The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Category: Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences

Faculty and staff news from the libraries at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences.

  • Deep Dive: JAMAevidence

    Deep Dive will give a bit more insider’s info on some of our resources. Here, Roberta Fitzpatrick gives us some more information about JAMAevidence.

    In 1990, Dr. Gordon Guyatt, Internal Medicine residency program director at McMaster University in Canada began to teach using a new method which he called “Scientific Medicine.” He felt that many clinical decisions were not necessarily rooted in scientific fact and taught his residents to make such decisions based in part on evidence found in the published literature. It eventually evolved into what is currently called Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) or Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) or Evidence-Based Health Care (EBHC), combining a clinician’s experiences, well as information about the specific patient with the best evidence from journal articles.

    JAMAevidence, an information resource new to Rutgers and found at https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/jamaevidence, is a natural extension from Gordon Guyatt’s original ideas and educational program. In order to assist health professionals in the practice of evidence-based health care, JAMAevidence provides guides to the systematic consideration of validity, importance, and applicability of problems and outcomes in health care. It consists of three textbooks, user tools, and forms useful to the critical appraisal process. Textbooks contained in JAMAevidence are:

    • Users’ Guides to the Medical Literature: A Manual for Evidence-Based Clinical Practice, 3rd ed.
    • The Rational Clinical Examination: Evidence-Based Clinical Diagnosis
    • Care at the Close of Life: Evidence and Experience

    Contents of the first two textbooks have been published as an article series in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. The User’s Guides are key to understanding the process of critically appraising an article. The Tational Clinical Exam series and subsequent textbook walks the reader through the process of conducting a physical exam of a patient.

    Tools in JAMAevidence include Education Guides, which consist of a library of PowerPoint slides useful in providing instruction on evidence-based medicine concepts; a glossary of over 900 EBM terms; calculators; and two types of worksheets, ones for critical appraisal of articles and those for charting an information cycle.

    JAMAevidnce is simple to use; a navigation bar is located at the top of each page and allows the users to review the contents through pointing and clicking. There is also a search box that allows for retrieval of searched key words. The resources is available on a monthly basis.

    Those who are interested in learning more about EBM may want to consider a review of an article titled “History of evidence-based medicine” by Roger L. Sur and Phillip Dahm from the Division of Urology, UC San Diego, published in the open-access Indian Journal of Urology, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263217/.

     

     

    Save

    Save

    Save

  • The Kopp Dataset Is Now Available in RUcore

    The Research Data Exploratory Team and members of the Software Architecture Working Group collaborated with Professor Robert Kopp and D.J. Rasmussen to ingest and provide access to an impressive collection of county-level climate change projection data that is now available in the RUcore Research Data Portal at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3SF2Z93.

    Rasmussen, Kopp, and collaborator Malte Meinshausen generated projections of future temperature, precipitation, and humidity by combining the probability of different global average temperature outcomes over the 21st century with spatially detailed projections from several state-of-the-art global climate models. The projections also include daily to multi-year weather variability, which is needed for economic models that estimate the impacts of climate change. The resulting data set is a 1.3 TB product that is freely available for use by researchers, decision makers, and climate change communicators. The need for local climate change projections is growing as decision makers are increasingly demanding estimates of the economic costs of future climate change and the value of avoiding associated damages.

    The climate projections from Rasmussen, Kopp, and Meinshausen were used in the book Economic Risks of Climate Change: an American Prospectus. This prospectus provides a climate risk assessment that estimates the economic impact of climate change on the U.S. and provides local estimates of economic risks in multiple sectors of the U.S. economy, including labor, agriculture, and energy. The complete dataset in RUcore provides open access to all data and methodology for the physical climate projections so that results can be reproduced and improved in future studies. The technical analysis in the prospectus was commissioned by the Risky Business Project. This effort was led by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Bush administration treasury secretary Hank Paulson, and former hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer. The aim of these three business leaders was to inspire risk managers in the business community to incorporate climate change related financial risks in their decision making process.

