other resources (I-L borrowing). For a particular library, or group of libraries, empirical values for each of these variables can be calculated easily from the capability measures and the status statistics. Regression equations are derived that provide useful predictions of basic capability from collection size. The most important result of this work is that cost-effectiveness analyses can now be used as practical decision aids in managing a basic library service. A program of periodic surveys and further development of DDT's is recommended as appropriate for the Medical Library Association.

Costs and Cost Analysis↗

PubMed1995

Characterisation of epitopes on human p53 using phage-displayed peptide libraries: insights into antibody-peptide interactions.

We previously described the use of a phage-displayed library of random hexapeptides to define and localise the epitope on the human tumor suppressor protein p53 recognised by the monoclonal antibody PAb240. Here we have extended these results to a further eight anti-p53 monoclonal antibodies and to two further libraries, which display 12-mer and 20-mer peptides, respectively. First, we showed that selection of PAb240 binding clones from the 12-mer and 20-mer libraries gives essentially identical results to those obtained by screening the 6-mer library. Second, we used the 6-mer and 12-mer libraries to define the detailed specificity profiles of six antibodies (DO-1, DO-2, DO-7, Bp53-11, Bp53-12 and Bp53-19), which recognise the same short, highly immunogenic N-terminal segment of p53. Finally, we employed all three libraries to reveal the distinct mechanisms by which PAb421 and PAb122, two monoclonal antibodies that allosterically activate sequence-specific DNA binding by p53, react specifically with the same positively-charged C-terminal segment. In each case the epitope locations inferred from the selected sequences were confirmed by probing an array of overlapping synthetic peptides representing the primary sequence of p53. The results emphasise the consequences for epitope mapping of screening random, as opposed to antigen-derived, peptide libraries; specifically (1) that comparison of selected sequences reveals the contribution of individual residues to binding energy and specificity; (2) that heteroclitic reactions can lead to definition of a consensus that is related to but distinct from the immunising epitope and (3) that isolation of non-immunogen-homologous "mimotope" sequences reveals discrete, alternative ligand structures. The results with PAb421 and PAb122 provide examples where, while selection from the 12-mer and 20-mer libraries leads to isolation of immunogen-homologous sequences, selection from the 6-mer library results in the isolation either of no binding clones (PAb122) or solely of "mimotope" sequences with no discernible homology to the original antigen (PAb421). In addition the results with PAb421 reveal that linear epitopes can be longer than previously thought and can be formally discontinuous, consisting of independent contact motifs, which show promiscuous relative positioning.

Amino Acid Sequence↗