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We have recently put a number of exciting medical artifacts and curiosities from our special collection on display on the 6th floor. These items, mostly from the 19th and early 20th centuries and received through donations to the university, are sure to catch your eye as you exit the main elevators.

Among these items are a pocket surgical kit in a velvet-lined leather case, an 1800s blood transfusion kit, and a surgeon’s field amputation kit circa the American Civil War.

We also have on display a mysterious device known as a Phantasmagoric Magneto Machine, a quack medical device which purported to cure nervous diseases with a mild electric current generated by a hand crank.

Along with these eye-catching instruments, you can find two mortars and pestles and number of medicine bottles with their contents still inside – though well past their expiration date.

Take a look through our display case and see for yourself how medicine was practiced over a hundred years ago!

 

 

Congratulations on your match, Class of 2022!  We can’t wait to celebrate with you tomorrow (in person!) on Match Day and learn where you’re headed!

For those of you not in the know, Match Day is an annual event that began in 1952 where medical students learn where they will go for their residency program.  On Friday, March 18th the Library Service Desk on the 4th floor will be closed from 11am-2pm to accommodate celebrations for this event.  All other floors will be open for study.  Please plan on obtaining laptops and reserve items prior to 11am if you need them. In addition,  the Food4Thought Cafe’s kitchen and coffee station will be closed all day, but the usual self check-out items will be available. Thank you!

 

Collage of Study Buddies

Study carrel feeling lonely? Assignments got you down? Why not make a little buddy to help cheer you up? That’s right, Hirsh’s favorite pom pom critters are back for two days only! Stop by the Library Service Desk this Thursday 3/10 and Friday 3/11 starting at noon and make a fluffy friend for yourself or someone else. Nothing lifts the spirits like staring into an adoring pair of googly eyes.

 

Our spring School Affiliation Week starts this Sunday, March 6th.  In past years we’ve scattered our days among an entire month, but given the way life is lately, we decided it would be best to have it one-and-done, like we did in the fall. Here’s how it’s going to work.

From Sunday, March 7th through Saturday, March 12th, members of the Hirsh Library staff will be walking around 3-4 times a day with a clipboard in hand. We’re going to ask everyone in the library what school/program they’re with (Med, Dental, GSBS, etc). And that’s it. We’ll make a check mark and move on. Afterward, share the data we’ve gathered on the blog! If you want to see what that usually looks like, here’s our post from June 2020.

And this is what the survey looks like for us:

If you don’t want people to get too close, or you just don’t want your studying interrupted, you can always leave your ID out, or just write your program down on a piece of paper and leave it next to you. If you’re in a study room, feel free to write down the number of people and their program(s), and tape that to the outside of the study room door (not the window). If you need paper or tape we have them at the desk! Just come ask.

Just please remember to take down any signs you put up, and to remove any IDs or papers you put on the desks by you.

If you have any questions or concerns at all, don’t hesitate to ask us! You can call us at 617-636-6706, e-mail us at hhslcirc@tufts.edu, visit our live chat on the Ask Us page, or even just swing by the desk on the 4th floor and chat to us in person.

Thank you for your assistance with this, and we look forward to a nice smooth Affiliation Week!

 
spring flowers

Spring flowers, photo by A. LaVertu, 2021

 

Are you done with winter? Us too! Time to shake off the cold temps and winter blues and get ready for Spring! Why not start put some of that Spring ‘energy’ into learning some new skills?  This month’s workshops present some wonderful opportunities for learning new skills and updating some skills that might have gotten, you know, ‘under used’! Come join us!

Workshops will be held on Tuesdays from 12noon-1pm via Zoom. Registration for workshops is required.  A Zoom link and password will be sent to registrants one hour prior to the start time of the Workshop. Please note that workshops are open to only Tufts-affiliated individuals.

 

Essentials of Data Management

Register:      https://tufts.libcal.com/event/8919110?hs=a

Date:             Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Time:             12:00pm – 1:00pm

In this workshop, we will review best practices for naming, organizing, storing, depositing your research data, and creating a Data Management Plan. Managing your data before you begin your research and throughout its life cycle is essential to ensure its current usability and long-run preservation and access.

