The Hardin Library Advisory Committee is very important to the Library, since its members provide advice and input to the Library on significant issues. The members also act as advocates for Hardin and liaisons to the Health Sciences Colleges, the University Hospitals and Departments they represent. This year, the Hardin Library Advisory Committee members will focus on providing input into an important library remodeling plan that will help shape the Library for many years to come. Please check the membership list to find your representatives on the Library Committee. The Library has not yet appointed student representatives to the committee, but will do so in the near future.
If you have concerns about the Hardin Library or suggestions for improvements, please contact your representative or the library director, Jean Sayre at jean-sayre@uiowa.edu.
Click here for Hardin Library Advisory Committee members
New Public Address System Installed
If your study or research habits cause you to be around when the library closes, you may be hearing voices. For the first time in its 29-year history, the Hardin Library has a public address system. Installation was completed just in time for the beginning of Spring classes. The P.A. System will permit us to close the library in a fashion less disruptive to users and more efficient for staff. It will also allow for announcements regarding weather alerts and other urgencies. The library staff has no plans to use the public address system for routine messaging but will employ it for medical emergencies. The P.A. system was installed by Tri-City Electric with help from the Hardin staff and UI Facilities Services Group.
We’re Brighter Now!
The library is lightening up (well, lighting up) thanks to the installation of higher wattage spotlights and the relighting of some of the fluorescent bulbs that were turned off years ago during a previous energy crisis. You may already notice an increase in the candlepower over the stacks and study areas on the third (main) floor. Other floors are being evaluated and the wattage increased as necessary. If there are particular areas of the library that you feel need additional lighting, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our goal is to make the library as conducive to study and research as possible.
Access to journals produced by the following publishers has become available in the last few weeks. These titles have been added to the Hardin e-journal listing at: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/ej. Access is available from computers both on and off-campus as long as they are accessed through our e-journal listing.
These high-ranked titles include:
American Society for Microbiology
This family of titles includes:
While access for older issues of these titles has been available for quite some time, UI faculty, staff and students now also have access to the current issues as well.
Academic Press titles for which UI, ISU, or UNI have print subscriptions is now available as part of our Elsevier ScienceDirect offerings. Over 100 titles have been added as part of this additional consortial agreement amongst the 3 Regent’s institutions, including the heavily requested Journal of Molecular Biology.
As many you are aware, in late December the University Libraries learned that Faxon/RoweCom, one of the subscription agents it uses, was experiencing extreme financial difficulties. As a result, the 2000 Libraries’ subscriptions managed by Faxo/RoweCom fell under the risk of disruption starting with the January 2003 issues. 400 of the affected subscriptions are Hardin Library journal titles and comprise 16% of Hardin’s total serials subscriptions. These are listed on our web site at: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/faxon.html
Last week we were informed that Faxon/RoweCom filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and began negotiations with another subscription agent, EBSCO Industries Inc. Based on a February 7th news release, it now appears that EBSCO will acquire Faxon/RoweCom’s subscription base and make all efforts to minimize the disruption of these subscriptions. Final documentation on this is expected in two weeks.
This situation has affected many academic, government, and corporate libraries across the United States and Canada, including the libraries at NIH, several Illinois state university libraries, and 3M, as well as 19 other libraries in Iowa.
Touching for the King’s Evil
Andre Du Laurens (1558-1609). Des mirabili strumas sanandi vi solis Galliae regibus christianissimis divinitus concessa liber unus. Paris: Apud Marcum Orry, 1609. [xv] 307 (misnumbered 293), [18] pp., fold. Plate. 17.5 Limp vellum.
![Andre Du Laurens (1558-1609). Des mirabili strumas sanandi vi solis Galliae regibus christianissimis divinitus concessa liber unus. Paris: Apud Marcum Orry, 1609. [xv] 307 (misnumbered 293), [18] pp., fold. Plate. 17.5 Limp vellum.](http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/files/2007/04/scrofulasm.jpg)
During the Middle Ages, tuberculosis of the lymph glands of the neck was very common and was known variously as scrofula, struma, and the “King’s Evil.” For centuries it was believed that the “royal touch” could cure this disease and many English and French monarchs were in the habit of touching their afflicted subjects during major religious holidays. Andre Du Laurens, an anatomist and Paris court physician, was a firm believer in the effectiveness of the “royal touch” and in this work, reports that King Henry IV often touched and healed as many as 1,500 individuals at a time. The work contains a magnificent folding copperplate engraving (displayed here) showing the King touching a number of sufferers who are gathered about him in a circle. The University of Iowa copy has an interesting provenance and can be traced back to Jean Auguste de Thou, its original owner, who died in 1617. [description from Heirs of Hippocrates].
For more information about the John Martin Rare Book Room please visit the Web site at http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/rbr/ or contact Ed Holtum, Assistant Director for Administrative Services and Special Collections, at 335-9154 or edwin-holtum@uiowa.edu.
Take a class at the Library! Learn how to search MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Science Citation Index, Biological Abstracts, Health and Psychosocial Instruments and more using Ovid-Online, PubMed, and Web of Science. Explore Evidence-Based Medicine with the Cochrane Database, ACP Journal Club, and MEDLINE filters. Organize your citations and link them to your papers with EndNote 6. Classes are 90 to 120 minutes in the Information Commons, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences.
Register at http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/registration/ or contact Denise Britigan, Reference and Education Librarian at 319/335-7636 or denise-britigan@uiowa.edu.
Do you want to see who is citing your research or how research is progressing based on an earlier study? Do you need to know the "impact factor" for a particular journal?
Then you need to search Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports available through the ISI Web of Knowledge.
Web of Science, which combines the print volumes of Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index allows you to look for articles that cite a known author or a specific paper. If you have written an article, you can search to see if it has been cited in other works. Coverage goes back to 1979. Print volumes for earlier years of Science Citation Index are available at the Hardin Library.
For more information about Web of Science see Hardin Library’s handout at: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/webofscience.html
Journal Citation Reports can show you the highest impact journals, most frequently used journals, the "hottest" and largest journals.
ISI Customer Support provides a variety of instructional materials on both Journal Citation Reports and Web of Science: http://www.isinet.com/isi/support/index.html
The next Web of Science workshop will be held on April 9, 2003.
Only a small percentage of web sites can claim a million visitors per month, and Hardin MD is one of them. This milestone was reached recently when the Hardin Meta Directory of Internet Health Sources registered 1.1 million visits for January 2003, a 450% increase from July 2002 when the web site received 244,372 visits.
During the past year, Hardin MD has steadily grown from its roots as a "directory of directories." By focusing on strategic creation of "hot-topic" subject pages and "just plain links" pages, web site founder and librarian Eric Rumsey has tapped into one of the most active information-seeking streams on the Internet. The result has been a remarkable public service for consumers and health professionals seeking the most relevant web links on a myriad of subjects, from arthritis to yeast infection.
Hardin MD draws more traffic than any other web site in the University Libraries system. Rumsey has achieved high levels of visibility for the web site not only by creating new pages, but by tailoring existing pages so that they become highly ranked in Google and other popular search engines.
Hardin MD can be accessed on the web at: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/ For information about Hardin MD and its development, contact Eric Rumsey (eric-rumsey@uiowa.edu).
