Mulford Library Blog

by Janice Flahiff

The Mulford Library has a large number of online journals available both on and off campus to UT affiliates.
A quick check of Browse e-journals by subject (through the Online Journals link in the left column of the Mulford Library Home Page) had these results.

• Medicine – about 3,100 journal titles (scroll down to Medicine)
• Nursing – nearly 350 journal titles
• Occupational Therapy and Rehabilitation – nearly 60 journal titles
• Physical Therapy – nearly 60 journal titles
• Public Health – over 800 titles (scroll down to Public Health)

One may also search for specific journal titles through the Search catalog… box at either the Carlson or Mulford Library home pages.  Options include title and (medical) subject headings.

The Mulford Library not only provides access to journals, but also databases as CINAHL, PubMed, and many OhioLINK databases to search for specific articles. Please do not hesitate to contact a Mulford Libarian for assistance!

Remember, if the library does not have a specific needed article, you may request an article through the ILLIAD link in the left column of  either the Carlson or Mulford Library home pages. Articles may also be directly requested through the Find It!  link within abstracts at OhioLINK databases.

by Janice Flahiff

National Nutrition Month® is a nutrition education and information campaign sponsored annually by the American Dietetic Association. The campaign is designed to focus attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. Initiated in March 1973 as a week-long event, “National Nutrition Week” became a month-long observance in 1980 in response to growing public interest in nutrition.

The American Dietetic Association, through the public pages of its Web site, strives to provide accurate information for wise food and related lifestyle choices.  The section includes Diet Reviews, Nutrition [information] For Life, and Food and Nutriton Topics.

The Health Professional section includes some free resources, mostly in the areas of policy and the scope of  registered dietician practice.

Looking for more nutrition information? Consider searching the UT catalog with Diet as a subject heading, consulting the Mulford Library’s Full Text Resources (as Nursing Consult and NetLibrary), and searching OhioLINK medical and health databases as PubMed and CINAHL.

General information geared toward the public may found through links at the Consumer Health Library Guide.
MedlinePlus, Health Information (US National Institutes of Health), and Intelihealth are a few great places to start.

Please do not hesitate to contact Mulford Library Reference Assistance with your research and information needs!

A paper by Professor Roger Byard published in the US-based Journal of Forensic Sciences outlines the highly toxic nature of many herbal products and substances, which a large percentage of users around the world mistakenly believe are safe. (The article has not yet been added to the OhioLINK Web page for this journal). Some Asian manufactured herbal products were found to contain potentially lethal substances as arsenic, mercury, and lead.However, even unadulterated herbs can also produce serious side effects as number liver, renal and cardiac failure, strokes, movement disorders, muscle weakness and seizures. They also can have devastating effects when mixed with standard drugs.  For example, Often gingko and garlic  increase the risk of bleeding with anticoagulants.

Related Library Resources

**PubMed subject searches include the subheadings adverse effects
For example, search results for Garlic/adverse effects may be found here.

**Micromedex [limited to the HSC campus] allows one to search for drug interactions among multiple entered items.  Many herbal ingredients are listed.

**Access Pharmacy Drug Monographs  [limited to UT campuses, off campus to UT affiliates] have sections labeled Interactions, which include herbal products. Unfortunately there is no interface to enter substances to check for interactions.

**Drug Information Portal links to information on nearly 18,000 drugs and gives citations/summaries from medical and toxicological articles. Many articles are freely available to UT affiliates and those on the UT campuses.

And especially for consumers…

** Drug Digest has a check interactions tab to search for potential interactions between drugs. Please note the disclaimer, it is not complete or necessarily up to date.

**Drugs, Supplements and Herbal Information provides information from a variety of trusted resources. It also has links to additional resources.

Additional drug resources may be found through one of many University Lib(rary)Guides

Please do not hesitate to contact Mulford Reference Assistance with your research and reference needs!

The Computer Learning Resource Center (6th floor of the Library) will be unavailable during the following afternoons and evenings:

February 25, 8-10 pm

March 18, 8-10 pm

April 1, 8-10 pm
April 14, 1-5 pm
April 15, 1-5 pm
April 16, 1-5 pm
April 29, 8-10 pm

May 11, 1-5 pm
May 12, 1-5 pm
May 13, 1-5 pm
May 14, 1-5 pm

During these times,  use the computers on the fourth or fifth floor of the Library, or check out a laptop from the service desk.   If you are planning to use the CLRC during these times, please make alternative arrangements.

