The Library is very pleased to announce that the UpToDate clinical decision support system at www.utdol.com is now accessible throughout all University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Jackson Health System facilities. These facilities include Jackson South Community Hospital, the primary care clinics in Miami-Dade county, and the Schmidt Biomedical Science Center at FAU. However, remote access from all off-site locations is excluded due to its prohibitive costs.

Frequent requests from patrons during the past three years attest to the popularity of UpToDate. A UMMSM/JMH trial during 2004 documented its popularity, its overall effectiveness and its usefulness in reducing medical errors (4.8 on a scale of 1-5).

With comprehensive, current, illustrated and fully referenced information on more than 6,000 clinical topics, UpToDate is perhaps the most complete and respected source of synthesized information in internal medicine and its subspecialties, family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and pediatrics. Its topic reviews are written by physicians and peer-reviewed for accuracy and reliability by external reviewers.

Every four months, about 330 journals, systematic reviews, consensus statements, guidelines, and advice from authors and editors are used to update the clinical topics. The date a topic was last updated appears at the beginning of each topic.

In addition to the 6,000 clinical topics, UpToDate has:

• A comprehensive drug database through a contract with the superior Lexi-Comp files, including Lexi-Drugs Online, International, Pediatric, and Natural Products and Lexi-Interact.
  
• More than 15,000 graphics for use in presentations.
  
• Links to more than 160,000 Medline abstracts.
  
• News releases of the most important new findings in each subspecialty that are linked to implications for patient care.
  
• Patient information handouts and patient education files.

UpToDate is a preferred starting point for clinicians, house staff, nurses and students alike and second in frequency of use only to Medline in medical centers across the country. Although UpToDate has recently initiated a relationship with an evidence-based group at McMaster University, there is not yet a rigorous mechanism of critically appraising the literature to rank the information in the topic reviews by level of evidence.

As such, the quality of its evidence is on a par with textbooks that are frequently updated, such as Harrison's Online, but superior to the textbooks in MD Consult which are not. However, the quality of the evidence in UpToDate is below systematic reviews, such as those in the Cochrane Database; critically appraised topics, such as those in Clinical Evidence; and critically appraised articles, such as those in the ACP Journal Club.

back to top of page

To enable one click access by title or subject to the 120 electronic books in the health sciences currently accessible University-wide, the Library debuted a new "E-Books" link, https://www.library.miami.edu/calder/index.html/ebooksindex.html, under the "Quick Links" section of its website July 1, 2005. For the first time, patrons can click one of the 44 subjects below for a list of links to accessible books on the subject selected, or, patrons can click on the letter with which the first word of the book's title begins.

The Library's e-books continue to be accessible on the MD Consult, Books@Ovid, NCBI, and other platforms.

back to top of page

The Library mourns the death of Maurice Rich, one its most generous benefactors, on June 28, 2005. Although well known as a community founder of the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1952 and a devoted cardio-pulmonary physician, Dr. Rich was a dedicated supporter of the arts and took great pride in his role as an art agent and collector. Dr. Rich was a frequent visitor and gave many important works of art to the Library, which are on permanent display at the Library entrance and on the second floor, to both the left and right of the elevators in what is referred to as the "Rich Alcove."

back to top of page

2004/05 Calder Library Summary:

• Direct access to more than 4,500 electronic journals in the health sciences, an increase of 18% over
  the previous year.
  
• About $1,000,000 in subscription fees to support electronic access to approximately 3,000 of the 4,500 journals, for an average of $333 per journal title.
  
• Usage of health sciences journals and journal collections of more than 860,000 full text documents, an increase of 18% over 2003/04.

Blackwell Publishing New Self-Archiving Policy:
"Blackwell recognizes the importance of the Open Access debate for scholarly communications and its aim to deliver unrestricted access to academic research to all those who seek it. � This now includes allowing the author to retain the copyright of their Article while granting Blackwell exclusive rights to publish it. The author may also self-archive their final version of the Article on personal website or institutional repositories, while providing a link to the definitive published version for users to refer to."

LWW Restricts Access to AHA Journals:
Prior to May, 2005, all journals published by the American Heart Association were directly accessible by both institutional and individual subscribers on the popular HighWire Press portal at highwire.stanford.edu. Effective May, 2005, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), publisher of the AHA journals, restricted access on the HighWire portal to individual subscribers and enabled access to institutional subscribers on the Journals@Ovid platform.

As a result, institutional subscribers trying to access the journals at HighWire now receive the following erroneous message: "Your institution's online subscription to 'journal name' has EXPIRED as of 22 Apr 2005." Institutional subscribers click on the Library's A-Z list on its website at calder.med.miami.edu, enter the title of the AHA journal desired in the search box, select the LWW link for the journal, and bookmark the new link. The AHA journals are Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology; Circulation; Circulation Research; Hypertension; and Stroke.

back to top of page

Luis Calcines was promoted to Assistant Director, Circulation Department, effective June 1, 2005. Mr. Calcines has 13 years of library experience, including four successful years in the Library's Circulation Department.

Carmen Bou-Crick co-chaired the program of the Mental Health Special Interest Group on "Challenging Patrons, Challenging Questions" at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association, May 17, 2005 in San Antonio.

Tanya Feddern, together with Kathryn Ewers, educator, Jackson Health System, gave a presentation titled "Towards Creating a 'Care Enough to Know' Evidence-Based Nursing Practice Culture" at the 3rd Biennial International Conference on Nursing Best Practice Guidelines, June 2, 2005, in Toronto.

John Jones, Jr. gave a poster presentation on "Strategies for Improving PubMed Evidence-Based Medicine Retrieval" at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association, May 17, 2005, in San Antonio.

Henry L. Lemkau, Jr. was named an Honorary Member of the Southern Chapter of the Medical Library Association at its 2004 Annual Meeting, October, 2004 in Biloxi, MS.

Geddy Paulaitis was awarded the Masters Degree in Library Science by the University of South Florida.

back to top of page