    The RUcore repository architecture provides a set of unique features that enables researchers to easily access the parts of this dataset that are most important. Each major directory, of which there are twelve, has its own Digital Object Identifier and can be individually cited. Perhaps most useful is that file and directory names are preserved and the user can walk the directory tree to select individual files and directories for download. This feature is important since downloading a complete directory in the order of 200GB will take hours. As an alert to prospective users, we provide an estimate of how long it will take to download the requested files and directories. In addition, one of the directories includes the software for processing the data, enabling users to repeat or augment the original authors’ findings. As part of the Libraries’ exploratory process, we learned a great deal about how to ingest and manage large datasets greater than 100GB. We had to revise our memory management strategies to accommodate directories with thousands of files. As part of our process, we validated the transfer of the 1.3TB dataset from the original site to the RUcore server to insure that there were no corruptions in the transfer process. All in all, we believe that this dataset and the access to it provided by Libraries will significantly contribute to the ongoing research in climate science.

    Save

    Save

  • Annual Celebrations for Staff and Faculty of Rutgers University Libraries (2017)

    The University is recognizing faculty and staff who are celebrating a decade increment of employment at Rutgers. We are delighted to announce that 14 of our colleagues were included in the festivities and hope you join us in congratulating them on these accomplishments:

    10 Joseph Abraham (NBL)

    Martha Barnett (Shared User Svs)

    Abigail DiPaolo (Admin Svc.)

    Jie Geng (TAS)

    James Hartstein (NBL)

    Robert Vietrogoski (Smith)

     
    20 Roman Frackowski (TAS)

    Stephen Modica (Smith)

     
    30 Tracey Meyer (TAS)

    Nita Mukherjee (NBL)

    Robin Pastorio-Newman (TAS)

    Jeffrey Teichmann (NBL)

    Drue Williamson (NBL)

     
    40 Dianne Hamlette (RBHS)

     

    Save

    Save

  • Rutgers Day in Photos

    Rutgers Day this year was a huge success thanks to the efforts of all the local committees. Each location put their own spin on the day’s events as you can see in the photos below. Whether they were strutting the red carpet in Camden, fishing for health with RBHS, learning about WWI with New Brunswick, building robots in Piscataway, or discovering jazz in Newark, our visitors were treated to spectacle, activities, and fun!

    Thank you to all the committee chairs and members who made this awesome day possible in five locations across four cities! This is one of the biggest events in which the Libraries participate and it requires a lot of hands on deck. If you didn’t participate this year, please consider volunteering to help out next time.

    If you like the photos here, there are more on our photo server (T:\CENTRAL\PHOTOS AND MEDIA\Event Photos\Rutgers Day\Rutgers Day 2017\).

    • The Voorhees Mall location highlighted the WWI Centennial and the new SCUA exhibit.

     

  • Rutgers Connect Tips and Tricks

    How to create a calendar appointment from an email message

     

    With so many events publicized via distribution lists like RUL_Everyone and other University-wide lists, it may be difficult to keep track of meetings, webinars, training sessions, speakers, and other events you might wish to attend.  The best way to make sure you do not miss these opportunities is to add them as appointments on your Rutgers Connect calendar.

    It is very easy to create an appointment on your Rutgers Connect (OWA or Outlook) calendar without having to retype the details from the email message. We have prepared step-by-step instructions to show you how.

    If you have questions, or need assistance with Rutgers Connect, please contact IIS via email at support@rulhelp.rutgers.edu, or by phone at 848-445-5896, option 7.

     

    Tracey Meyer, Information Specialist, Integrated Information Systems

  • The Results of Our Budget Request for FY2018

    The Results of Our Budget Request for FY2018

    In recent months, we have spent a lot of time talking about organizational changes and the advantages of breaking down silos. This month, I want to discuss a shining example of what we accomplish when we work together—the outcome of our FY2018 budget request.

    As noted in the meeting minutes for cabinet on April 11, we recently received our FY18 permanent budget allocation and there is a lot of good news to share. Overall our budget is increasing, even if the increases are small. There are, of course, also some disappointments, so let’s delve into the specifics.