 

***Special Event***
Writing Personal Statements

Register: https://tufts.libcal.com/event/7524356

Date: Monday, March 7, 2022

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

Join us for a special workshop with Christine Smith, MS, RD, a Health Sciences Writing Consultant on the Boston Campus, adjunct lecturer at the Friedman School and former Senior Editor of the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter. Christine will provide advice on writing personal statements, as well as her top writing tips. We will also share resources on application writing and interviewing.

 

EndNote: Advanced
Register:       https://tufts.libcal.com/event/8919117?hs=a

Date:             Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Time:             12:00pm – 1:00pm

This one-hour session explores more advanced features of EndNote. During this session we will discuss using EndNote to create figures with captions, how to find updated citation information for records already in EndNote, how to modify output styles and more.


Systematic Reviews: Laying the Groundwork

Register:      https://tufts.libcal.com/event/8919125?hs=a

Date:             Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Time:             12:00pm – 1:00pm

Come to this workshop to learn about systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and other types of high-level research reviews. We will discuss topics such as the elements of a systematic review, protocols, resources, timelines, and suggested databases.

 

How to Read a Paper
Register:       https://tufts.libcal.com/event/8933112?hs=a

Date:             Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Time:             12:00pm – 1:00pm

Understanding a study is an essential first step before critical appraisal. In this workshop, attendees will learn strategies to efficiently read and understand an academic research paper in the health sciences.

 

 

We’re in the thick of the semester, so why not take a moment to de-stress and send some love? Next Thursday and Friday we’ll have a variety of supplies out at the Library Service Desk so you can make valentines for yourself, your friends, or that special someone (your favorite librarian, perhaps?). We’ll have all the glitter and doilies you need to let someone know how much you appreciate them!

We are also partnering with the Service Scholars to write welcome letters for new Afghan refugee families relocating to the Boston area. You can use the cards they are providing or craft your own special card!

 

Nothing says “I love you” more than chocolates and…improving your  research skills! Sure, it’s not romantic – but – it will make getting that lit review done a much sweeter experience! So, we invite you to ‘make a date’ with one of the workshops offered this February!

Workshops will be held on Tuesdays from 12noon-1pm via Zoom. Registration for workshops is required.  A Zoom link and password will be sent to registrants one hour prior to the start time of the Workshop. Please note that workshops are open to only Tufts-affiliated individuals.

Chocolates in heart-shaped box

By Stewart Butterfield,

Approaching the Lit Review

Register:       https://tufts.libcal.com/event/8751835?hs=a

Date:             Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Time:             12:00pm – 1:00pm

Description:   In this workshop, students will learn how to approach the literature review. Topics covered include database selection, devising effective search techniques, limiting articles to relevant study-types, and tools for keeping track of results.

 

 Searching Basics: Strategic Searching using Concepts, Terms, & Boolean Operators

Register:     https://tufts.libcal.com/event/8751861?hs=a

Date:             Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Time:             12:00pm – 1:00pm

Description:   With strategic searching, you can rapidly set yourself up to either find more articles and other resources that might potentially be useful or to narrow down a search that has an overwhelming number of results. Yes, basic search strategies can meet either need! Get your intro to search logic with this workshop.

 

Beyond PubMed

Register:      https://tufts.libcal.com/event/8751867?hs=a

Date:             Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Time:             12:00pm – 1:00pm

Description:   Have you tried out your search on PubMed and are wondering if there’s something more? Did you get the advice you need to try another database in addition to PubMed and aren’t sure where to go next? Are you curious about what the most cited article is for your question? Do you want to know who has cited the articles you’ve selected so far?

While PubMed covers the biomedical sciences thoroughly, there are many other databases that cover all of the Sciences and Social Sciences broadly. This workshop will introduce you to resources beyond PubMed that will enrich your research.

