November 2020

What will this mean for me?

• Less hassle – no more remembering to renew your loans.
• More time to use your books and less pressure to meet Library deadlines.
• No more fines for books just to be returned to the shelves – fines will just be added on to late books which are in demand (requested by another Library member).

How will this work for me?

• You take your books out as normal. They will be issued for your usual loan period.
• The day before your books are due back, we will send you a ‘Renewal Update’ email, which will tell you what books are being renewed for another loan period and what books have not been possible to renew.
• If a book that you have on loan is requested by another Library member, we will send you a ‘Book in Demand’ email asking you to return it. This means you will have up to one week to finish using it, but this may be less depending on when the item was due. Don’t worry, you can always request the book again if you haven’t quite finished with it.
• Sometimes it will not be possible to renew a book even though you haven’t received a ‘Book in Demand’ email. Please see our webpages about renewals and requested items for further information.

How do I request a book which is on loan to someone else?

• Most library items that are on loan to other people may be requested which means that they should be returned within one week from when the request is made. This ensures that popular items are made available for as many people as possible.
• Standard books can be requested using the Library Catalogue.

If you are visiting one of the Healthcare Library branches for the first time and are unsure about what to expect under current circumstances, please watch one of the videos available through the Healthcare Library YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRSRfKRXldb_PCmP93Kvw6g

Here we explain what to expect, the safety measures put in place and how we can help.

Online tutorials are also available on the following topics and can be found on the Healthcare Library website: https://healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk/TrainingandSupport/OnlineTutorials/

• How to place a request
• Finding books
• Searching for articles on a topic
• Setting up a zetoc alert for current awareness
• Using ClinicalKey
• Limiting results in CINAHL

Also remember to check out the guide for your particular subject or profession as our specialist librarians have pulled together a host of useful information specific to your needs.

https://healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk/#ResourcesByProfession

Some of the remote library activities included: 

Literature Searching – an incredible 72 literature searches, totalling 124.5 hours were carried out remotely between April and the beginning of August when the libraries started to reopen. That’s a lot of searching! Library members were able to request searches online or by contacting their specialist librarian by email.   This service is always available.  

Training – database training continued remotely via Microsoft Teams initially.  This was a learning curve for library staff also! Training is still offered remotely via Teams or Zoom – contact your specialist librarian for more information or to make an appointment. 

Enquiries – enquiries from our members were being dealt with remotely also and this led to the development of the Healthcare Library Chat function.  Now when you access the website you can chat live during opening hours to a member of staff or leave a question and library staff will get back to you. 

Solving Systems/IT problems – the Healthcare Library Systems Team are always working in the background solving problems from you our members and also from the frontline library staff.  During lockdown they continued to do this remotely with efficiency and good grace – no mean feat as they are constantly working on ways to enhance the website.

New members - the library continued to register new members over lockdown & forwarded logon details to access e-resources on the site.  If any of your colleagues want to join the library online, please forward this link to them.  https://healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk/Membership/NewMemberRegistration/ or direct them to the membership section on the library website.

New books – library staff continued to order new books with an emphasis on e-books.  Members weren’t able to borrow print books during lockdown so it made sense to purchase e-books.  Not all titles are available electronically unfortunately and the cost of some e-books is eye-watering but we will continue to try and purchase e-books as our first option if feasible. 

Networking with our members – the library continued to keep in touch with our members and encourage new members to join during lockdown.  One of the methods of doing this is the production of this bulletin so we hope you enjoy catching up with what we did during lockdown & what we are doing currently to try and provide an excellent library service for HSC staff.  

Let’s hope that’s it for lockdowns BUT the Healthcare Library will continue to work hard to deliver the service you deserve both in person and remotely. 

Clinical Psychology Testimonial

I am an Assistant Psychologist working for the Northern Trust’s Antrim and Ballymena Learning Disability Team. An important part of my job is being able to deliver evidence-based assessments and interventions to our clients. This also aligns with Clinical Psychology’s ‘scientist-practitioner’ model of work, which proposes that clinicians should conduct their work according to the latest research and ideas for a particular psychological issue. The HSC Library helped me by completing literature searches in the fields of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Learning Disability and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - the results of said searches were to inform the practice of our service in relation to client care. The HSC Library completing these searches were really helpful in sourcing out material and articles in such an under-researched and niche area. It helped me to recognise what resources were out there, and pointed my literature reviews in the right direction. I would recommend this service to other clinicians – thank you Hazel!