Biblioblast August 2024: Library News

• From the Director
• Staff News
• Resource Spotlight: PsycINFO via Ovid
• New Edition of JCR
• Request for Comments: NIH Public Access Policy
• How Cities Can Make Heat Waves Manageable
• Explore Our Graduation Exhibit
• New Books
• Classes & Events

From the Director

The library reopened on Monday, August 5 after being closed for a three-month renovation. My colleagues and I hope you will stop by to check out the new space, which features ergonomic chairs, a variety of seating options for individual study, and nine group study rooms. The renovation was a team effort. We are grateful to everyone who helped us reopen in time to welcome the class of 2028. It was a joy to watch the faces of returning students light up upon entering their new library! We were thrilled to officially welcome everyone into our new space at yesterday’s ribbon cutting ceremony.

Meanwhile, many of you asked what library staff was doing while the library space was closed. I can assure you we were here and quite busy, at that. Here is a snapshot of what library staff accomplished this summer:

• Taught 35 classes. Topics included EndNote, Mendeley, PolicyMap, PubMed, systematic reviews, Covidence, PsycInfo, and maximizing your research impact.
• Answered more than 270 reference questions.
• Took the library on the road with 19 library pop-ups in the Belfer, Forchheimer, and the Price Center buildings.
• Borrowed 335 articles from other libraries for Einstein students, postdocs, and faculty.
• Loaned 175 articles to other libraries.
• The library’s website (our “digital branch”) received 36,989 views. Topics of particular interest included EndNote, Mendeley, Systematic Reviews, and Test Preparations Tools.
• Library users ran 630 searches using Einstein Discover, our new web-scale discovery tool. Einstein Discover allows you to search the library’s print and digital resources (articles, ebooks, videos, and more) through one user-friendly interface.

Even if you can’t stop by to see us in our new space, I hope you will take advantage of our resources and services. I wish you a successful and productive year!

Caroline Delbourgo Patton, M.A., M.S.L.I.S., co-authored a systematic review that was accepted for publication in the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology. Great job, Caroline!

Oprea Y, Antohi DR, Vague M, Delbourgo Patton C, Wu B, Ortega-Loayza AG. Human inborn errors of immunity in pyoderma gangrenosum: A systematic review. Am J Clin Dermatol. 2024 Jul 1. [Online ahead of print].

Rachel Schwartz, M.L.S., co-authored a scoping review that was published online in May in HSS Journal, the Musculoskeletal Journal of Hospital for Special Surgery. Congratulations, Rachel!

Goldman SN, Xavier J, Rothchild E, et al. Establishing a Common Term and Definition for Non-Structural Postoperative Radicular Pain Following Lumbar Decompression: A Scoping Review. HSS Journal®. 2024;0(0). doi:10.1177/15563316241253842.

PsycINFO offers coverage of peer reviewed psychological literature from the 1800s to the present and covers more than 2,300 journals, as well as hundreds of thousands of books and dissertations. The database includes over 5.3 million records from publications in the behavioral and social sciences, medicine, social work, nursing, education, law, and more.

The new interface provides a better user experience, with more options for multi-field searching and simpler searching by title, abstract, and other fields. It continues to allow use of terms from the APA thesaurus but now you can also choose between basic or advanced searches depending on your skill level and combine groups of terms from an easy to review display.

Because access via APA ended July 31^st, searches saved on the APA platform are no longer accessible and will not automatically transfer to Ovid. If you had searches saved in APA PsycInfo, you will have to recreate them in the new Ovid PsycInfo. Contact a research librarian for assistance.

Useful tutorials are available to learn more about using the new interface:

• Searching PsycINFO on Ovid
• Searching with the Thesaurus and Subject Headings
• Term Finder for MEDLINE and APA PsycInfo Quick Reference Guide
• Additional tutorials

Earlier this summer, Clarivate Analytics released the 2024 edition of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) which includes journal citation data from the 2023 calendar year. JCR coversjournals indexed in all editions of Web of Science Core Collection, including Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index.