    Let’s start with the very good news: we received a commitment of $500,000 to purchase Elsevier backfiles. This is a major collections purchase—possibly the largest in the Libraries’ history—and it required a lot of effort from Tao Yang, Gracemary Smulewitz, Abbey DiPaolo, and others to make it happen. Having these backfiles will dramatically expand our support for the university’s academic programs and bring us in line with our Big Ten peers.

    Each year, at minimum we ask for two budget items: funds to cover inflation for subscriptions to journals and databases and funding to cover negotiated salary increases. These items are areas where we have annual contractual increases in expenses. When our expenses increase in these areas and our budget does not, we must find other places to cut. The difficult problem is that both the contractual salary increases and inflation are ongoing, so we have to cut an ongoing expense. Here, we got a mixed response.

    We finally received funding for inflation. This is good news for us and even better news for our faculty and students. As you know, the costs of journal and database subscriptions go up each year, but in previous years, we have had to accommodate these increases within our existing budget. With inflation costs covered, we won’t have to have to cut existing subscriptions in order to cover the higher ongoing costs. We have new ongoing funding to cover the higher costs for materials.

    Unfortunately, we did not get funds to cover salary increases. This means that we will have to permanently use funding from some open positions. The total number of positions that will be affected is small with most having been open for a long time. The good news is that we remain committed to supporting salary increases for the excellent faculty and staff that we have, even if we have a small reduction in the number of employees.

    Lastly, a surprise! In addition to our requests to cover expenses, we also ask for additional funding to cover new services in the libraries. We limit these requests to items where the campus administrations have indicated support. This year we asked for funding for archives in Dana Libraries. Initially, we were disappointed to learn that our funding request was denied. However, we just received a revised budget from Rutgers University-Newark and they have decided to fund a full-time archivist and the renovations necessary to create an archive space. In addition, they are providing $100,000 to purchase new furniture for Dana Library

    This reversal is the result of the work of Consuella Askew and many of the faculty and staff in Newark in developing strong local relationships and an understanding of local needs, as well as their conscientious and creative use of earlier funds. The RU-N administration is committed to building an archive in Newark. Consuella recognized the need and was able to make a case for archives being in the library rather than in a separate unit. The resources that will come to Dana to create an archive will relieve some of the pressure that we have across the university for stewarding this important content. However, in order to benefit, all of the units with special collections must work together to create infrastructure that supports the broader system. I expect that this will be one of the priorities that come from our planning this year.

    Our initial budget request was deliberately targeted on items that would bring a demonstrable improvement or impact to our constituents. And as we continue to shift our priorities and strategies toward addressing the unique local needs of our libraries, it becomes more important than ever for us to find ways to work together to build common, reusable infrastructure that has noticeable benefits for our campuses.

     

     

  • The Numbers Are in! Rutgers Giving Day Final Report

    Back in November, we reported on the preliminary Rutgers Giving Day results and the news was good. Now the final numbers from the Rutgers Foundation are in, and we are proud to say that the news is even better!

    Our initial goal was to roughly double our number of donors from the inaugural Rutgers Giving Day and reach 50 donors this year, but we wound up seeing an outpouring of support that greatly exceeded expectations—thanks in no small part to your support.

    According to the final reports, the Libraries raised a total of $16,544.22 with gifts from 172 donors—a 647% increase in the number of donors and an 829% increase in the total amount of funds raised over the previous year. These numbers include the early give phase, the day-of-phase, and the challenge money leaderboard.

    The leaderboard was used to determine how $80,000 in challenge money would be awarded across the university ($20,000 each for Rutgers–Camden, Rutgers–Newark, Rutgers–New Brunswick, and RBHS). A unit’s standing on the leaderboard was based on the number of individual donors for that unit during the day-of phase compared to the total number of donors for its “parent institution.” So, in other words, if there were 100 gifts total to Rutgers–Camden and Robeson Library received 10 gifts, it would receive a bonus 10% of the $20,000 in challenge money, or $2,000. Here’s how the leaderboard numbers broke down:

    Unit Total distinct donors Total dollars Percentage of “parent institution” leaderboard donors Challenge money awarded (of $20,000)
    Robeson Library 9 $170.00 1.66% $331.49
    Dana Library 19 $1,433.08 2.61% $521.26
    Institute of Jazz Studies 2 $65.00 0.27% $54.87
    New Brunswick Libraries 95 $11,609.99 3.21% $641.46
    RBHS Libraries 6 $300.00 0.78% $156.05

    As you can see, we have much to be proud of. Many thanks to everyone who went out of their way to set up a donation station, make support sheets available to their patrons, or give a gift of their own to support the Libraries. Our tagline for this year’s campaign was “We can do great things together,” and you’ve all made it abundantly clear that there is real meaning behind those words. Thank you!

