The UB Libraries now subscribes to EBSCO’s PsycTESTS. Find and bookmark it HERE

PsycTESTS® is a research database that provides access to psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys, and other assessments as well as descriptive information about the test and its development and administration. It is published by the American Psychological Association (APA), and is intended to serve as a repository for the full text of unpublished tests and measures.  APA notes it was created in response to requests for help in finding useful measures.

For detailed information about this resource from the APA folks themselves, visit this site.

There are several dental questionnaires and surveys available in this new resource, so check it out! To search by subject, select indexes in the upper left corner, and choose subject from the “browse an index” menu.

….a horse, right? That’s how that saying goes? But what if it’s not a horse, but a zebra?

Image from http://gardenofeaden.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-is-difference-between-zebra-and.html

The reason we’re discussing all things equine is because of this interesting free resource that I came across on a medical librarian’s blog today, FindZebra. While you might think this is your connection to horse heaven, it’s really “a specialised search engine supporting medical professionals in diagnosing difficult patient cases”. This search engine is designed with rare disease diagnostic hypotheses in mind, and is a place for medical professionals to start when considering other possibilities when the norm has been ruled out – aka, when it’s not a horse you hear, but truly a zebra. Simply enter a symptom, and FindZebra will list the possible rare conditions which may be the cause of the symptom.  FindZebra pulls information from public internet resources as well as publicly available articles, so use your judgement when using this source.  Learn more about FindZebra here.

If you have the time, take a look and let me know what you think – I’m very interested to hear what the dental community thinks about this resource.

T minus seven days until Stress Relief Week is back at the UB Libraries! Take some time to recharge and reenergize with therapy dogs, chair massages and reiki, snacks and coffee that will be available for free(!!!) May 1st through 3rd from 11a to 3p in room B15 of HSL. Don’t you already feel relaxed from reading this? Hope to see you there!

Have you heard of ResearchGate? ResearchGate is a relatively new social networking site where individuals can go to connect with others in their professional field, fostering collaborative relationships across the world (think Facebook for researchers and academics).  It is completely free to sign up and create an account.  Once you’ve created your account, you can set up your user profile which lists your work and interests, and also choose which topics you would like to follow.  ResearchGate has forums where individuals can pose questions to the community, and these forums are sorted by topic/interest, allowing others with similar interests and expertise to join the conversation.  Many researchers will also post citations to their publications, and if they hold the copyright to their publications, PDFs of their articles may be included.  ResearchGate definitely presents great opportunity to find and contact other researchers in your field across the globe as there’s quite a bit of dentists and dental researchers already present on the network.

If you are interested in creating an account, there is one thing to keep in mind – avoid placing PDFs of your published works on the site unless you personally hold the copyright, or have negotiated with your publisher the ability to include reprints of your work on sites like these.  While it’s fantastic to make research available and easily accessible, it is also important to avoid breaking copyright law.  The UB Law Library has a lovely copyright guide that will answer some basic questions about copyright, and the UB Libraries Scholar Communication blog also has some very helpful information about copyright as well.

The Robert L. Brown History of Medicine Collection, located on the lower level of the Health Sciences Library, has a new episode of the Curiosity Cabinet available! Each episode features an instrument from the Edgar McGuire Historical Instrument Collection and gives hints as to what the instrument is – the first person to guess correctly wins a pack of beautiful botanical note cards. Take a look at the video, and send your guess to Linda Lohr. Good luck!

The UB Libraries are conducting a survey to find out what our users currently use or would like to use as far as citation management programs. This includes EndNote, Zotero, RefWorks, and many other options. Take a minute to take the survey here. Thanks for taking the time to take the survey – we really appreciate it!

Earlier this week, the Health Sciences Library purchased Springer Protocols, the world’s largest collection of reproducible laboratory protocols in the Life and Biomedical Sciences. There are over 31,000 protocols within the database, and more are added every day. It is possible to browse by topic as well as search by keyword, author, and original source of publication. While dentistry is not a browsable topic, many of the topics relate to dentistry – take a look! If you have any questions in regards to this new resource, please let me know.

If you haven’t had a chance to use ClinicalKey yet, here’s another reason why you should check it out: ClinicalKey is continually updated, adding access to new journal and ebook subscriptions to provide the most up to date information available. In fact, quite a few dental journals were just added to the database, including the Journal of Evidence-Based Dentistry. The fourth edition of Fonseca’s Oral and Maxillofacial Trauma was also recently added as well. Remember, if you want to download or print parts of an eBook, you have to create a free account within ClinicalKey (which takes about 5 seconds, I promise!). Take a minute to check it out – ClinicalKey can be found in our list of databases, or can be accessed through HUBNET.

Since we currently have Harry Potter’s World here on display at HSL, it feels right having another Harry Potter related post. Plagiarism can be a very confusing topic, but this wonderful infographic via Kate Hart breaks it down nice and neatly for us Muggles. With the wave of HP’s wand, plagiarism (and how to avoid it) will become clear. Confundus charms will no longer work on you – at least, when it comes to plagiarism.

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Good news – the trial for the Alexander St. Press Dental Education in Video has been extended until April 30th. If you haven’t had a chance to take a look at the many videos available, you now have another six weeks to check them out. To access the trial, click here, or you can access it from the Free Database Trials page. To access the collection, you must be on campus – trials to databases cannot be accessed remotely. Please take a look at the collection, and email me with your comments!