Hello! I am the new liaison librarian to the Sackler School, Laura Pavlech. I joined Hirsh Health Sciences Library in May of this year. I am excited to return to Tufts, where I attended veterinary school, and work with the health sciences students, faculty and staff. You may be wondering what a librarian can do for you. I think of my job as helping people find, organize and use the resources available to them at Tufts and beyond… here are a few examples of the types of questions that I can answer:
- Find journal articles: Whether you are investigating a new topic or preparing to write the introduction section of your thesis, I can help you choose which databases to use, and construct a good search strategy.
- Find protocols & methods: Have you been asked to use a technique about which you know nothing? I can show you where to find books, journals and videos devoted to in-depth descriptions of scientific protocols and methods.
- Find chemical & drug information: Want to find property data, similar molecules or patents for a chemical compound? I can direct you to the best resources for chemical and drug information, and teach you how to search these resources.
- Find data & health statistics: Do you need to find a data set to utilize in your research, or health statistics to support a grant proposal? I can assist you in locating publicly available data sets and health statistics.
- Organize your citations: Learn how to use a citation manager, such as EndNote or RefWorks, to store references and journal articles, and insert formatted citations into Word documents.
- Establish your research identity: I can show you how to find journal Impact Factors, citation counts, and other metrics that can help you demonstrate the impact of your work to funders and prospective employers.
- Maintain compliance with funder public access policies: What are public access policies, does my funder have a public access policy, and when I publish, what do I need to do to comply with these policies?
There is a lot of information out there and more is being created every day. Part of becoming a good scientist is learning how to find and use the information that you need in an efficient and effective manner. I (hopefully!) can help you do that:
- Office hours: Beginning August 31st, I will have weekly office hours for which you can either schedule an appointment or just drop by. My office is located on 6th floor of the Sackler building.
- Scheduled consultations: You can contact me via phone (617-636-0385) or email (pavlech@tufts.edu) to schedule an appointment at a time that is convenient for you.
- Research guides: The library has several research guides that can direct you to the resources that you need, and may also help you answer some of the questions I described above. Check out the Biomedical Sciences Research Guide (http://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/biomedical_research), or the complete list of guides (http://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/hhsl).