  • Quick Takes on Events and News — April 2017

    Rutgers University Libraries are cosponsoring two high-profile events in New Brunswick this month:

    Alice Aycock: Selected Works
    Douglass Dean’s Colloquia: Conversations

    In partnership with Jacquelyn Litt, dean of Douglass Residential College, the Libraries are delighted to welcome Rutgers alumna Alice Aycock to the Douglass Dean’s Colloquia: Conversations with Extraordinary Women on April 6, 7 – 8:30 p.m. at the Kathleen W. Ludwig Global Village Living Learning Center. RSVP here.

    Joy Reid
    “Truth and Consequences: What We Know and Why It Matters”
    Senator Wynona Lipman Chair in Women’s Political Leadership

    The Libraries are proud to partner with the Center for American Women and Politics and others to welcome Joy Reid, national correspondent and host of AM Joy on MSNBC to Rutgers University-New Brunswick on April 4 at 7 p.m. at the Douglass Student Center. RSVP is required. See website for details.

    Two WWI-themed exhibits opened last month:

    Camden, World War I & the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Robeson Library
    This exhibit relates the history of the New York Shipbuilding Corporation (or New York Ship for short), an American shipbuilding company that operated from 1899 to 1968, ultimately completing more than 500 vessels for the United States Navy, the United States Merchant Marine, the United States Coast Guard, and other maritime concerns.

    “Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken!”: New Jersey in the Great War at SCUA in Alexander Library
    This exhibit focuses on the individual experiences of these Jersey doughboys and servicewomen who bravely went “Over There,” and the families and neighbors who remained behind, “Over Here.” The exhibit includes loans of 29th “Blue and Gray” Division artifacts and souvenirs from the National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey, wartime medical supplies from the Johnson & Johnson Archives, and postcards from the Special Collections of the George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences.

    Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries – Vol 68(2) now available

    The second part of the Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries’ special issue on the 250th anniversary of Rutgers University is now available. Entitled “From the Revolutionary War to the 21st Century,” this issue completes the discussion of Rutgers’ early history begun in “The Life and Times of Henry Rutgers” and turns its focus to the present day. David Fowler contributes the second and third installations of “Benevolent Patriot: The Life and Times of Henry Rutgers,” the most comprehensive biographical investigation of the university’s namesake to date. Additional articles explore the early history of Livingston College and the history of the Rutgers University Police Department from its roots as a parking authority to its current status as a professional law enforcement agency.

     

    WWI Poetry Reading – April 18

    Mary Ann Koruth designed beautiful broadsides like this for the exhibit.

    Michael Joseph is planning a WWI poetry reading event for April 18 to complement the themes and poetry included in the “Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken!”. If you are interested in attending or participating in the event, please check in with Michael.

    Save

    Save

    Save

    Save

  • Crash Courses in bioPreprint and GrantForward

    The worlds of scholarly grants and publication are changing rapidly in response to new technology and shifts in funding. Fortunately, the Libraries have resources to help scholars meet the demands of these new landscapes. This month, Smith Library’s Roberta Fitzpatrick Bronson offers a crash course on two services that are particularly timely and useful for researchers/scholars. Follow the links below for the who/what/where/why/how of using bioPreprints and GrantForward.

    bioPreprints

    The NIH recently announced that it will now accept (and encourage) researchers to include preprints in applications for funding:

    “The NIH encourages investigators to use interim research products, such as preprints, to speed the dissemination and enhance the rigor of their work. This notice clarifies reporting instructions to allow investigators to cite their interim research products and claim them as products of NIH funding.”

