Who's Using the Scientific Library?
Written by Vaurice Starks, Program Director of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program at the National Cancer Institute
Recently, I needed an efficient way to store, organize and manage references for a literature review, so I reached out to the NCI at Frederick Scientific Library for assistance with EndNote. The Library helped me with EndNote training and provided a useful Tips and Tricks handout for the Endnote software tool. As a result of my visit, I learned the best way to keep track of citations during the writing process, how best to remove duplicate citations, and how to share references with other EndNote users, and more. The EndNote training provided a reference management tool that will allow me to tackle future scientific reviews.
Earlier, I needed assistance with Excel, and I went to the NCI at Frederick Scientific Library at Ft. Detrick. The library staff member was able to assist me with the best way of translating data to reveal specific frequency patterns. I had a basic knowledge of Excel, but I lacked the ability to create the best visual format for the data to be presented on a complicated scale. The training provided a way to turn the breadth of my raw data into an effective way to convey frequency trends and patterns. The chance meeting of the library staff member resulted in reconnecting with a colleague I had worked with years prior when I was at the Intramural NCI Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology (LCMB), Bethesda, MD. I was at LCMB, and Mr. Doss worked on base at a Ft. Detrick research lab. We never met in person, but we communicated by phone. Mr. Doss was my contact when I needed customized polyclonal antibodies synthesized. Ultimately, my visit to the library ended up being more than a one-stop shop for Excel nuts and bolts but it also provided an opportunity for former workplace colleagues to re-connect. It is a small world….
Library Instruction
LIBRARY ORIENTATIONS
Library Orientation sessions are held monthly via WebEx on Thursdays from 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. The dates of upcoming sessions are April 9, May 14 and June 11. We invite all employees to attend these sessions to learn about the many services and resources offered by the Library. Registration is not required.
If you are not able to make it to our scheduled webinars, our librarians can work with your schedule to provide one-on-one training at your convenience via WebEx or Skype. For questions, or if you have a suggestion for a class offering, please contact us with your thoughts.
RESOURCE OF THE MONTH WEBINARS
Each month the Library will feature a different resource and offering a 30-minute webinar to provide more information. Watch for announcements about the resources highlighted in 2020 or contact the Library for more information:
APRIL – METADRUG
MetaDrug is a web tool that can predict possible therapeutic activities, metabolites, toxicities, and more for novel compounds. Attend this brief webinar to learn more about this unique resource.
Thursday, April 16, 3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
MAY – JOURNAL OF VISUALIZED EXPERIMENTS (JoVE)
JoVE is a video methods journal that publishes experimental techniques in a visual format with detailed text protocols. It also helps to learn scientific fundamentals through a library of video demonstrations.
Thursday, May 21, 3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
JUNE – bioRXiv
bioRxiv allows you to access reports of the latest scientific research months before they are officially published in the scientific literature. Join this 30-minute webinar to learn more about this helpful resource developed by the people at Cold Spring Harbor Press.
Thursday, June 18, 3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
NOTE: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all Library Instruction during Spring 2020 will be given via WebEx webinars.
RESOURCE TRAINING
The Library’s instruction team is pleased to announce that the Spring 2020 Resource Training Schedule is available on the Library’s Orientations and Classes website. Class dates and descriptions are also listed on the Events Calendar.
Registration announcements & WebEx meeting links will be sent on the NCIF community listservs. Several new webinars have been added to the schedule, and we are also pleased to announce an annual webinar on CLINICALTRIALS.GOV: SEARCHING FOR CLINICAL STUDIES on Wednesday, May 20 at 2:00 p.m. and a second webinar on TOOLS TO STAY CURRENT IN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH on Thursday, June 25 at 11:00 a.m.
RESOURCES FOR FINDING AND MANAGING RESEARCH DATA (NEW!)
Tuesday, April 7, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
ENDNOTE ADVANCED: WORKING WITH YOUR LIBRARY (NEW!)
Tuesday, April 21, 3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
ENDNOTE ADVANCED: EDITING OUTPUT STYLES (NEW!)
Monday, April 27, 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
TOOLS TO LOCATE AND ANALYZE PATENTS (NEW!)
Monday, May 4, 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
CLINICALTRIALS.GOV: SEARCHING FOR CLINICAL STUDIES
Wednesday, May 20, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
TOOLS TO STAY CURRENT IN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH
Thursday, June 25, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00pm.
Featured Items
Podcasts can be a great way to stay current on developments in science (or many other topics) while you commute, exercise, or go through your other daily activities. The following are three podcasts you might try:
- Speaking of Science is a monthly podcast from the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP). It features conversations with biomedical scientists and clinicians from across NIH institutes and centers.
- The Scientist Speaks is a podcast produced monthly by The Scientist’s Creative Services Team “by scientists and for scientists.” It shares stories behind molecular biology research in the news.