A recent [Toledo] Blade article stated that “[h]igh poverty rates, unhealthy activities such as binge drinking and smoking, low education levels, and poor air quality are among factors making Lucas County one of the least healthy places to live in Ohio, according to a report released yesterday.” However, “One figure Dr. Grossman deemed encouraging was Lucas County’s relatively high level of access to health care. A separate ranking in the report put Lucas County at 7 in the state when it comes to clinical care”.

These statistics came from County Health Rankings: Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health. This is a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
It not only presents Health Outcomes and Health Factors, but also has resources to Take Action.

Related Web sites of note…
RAND: Health COMPARE   is a good source to use to create scenarioes in what various types of health care proposals will cost in terms of taxes and/or health insurance.  what the various types of health care restructuring will cost in terms of higher taxes or insurance policy expenses.  Two other sites with similar goals are Kaiser Family Foundation’s Side-by-Side Comparison of Major Health Care Reform Proposals  The Commonwealth Fund’s interactive feature .

Please keep Mulford Reference Assistance in mind for those challenging statistics questions, seemingly elusive articles, and class assignments involving library resources. We are here to assist you in these areas and much more!

by Janice Flahiff

Thomson Reuters, the publishers of Journal Citation Reports, has recently issues a press release about new metrics and data that complement the Impact Factor.

The Impact Factor alone is an insufficient measure of a journal performance, and has been misused in areas as tenure decisions, library journal selection, and ranking programs within universities.  More information about the Impact Factor metric may be found here in the LibGuide Citation Analyis created by Carlson Librarian Wade Lee.

Journal Citation Reports now includes capabilities which if used in conjunction with the Impact Factor, will give a larger context in which to evaluate journal performance. These metrics include:

Please do not hesitate to contact Mulford Reference Assistance with your information and research needs.

By Janice Flahiff

The recently completed Toxicology LibGuide  aims to provide faculty, health care practitioners and students with major toxicology resources related to drugs, poisons, and potential environmental substances.
Resources are grouped in these areas:  Books, Journal Articles and Reports, and Internet Resources.

A few included toxicology Web resources :

• TOXMAP uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Superfund Program
  It now includes TRI (Toxic Release Inventory) data.
  Search results can now be viewed in  Google Maps and in Google Earth
• Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System (CCRIS) contains carcinogenicity Carcinogenicity and mutagenicity test results for over 8,000 chemicals.
• Material Safety Data Sheets Online links over 9,000 consumer brands to health effects from Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) provided by manufacturers and allows scientists and consumers to research products based on chemical ingredients.

Additional LibGuides have been written by librarians at both the Main and HSC campuses. LibGuides are accessible by the LibGuides link in the left column of the Carlson and Mulford home pages.
Titles include Nursing Portal, Drugs, Supplements, Herbs and Vitamins, and Citation Analysis.

The LibGuides are not meant to replace any part of the Mulford Reference Assistance services!
Please do not hesitate to contact us with your information and research needs.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) is a sample of 100 hospital emergency rooms in the United States and its territories. The actual NEISS query form is here.

Estimate may be obtained through using the following variables:

• Date (one year maximum range; e.g., how many injuries were treated in 1996)
• Product (e.g., how many bicycle injuries occurred)
• Sex (e.g., how many injuries occurred to women)
• Age (e.g., how many injuries occurred to people aged 35-55)
• Diagnosis (e.g., how many lacerations occurred)
• Disposition (e.g., how many people were admitted to the hospital)
• Locale (e.g., how many injuries occurred at a school)
• Body part (e.g., how many injuries involved the knee)

Other options at the Library-FOIA page include

• Consumer Product Related Statistics
• CPSP Publications

The UT Libraries has related LibGuides to aid in locating information, including Consumer Health and Locating Health Statistics.

However, please do not hesitate to contact Mulford Reference Assistance with your research and reference needs.

The deadline for publication submissions for the 2010 University Authors and Artists Exhibit is Friday, February 12.  We’ve had a number of submissions already, but are hoping for more.

For faculty on the Health Science Campus,  submit any publications published since February 2008 to Jolene Miller, jolene.miller@utoledo.edu.  Emailed PDF files are preferred, but hard copies are acceptable also.  If submitting more than two publications,  indicate which two are the most important, so we are sure to include them in the display.  References for the others will be included in the exhibit catalog.  Departments can send publications on behalf of faculty members also.

If a book is submitted, please indicate whether it should be returned or included in the University Archives.

Questions can be directed to Jolene, jolene.miller@utoledo.edu or 419.383.4959.

The Mulford Library will remain open its regular hours unless Lucas County declares a Level 3 Snow Emergency.