JCR is best known for is the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). The JIF is a metric that measures the average number of citations to recent articles published in a particular journal in a given year. The 2024 JCR JIF calculates citations to a journal in 2023 of items published in 2021 and 2022 (i.e. the previous two years), divided by the total number of articles and reviews, (i.e., citable items).

For example, the journal Blood has an impact factor of 21.0. The 992 articles and reviews published in Blood in 2021 and 2022. Those articles and reviews were cited 20,831 times in 2023. 20,831 divided by 992 equals 21. It ranks second in the Hematology category. To put this in context, Journal of Hematology and Oncology ranks first with an impact factor of 29.5. Circulation Research ranks third with an impact factor of 16.5. Since citation rates vary widely by discipline, it is important to use JIFs to compare journals within the same field.

A few years ago, JCR added another metric, the Journal Citation Indicator (JCI). The JCI is field-normalized and takes into account the differences of citation patterns across all subjects. For example, JCI can be used to compare an oncology journal to a physics journal. The JCI is fairly easy to interpret: the baseline impact for all journals is 1. If the JCI for a journal is 2, that journal would be twice as impactful compared to all other journals. A score of below 1 would indicate that the journal is less impactful than other journals.

Use these metrics wisely to inform your publishing decisions. They are only one part of the equation. If you have questions about finding the best fit for your publication, contact a research librarian.

Assessing risk starts with two key elements: vulnerability and exposure. Vulnerability looks at the potential for harm to a community and the individuals within it, which can be impacted by factors that range from age and prevalence of medical conditions to availability of transportation and language barriers. For instance, PolicyMap allows us to look at the percentage of residents who are over 65 years old, since this group has been demonstrated to be more vulnerable to health problems caused or exacerbated by heat.

Exposure, on the other hand, is related to location and whether it has conditions that make it likely to experience a particular type of extreme weather. For instance, California has higher exposure to wildfires than New York, while Florida is more likely to bear the brunt of hurricanes. Degree of urbanization and how cities are designed can also increase exposure since elements like dense concentrations of buildings and the presence of dark surfaces can trap heat and inhibit movement of cooling air. To help indicate where these elements may be most in play, PolicyMap can show us data like where parks are located or how many residents live in large buildings.

Ultimately, it is the combination of vulnerability and exposure that produces high risk. And, even when communities are both vulnerable and exposed, some are more resilient than others due to the availability of mitigating elements like strong healthcare systems or robust community resources. So, for example, we could use PolicyMap to visualize the locations of hospitals or health centers in our neighborhood.

These are only a selection of some of the data drawn from government and other high-quality sources that we can see by using PolicyMap and the program can be applied to explore many different issues related to social policy, public health, education, and more. Multiple elements can even be combined in one map for more complex analysis. So we encourage you to discover how PolicyMap may help you answer your research questions. For more on using PolicyMap data to look at heat waves, you can also check out their blog.

A comprehensive guide to male aesthetic and reconstructive plastic surgery / Seth R. Thaller, Mimis N. Cohen, editors. Cham : Springer, 2024.

First aid for the pediatrics clerkship, 5th ed. / Mark D. Hormann, Robert J. Yetman, Latha Ganti, Matthew Kaufman. New York : McGraw Hill, 2023.

How to mix methods: a guide to sequential, convergent, and experimental research designs / Jen Katz-Buonincontro. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, 2024.

Motivational interviewing: helping people change and grow, 4th ed. / William R. Miller, Stephen Rollnick. New York, NY ; London : The Guilford Press, 2023.

Rudolph's pediatrics, 24th ed. / editor-in-chief, Mark W. Kline; associate editors, Jordan Orange, Angelo Giardino, Z. Leah Harris, Mobeen Rathore, Antonio G. Cabrera. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2025.

Statistical design, monitoring, and analysis of clinical trials: principles and methods, 2nd ed. / Weichung Joe Shih. Boca Raton : CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022.

View the full calendar or click on a class title to sign up. Contact a Research Librarian to learn more, or to schedule your own personal or small-group session.