August 2020

Other Healthcare Library branches will reopen in due course and Library staff continue to work remotely. In order to keep up to date with developments, please refer to our website and our social media channels as circumstances change and we progress to more routine library services.

Books on loan – We will let you know when it is possible to return any books you have on loan.   The first branch has reopened in the QUB Medical Biology Centre and you can return books there if that is convenient for you.  As other branches re-open in the coming weeks information on opening dates and hours will be posted on the Healthcare Library website.  

Book Collection Service

A book collection service is now available from the Healthcare Library at the MBC. for items located in The Healthcare Library branches on the RVH and the QUB MBC site, and in The McClay Library at Queen’s University Belfast.   At this stage it is not possible to request books from the other Healthcare Libraries, books that are currently on loan or reference only books. Books can be requested by completing the Book Collection form : http://go.qub.ac.uk/HSCBookRequest

You will need to login with your library credentials, and you will be informed by email when the items are ready to collect from The Healthcare Library at QUB Medical Biology Centre. Currently it is not possible to collect them from any other Healthcare Library branch.  

Finding e-books

Search using the title of the book, or, if you do not know the exact title you can also search by keyword.  

Limit the search to Healthcare Library Catalogue, and if necessary, limit again by the resource type:  e-book.    

Read the book online by clicking on the online access link, login with your library login details and you can read the book online.

Some e-books have limits on the number of people who can read the book simultaneously, if so, you will see the message all copies are in use come back later.  You can generally read the book within a short time. 

Please get in touch with the library if you have any problems accessing any e-book by emailing info@healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk

If you are moving to a new position, please update your membership details with the Library. This will ensure you continue to receive a seamless service especially when using the online request form.

https://healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk/Membership/ChangeofDetails/

Healthcare Library branches will reopen in due course and library staff continue to work remotely. Please don’t hesitate to get in contact by email: info@healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk if you have a query, or use the library chat facility from the website: healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk.

Although we aren't able to be there on site with you, we are working on improving the Healthcare Library search box. You'll still see a single search box but we are adding tabs so that you can choose between research articles or books, journals and databases, before you search.

We know that you are busy professionals and your precious time is not to be spent learning how to search, so we are keeping changes to a minimum and we'll be careful to keep the interface intuitive so that you can easily locate and access quality information.

More here soon!

Pharmacy testimonial

“Pharmacists’ working routinely in General Practice within Northern Ireland have become very much the norm since 2016. Our role is key to supporting GPs and Practice Teams to ensure patients receive evidence based up to date prescribing. To that end I felt it would be really useful to establish a journal club for the team I lead. Our primary goal was to meet once a month to critique a journal article and use it as an opportunity for peer review and peer supported learning. However, there was a slight problem, many of us are 10yrs beyond our university career, during that time there was no such thing as Medline and an ability to conduct a literature review online in a matter of minutes, for many of us it felt like a daunting task and one we very often put off. This is where Angela Thompson, the subject librarian stepped in; she conducted what the team have described as one of the best lunchtime training meetings organised to date, every slide had a light bulb moment and she completely demystified the resources available to us to conduct an online literature review. The information was presented to us in a user friendly, simple manner. It is wonderful to know she is available at the end of an email to sense check a search for us or help us with its formulation to ensure we get the most up to date and robust evidence. The training has served to enrich the work we all undertake on a day to day basis for our colleagues and patients.”