    So, we may see an uptick in interest in how to use and find preprints. bioPreprints allows users to search several preprint databases and to solicit and respond to feedback from their peers. It is focused primarily on STEM areas of study.

    More from Roberta on bioPreprints.

    GrantForward

    In the coming years, it will be more important than ever for researchers to find outside sources of funding, and it is entirely likely that competition for these funding sources will grow. GrantForward can make this process quite a bit simpler for Rutgers researchers. Traditionally,  they would have to search multiple databases to find all applicable federal, state, and local grants. GrantForward offers a leg up by simplifying this process into a single comprehensive search of more than 25,000 funding opportunities. Users can set up a user profile and request that GrantForward automatically run searches and send them results, too. Read more from Roberta on how to access and use this resource.

    More from Roberta on GrantForward.

    If you have new resources to share with our colleagues, please reach out to Jessica Pellien.

    Save

  • GrantForward offers an efficient way to find funding opportunities

    GrantForward contains information on over 25,000 funding opportunities for over $50 billion. These awards are available from federal, state, and foundation funding sources. Users of GrantForward can search this database of funding opportunities in order to retrieve information on what is available and how to apply. Individuals may create personal research profiles. Automatic searches of the funding opportunities database can also be established and run on a routine basis, with the results sent to the user via e-mail. GrantForward is based on the University of Illinois IRIS service, combined with data harvesting technology.

    Instructional videos are available on the GrantForward home page that walk users through limiting search results, sorting search results, creating users profiles, and more.

    A toolbar with the following links appears at the top of the GrantForward home page: Grants, Sponsors, Researchers, and Support. Users should hover their mouse over the link of interest and click accordingly.

    Create Account

    To create a personalized user profile, follow the steps listed below. Rutgers University users are accessing an institutional subscription of this product, which allows RU users to create individual profiles. Please note: RU users need to use a rutgers.edu e-mail address with this product.

    1.  On the GrantForward home page, click on the “Sign Up” link located in the upper right corner of the page;
    2. Enter your Rutgers University e-mail address when prompted, e.g. bob.smith@rutgers.edu;
    3. Create a password;
    4. When prompted to enter account type, select “institutional;”
    5. Click on “Create” to complete the initial process;
    6. Confirm the account via the e-mail sent to your RU e-mail address.

    Find Funding Opportunities

    Search for funding opportunities by mousing over “Grants” on the toolbar and clicking on “Search Grants.” Type relevant terms in the text box, just as you would when executing a Google search. An Advanced Search feature is available which can assist users with limiting results that appear to be too broad. User can choose from the following: any words (same as what is typed in to the text box), exact phrase, all of the words (functions like a Boolean AND – requires that all words appear, regardless or word order), and none of the words. Search filters are also available and appear on the left side of the page. They include:

    1.  Sponsor – type in terms or choose from the alphabetic list provided;
    2. Academic Category – type in terms or choose categories and subcategories from the alphabetic list;
    3. Status – Open. Continuous, or Closed. The system default is set for the first two options;
    4. Sponsor Type – Includes federal, state, or foundation; users may select any/all of the types available;
    5. Grant Type – Filter by types listed, including awards/prizes, fellowships, conference, travel, and more;
    6. Applicant Type – allows users to filter results by awards intended for specific categories of applicant.

    Users can scroll down to view search results. Each funding opportunity has four tabs: Amount, Submission Dates, Eligibility, and Submission Information. To view more detailed information about an available funding opportunity, users can click on the title. Buttons that link to application forms are also available.

    It is possible to sort and export search results. In addition, search strategies may be saved and executed in the database at specified intervals, with the results sent via e-mail.

    Research Profiles

    More about personalized researcher profiles are found under the “Researcher” link on the toolbar. Users will enter basic information (name, institution, department, etc.) in an area for basic information. They can also designate research interests and upload their CV or link to a web page containing lists of their publications.

    Learn More

    Instructional videos are available at the bottom of the home page and provide basic information on how to create a profile or execute a search.

    Save

    Save