- Many journals and publishers offer podcasts, for example, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
DVDs, Print, and Online Learning Resources from the Scientific Library
The Scientific Library offers learning resources in a variety of formats, including DVDs, print, and online tools for learning about new scientific topics. Learning resources include:
- DVDs: The Scientific Library has over 440 items in our audiovisual collection, including DVDs on visual histology, visualizing cell processes, plant medicines, and more.
- Textbooks: Find textbooks, manuals, and more in print or electronic format through our Online Catalog, E-Book Search, and through OneSearch.
- JoVE: JoVE is a video methods journal covering 13 scientific topics. JoVE also offers JoVE Science Education Database, which hosts videos on laboratory fundamentals using easy-to-understand video demonstrations. See all sections of JoVE Journal and Science Education Database that NIH/NCI at Frederick has access to at the JoVE Access page.
- Curated Resource Lists and Customized Trainings by Librarians: Email Library staff at NCIFredLibrary@mail.nih.gov to request customized lists of learning resources (print or electronic books and articles, DVDs and webinars, podcasts, and more) on specific topics. Also request customized trainings for yourself or a group on a wide variety of topics, such as online resources for literature reviews, tips for using PubMed, overview of Web of Science and other databases available through NIH/NCI at Frederick, patent search tools, use of EndNote for citation management, and more.
The Scientific Library offers thousands of online books and journals for your use on-site or off-site via login. Email the Scientific Library at NCIFredLibrary@mail.nih.gov or call us at 301-846-1093 if you need any assistance with finding or accessing print, audiovisual, or online learning resources. We are always here to help!
Join Us for A Special Online Challenge for National Library Week!
Keep an eye out for emails and announcements on the Scientific Library home
page for a special online scavenger hunt for Library resources and services to celebrate National Library Week (April 19-25). Participants will learn about databases, full-text access options, and services available through the Scientific Library, with the possibility of winning a prize by completing various scavenger hunt challenges. Find new, useful places on the Scientific Library website during National Library Week!
New at the Library: Pop-Up Library and Book Displays
Drop by the Scientific Library in Building 549 to get a free book from the new Pop-Up Library or to explore the new book displays in our Computer Resources Area.
The Pop-Up Library is located outside of the Library entrance, beneath the television monitor. Visitors can pick up free books from the Pop-Up Library cart, leave a book, and take handouts and brochures to learn about Library services and resources. The Pop-Up Library will also make an appearance at the Scientific Library booth at the Farmer’s Market on the first and third Tuesday of each month until the end of October.
Also come inside the Library to explore the new book displays in our Computer Resources Area, where you can find books about:
- Anatomy and physiology for humans and animals.
- Textbooks on a variety of subjects.
- Data mining and analysis.
- Learning computing languages, including R and Python.
You can browse the books in each display and find more print and electronic books on each topic through our Library Catalog and OneSearch. If you have a topic that you would like to see featured as a book display, please let us know!
Book Recommendations
The following books were recommended to the Scientific Library for its collection and are available with unlimited electronic access:
- Failure: Why Science Is So Successful
by Stuart Firestein
Oxford University Press, c2016
According to a review in Nature (Kiser, B. 2015;527(7576):37), this book is “a close examination of how repeated failure refines problems, clarifying the way forward — a challenge that in turn sparks the courage and clarity of mind needed for incisive investigation.”
- Stop Working & Start Thinking: A Guide to Becoming a Scientist, Second edition
by Jack Cohen & Graham Medley with an introduction by Ian Stewart
Taylor & Francis Group, c2005
A review of this book from the International Journal of Science Education (van Rens, L. 2006;28(15):1905-8) says the authors “are attempting to wrest the influence on the design of experiments away from statisticians and back to biologists.”
Please contact the Library if there are any books you have read that you want to recommend to the Library or your colleagues.
Mysterious Notes on The Medical Life of Shakespeare
Last fall, the Library decided to highlight “Medical Mysteries” as a topic in a new display. One of the titles that was chosen was Shakespeare’s Tremors and Orwell’s Cough: The Medical Lives of Famous Writers by John J. Ross. 
To our surprise, when preparing the book for display, the Library staff found several handwritten notes written by a previous patron and carefully tucked in the chapter about William Shakespeare. The self-proclaimed “Shakespeare Scholar” expresses their concern about the author’s integrity in defining Shakespeare’s possible maladies. In most of the notes, the reviewer encourages the reader to do more research of their own, including reading specific plays and most of the sonnets written by Shakespeare himself, in order to draw their own conclusion. The mystery reviewer often chastises the book author for his conjecture without his consideration of the cultural nuances of Elizabethan England.
In any case, the Library staff found the notes to be a pleasant curiosity. We have encouraged patrons who would like to review a book in our collection to send us an email, so that we can include those reviews in our upcoming newsletters. Alas, whether it is “to be or not to be: that is the question.”