Just How Happy ARE You?

This past spring we conducted our annual customer satisfaction survey. The only change we made in the content was the title. This year we called it the "Customer HAPPINESS Survey", a la Google who has an actual salaried person called the "Customer Happiness Manager". (We figured we couldn't go too far wrong copying Google.)

Day before yesterday someone, not a library staffer either, actually asked about the results of the above-mentioned survey. Only then did I realize I hadn't publicized them to anyone but the library staff. So for all those inquiring minds out there, here are some statistically significant findings:

• Frequency of use - Up by 13% in the frequent or relatively frequent library use category. This includes walk-in use as well as online electronic use of resources.
• Usefulness of services - This year, respondents found our provision of health information for patients and families 12.4% more useful, our classes for staff 10% more usful and our one-on one information retrieval coaching 8% more useful than they did last year. We're actually doing pretty much what we did last year, but more people are finding out about it.
• Overall satisfaction - The percentage of highly or mostly satisfied respondents increased from 46% to 68% with the Neutral/No opinion category decreasing by almost half. I was really glad about that because I feel better if people have at least some opinion about us, either good or bad. Speaking of bad: our hightly dissatisfied and mildly dissatified people are still out there and still represent 6% of all those who responded. I suspect some of those folks are just basically curmudgeonly or were just grumpy that day, but some did give us good feedback about things we need to change such as our printing set up. And it's good to know those things. That's what surveys are for.

Thanks to all who took the time to respond, and for those who didn't, you're in luck. You'll have another chance next year.

PubMed Central and You

Most people have not given a lot of thought to their relationship with PubMed Central...unless they're NIH-funded researchers, that is. What does PMC expect of you? Why is the law so confusing? Why is communication so difficult? NIH Public Access Policy expert and UCSF Librarian Marcus Banks will be at SFGH, Building 3, 5th Floor Library on August 6, 2008 between 4 and 5 p.m. to answer these and other troubling questions including tips to make sure you are in compliance with the law and completely out of jail. Marcus's talk is sponsored by UCSF's Division of Experimental Medicine.

DynaMed for All

Yes, you can now get a PDA version of DynaMed, an evidence-based point-of-care resource, on the device of your choice. Although I don't personally own a new iPhone, I understand it works beautifully on that machine, as well as on Blackberries (would that be Blackberrys?) and Smartphones. If you'd like to give it a whirl, please email me jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu to get the necessary serial number and include your SFGH or UCSF affiliation information.

Here's the scoop: http://www.ebsconewsletter.com/eletra/gow.cfm?z=dmweeklyupdate%2C282033%2Cb9mqlGw4%2C1066298%2Cbd6r91r

RSS and Why You Should Care

There seems to be a difference of opinion. RSS is either going to revolutionize the way people receive new online content OR it's way too complicated for most of them to deal with. Another possibility: it may land someplace in the middle. I'm voting for that. I'm thinking a less complicated way to receive RSS feeds will emerge in the next several years and the old-style RSS will be voted off the island. At the very least, the feed aggregator part of it will get the boot.

Until an updated model comes along, however, RSS is the absolute best way to keep on top of new online content. The University of Wisconsin's Ebling Health Sciences Library has put a lot of work into the RSS section of their web site. They've collected the URLs for an incredible number of medical journals and arranged them both by specialty and alphabetically so that you can add them to a feed reader such as Bloglines. I just love librarians, don't you? BTW, if you're interested in looking at the current tables of contents for specific journals and don't understand any of the above, please give me a call at 415-206-6639. I'm standing by the phone. Sitting actually.

Overheard at MLA

A la Leah Garchik of the San Francisco Chronicle, here are some of the more memorable sound bites from the Medical Library Association Conference held in Chicago this past week:

"JetBlue takes the suckitude out of flying." I love that word. Couldn't wait to use it in a sentence. I'm already planning how to use it again in another sentence.

Moodle will be the most important learning management system in the future.

Want to adopt a sister library in a developing country? See the International Cooperation Section 's "Tips for sister Libraries" on the MLA web site: http://www.mlanet.org/

To find out about using RFID clickers in classrooms, go to http://www.turningtechnologies.com/

The personal health record (Google Health & Microsoft's Health Vault) is one of the most significant tech trends in healthcare today.

Huge display screens help people see the big picture.

Invite your IT people to your next strategic planning session...just don't let them run the meeting.

The "Medici Effect" says innovation takes place at the intersection of professions.

Good Book: Serious Play, by Michael Flange.

The QR (quick response) code - holds 8,000 bits of information and is the next generation bar code.

Unbound Central is a platform on which libraries can perch their content for handheld devices. And 65% of all physicians own them, devices that is.

Your job is to craft great library experiences - Andrew Zolli

Our Logo

Our Logo
Originally uploaded by joygraham45

So okay, i've got it now. just took a little futzing and now i can include photos from my flickr account in my blog. Here's the official logo from our esteemed library.

JIT for Medical Literature

The JIT or Just-In-Time concept is a major tenet of supply chain economics that’s been around for a while. Here’s how it goes: don’t order it, pay for it, or warehouse it before you really need it. Have on hand only what you need to make and ship what is currently on order. Computer technology has made it possible for businesses to put this theory into practice and save bundles of money in the bargain.

I’m thinking about how the JIT concept can be applied to the medical literature, as a response to or perhaps defense against the infamous information glut. BTW, I’m not advocating that you apply this theory to your leisure reading, everyone should feel free to range far and wide in that field. But in regards to your professional reading, the idea would be to read only what you need to on the topics that are of immediate concern to your current clinical, research, or academic interests.

PubMed and many other databases allow you to do just that in a jiffy. You do a nice, precise search in a specific area of interest and then save it. The technology will alert you by e-mail when anything new is published that meets those search parameters. When the topic is no longer of interest, you cancel the search alert without a second thought. You can also set up journal alerts and receive the table of contents of your favorite journals every time new issues are published.

The same thing can also be accomplished using RSS technology, which notifies you when your favorite web sites are updated. The orange RSS icon on a web site indicates that RSS is available, and you can set up an RSS feed using a free service such as Bloglines . Please call me (415-206-6639) if you’d like more information on that. I’ll give you just enough information to get started. Not more. I promise.