 

Zotero: the Basics

Register:      https://tufts.libcal.com/event/8751886?hs=a

Date:             Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Time:             12:00pm – 1:00pm

Description: This session will introduce you to Zotero, a free citation management tool. With Zotero, you can:
•    collect references from web sites via your browser of choice
•    drag and drop PDFs to create references
•    generate in-text citations and bibliographies in Word documents

This session is for beginners – no previous experience required!

 

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Hirsh Library! It’s been good seeing those of you who have been around, and I hope the rest of you can make it sometime soon. Because fun fact: we’re open our full hours! You may have heard. I know some of you have heard, because just this past October we went around asking where you were from, and now we’ve got the data to prove it!

All the graphs you see below are from the library staff walking around for one week in October, asking the question “What program/school are you with?” You can click on them to make them larger if need be. If you’re interested in comparing this set of numbers to the way things looked pre-pandemic, then I would recommend checking out the post I wrote about the October 2019 Affiliation survey (please note: we did things a little bit different this time around, so it’s not a perfect 1 to 1 comparison, but it’s solid data all the same).

 

Graph showing how many people were counted by school affiliation

I’ll start with the information everyone always asks about first: how did the programs compare, numerically? Well, over the week 810 people told us they were with the Dental school, and 568 told us they were with Med. For those who weren’t here before the pandemic landed, you’ll be interested to know two facts: 1) that the numbers are lower than they were in 2019, but that the percentages here hold steady, and 2) I was honestly surprised at how many people turned up on this survey. It’s so great to see so many people are coming into the library, even when their classes are hybrid or even primarily online. And look at the rest of this spread! Friedman, PA, PHPD, and GSBS are all turning up in good numbers, and MBS has a strong showing at 238.

Hilariously, if you compare this data to its equivalent from 2019, you’ll realize that Dental, Medical, and PA all have lower numbers than two years ago, but somehow the other programs all went up. MBS being at 238 actually places it in third place for total counted for both 2019 and 2021.

Just goes to show: we’ve got some good furniture and space here.

But how does the furniture and space effect the counts? Glad you asked!

Number of people counted organized by floor they were on.

Everyone loves the 7th floor.  This has never been in question, but seeing it laid out like this really drives it home. Normally, when I see numbers like this, the 7th floor is about double the next closest floor, which fluctuates between the 5th and 6th floors. This time, the 5th floor had 426 people, and the 7th had 1021. Amazing. And heartening to see!

The remaining ways of looking at these numbers are to break it down by weekday, and by time of the day. Here are those two charts:

Number of people by which weekday they were counted

Number of people by what time of the day they were counted

After the other two charts, these don’t provide anything too shocking. Thursday being the busiest day and 11am being the busiest time actually track with the way things were when we were closer to full capacity – the most popular weekday tended to fluctuate month-to-month between Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but the closer you are to lunch the busier the library gets.

Which is fair. Who doesn’t study with their stomach, after all?

I will leave you today with this thought: we have a staff full of people here to help, and we have a Reserves collection absolutely chock full of books, anatomy models, phone and laptop chargers, laptops, and about a dozen other things to help keep you supplied and comfortable while you’re studying and working on your papers, so that you can excel here at Tufts. In fact, we are stocked for numbers of visitors significantly higher than what you see in this post.

So why not stop on by to the Library Service Desk on the 4th floor of Med Ed, and see what we have to offer? We may surprise you.

In the meantime, have a great rest of your semester!

~Tom~

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Collage of Study Buddies

As part of the reunion tour of our favorite Fun Lab activities, we are pleased to announce that, at long last, study buddies are returning! Just in time for finals season, these googly-eyed cuties are back to help get you through the next few weeks. Make one for yourself or a friend! We’ll have all the supplies out at the Desk starting at 12pm on Thursday 2/2 and Friday 2/3. Hope to see you there!

 

We’re thrilled to another another crafting opportunity has returned!

Starting at 12pm this Thursday 11/18 and Friday 11/19, you can stop by the Library Service Desk and create your own feathered friend to bring home to Mom (or back to your study carrel). We’ll have a variety of materials out so you can create anything your heart desires, from the simple and majestic hand turkey (our personal favorite) to some 3D  pinecone poultry.

 
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