Karen Fischer
Karen Fischer joined Hardin Library on March 1st as Information Resources Librarian. She is involved in building and managing the library’s print and electronic collections.
Karen comes to us from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library, where she was Librarian and Visiting Assistant Professor of Library Administration for Collections, Acquisitions, and Electronic Resources. Prior to her work at the University of Illinois, she worked in the Acquisitions Department of the University of Georgia Libraries in Athens, Georgia.
Karen has a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science (MLIS) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor’s degree (BA) in English from Kalamazoo College. She also studied at L’Universite de Strasbourg in France.
We are very pleased to have Karen working with us and our collections!
Kim Bloedel
Kim Bloedel began her position as Reference and Education Librarian at the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences on March 10, 2004. She enjoys teaching classes and helping faculty, staff and students at the reference desk.
Most recently, Kim worked as a librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Health Sciences Libraries, where she developed and taught classes for health professionals, students and consumers; developed web pathfinders and subject guides; and provided in-person, email and virtual reference services. Prior to becoming a librarian, she was a health unit coordinator and patient services coordinator in the mental health nursing unit at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
Kim holds an MA in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
We are happy to have Kim join the staff of the Hardin Library and the University Libraries.
Jay Woodson
We welcome Jay Woodson to Interlibrary Loan. Jay comes to us from the Main Library Preservation Department where he worked for the last 6 years. Jay’s job in ILL is to check in and process photocopies & loans received for University staff and students. Some of Jay’s interests include camping, photography and volunteering with an animal rescue group.
Welcome Jay!
After a year in development, the Iowa Public Health Information website, www.iowapublichealth.org, was released to the public on March 1, 2004. There were news releases and stories about IPHI published in the local, state and national media.The public health community responded with enthusiasm. One public health professional emailed “How can I and public health ever thank you, CDC, and your amazing staff for development of Iowa Public Health website? I have only begun to examine it, but find your code references comprehensive beyond my wildest expectations. I found the site to be fast, easy to use and almost overwhelming in information. Thank you for building a site to serve public health in Iowa with the highest quality information. You have set a model for the United States and the world.”
The next phase of the project involves training Iowa public health professionals in their home offices across the state. Training has been scheduled for the months of May and June and will cover using IPHI, the National Library of Medicine resources and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. If any University of Iowa faculty group would like a presentation on IPHI, please contact the Hardin Library at 335-9871.
This project has helped Hardin Library strengthen its connection with the public health community in Iowa. To maintain goodwill and trust, the Hardin Library has committed to maintaining and developing this resource as long as it is needed. Hardin Library is also releasing the database structure and documentation to any library staff that wants to create a similar resource in their home state.
This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. NO1-LM-3513.
We are happy to report that the New England Journal of Medicine is now available in PDF format directly from the publisher. On January 1, they initiated site licensing allowing libraries/institutions to provide access to unlimited simultaneous users from the institution. Based on the use of NEJM through Ovid, we know this will be a big improvement. The only downside is that they do not allow access from workstations that are not on campus. To access NEJM from off campus, you will still need to go through Ovid. Both titles are accessible from the Hardin Library (http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/ej) and the University Libraries e-journal listings (http://infolink.lib.uiowa.edu/e-journals/).
Online access to Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) is now available!
PLoS Medicine is now accepting submissions for the first issue to be launched in the Fall 2004! This new open-access journal will publish significant advances in all medical disciplines, including epidemiology and public health. The studies will be selected by teams of academic and professional editors who are supported by expert peer-reviewers.
PLoS is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians and everything they publish is available at no cost to users on their web site and in PubMed Central. Readers may read, download, redistribute and use the articles for free, provided they properly attribute the article to its original authors. In order to make the information free to users, PLoS’ business model is based on a publication charge of $1500, paid by the author or research sponsor (currently authors often pay commercial publishers for page or color charges). Importantly, authors retain all copyright to their published work.
Why does the world need another medical journal? The Public Library of Science web site explains: “Because there is no top-tier open-access forum for disseminating the peer-reviewed results of medical research across the full spectrum of disciplines. In addition to the compelling idea that work substantially funded with public money should be available to the public, the movement for open access is predicated on the notion that the practice and progress of medicine is more efficient when the medical literature is freely available online in centralized, searchable archives, immediately upon publication.” You can read more about why PLoS became a publisher in the editorial of volume 1, issue 1 of PLoS Biology , which was successfully launched in October 2003.
Visit the
Public Library of Science web site at http://www.plos.org
and consider contributing to the changing model of scientific publishing by submitting your best work to PLoS Medicine at http://www.plosmedicine.org/
Early next month, work will begin on an ambitious refurbishing project that will give a much needed face-lift to the third floor public service area of the Hardin Library. The project will include new carpeting throughout and a newly designed service desk that will provide a unified location for circulation, reserve, and reference. Visitors to the library will enjoy new study tables in front of the picture windows overlooking the pedestrian mall. In addition, the old-fashioned turnstile gates will also be replaced with a state-of-the art security system. The new arrangement will present a much more “open” setting for our users and will make optimum use of outside lighting and new furnishings for a pleasant and comfortable atmosphere.
The project also provides for new and more spacious quarters for our Interlibrary Loan Department which will be located adjacent to the Administrative Offices and closer to the rest of the staff areas. Our users will also notice a decrease in noise since the reshelving area will be moved from its present location near the study tables to a room behind the service desk.
The work is scheduled for completion before the beginning of fall classes so the considerable construction disruption will take place during the summer months. During this time we will make every effort to keep our all services going with smiles on our faces. Financial support for the project is coming from the Hardin Library Development Fund and the University Libraries.
“The Most Ingenious Book that I Ever Read in My Life” – Samuel Pepys
Robert Hooke (1635-1703). Micrographia: or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. London: J. Martyn and J. Allestry, 1665.
In 1665, Robert Hooke completed one of the most remarkable books of the last four centuries: a collection of drawings and descriptions of everyday objects as viewed through the lenses of a compound microscope. Hooke was curator of experiments for the newly formed Royal Society of London whose membership included the likes of Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, and Thomas Willis; the book was published under the aegis of the Society.
Although Micrographia was not the first work to include microscopic illustrations, it was the first to provide them in quantity and rendered in such meticulous fashion. So accurate were the drawings that a few of them continued to be reprinted in textbooks for the next 200 years! The exquisite copper-plate engravings along with Hooke’s fascinating commentary made the book an instant best-seller among Europe’s intelligentsia. On January 21st, Samuel Pepys, himself an early member of the Royal Soceity, made the following entry in his diary: “Before I went to bed I sat up till two o’clock in my chamber reading of Mr. Hooke’s Microscopicall Observations, the most ingenious book that ever I read in my life.”
Micrographia was one of a myriad of accomplishments wrought by Robert Hooke who distinguished himself in physics, medicine, architecture, chemistry, and oceanography. With the possible exception of Isaac Newton, he was the greatest scientist of the 17th century.
