RPL Author Series Returns Thursday, Oct. 24th

Posted on October 22, 2024 Written by

The Ross Pendergraft Library at Arkansas Tech University is honored to have local author, Agalia Baker, as the featured speaker for the RPL Author Series on Thursday, October 24th at 6:00 p.m. in RPL 300B.  This event is free and open to the public.

Photograph of Agalia Baker along with the text, RPL Author Series: Cancer can destroy many things you trusted to be true, but you are the reason cancer cannot destroy you." -- Agalia Baker. Thursday, October 24th, 6:00 PM RPL300B. It also features her book cover, entitled "If Cancer is a Gift can I return it? From Grief to Healing".In her recent book, If Cancer is a Gift, Can I Return It? From Grief to Healing, Agalia Baker describes her emotional journey through her breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and failed reconstructive surgery.   Agalia Baker is an Arkansas Tech alumnus and retired advanced practice nurse with over forty years of experience, but even she was unprepared for her diagnosis.  In her book, she details how the losses she endured from breast cancer are intricately tied to the grieving process.  You can read more about Agalia Baker and her book at Arkansas Tech News.

For copies of her book, you can check one out from your local library.  The Library will also give away one FREE signed copy of her book as a door prize at the presentation.

For news of future events and speakers, follow the Ross Pendergraft Library on Instagram or Facebook.  You can also check out our Calendar of Events for the jam-packed month of October.  Mark your calendars for more events:

  • October 29th – Spooky Trivia Night. 7:00 PM in RPL 300A
  • October 30th – Twenty-fifth Anniversary Celebration of the Ross Pendergraft Library & Technology Center. 3:00 PM in RPL 300A

 

Filed Under: Library Tagged: , ,

Gross Anatomy and Pretty Statistics

Posted on November 6, 2018 Written by

This November, test drive more database trials to dive deeper into the human body and the body of statistics.

Visible Body

Right now until Novemer 16th, explore the human body—inside and out—through the Visible Body databases.  These visual tools allow nursing, health, and art students peel back the layers of skin to navigate the human skeleton, muscles, organ systems, and more.

A screenshot from Visible Body showing a skinless human skull displaying the Tracheal cartilaginous rings

Each interface includes clear labels of each body part, descriptions, and the ability to download images, add notes, and draw. Rotate, move, flip, zoom in, and click on different pieces to explore further.  The Visible Body offers animations for many of the systems of the body, including muscle contractions, joint movements and more.

The current trials at ATU Library include 4 separate interfaces:

  1. Anatomy & Physiology: This includes 12 body systems in 50 chapters, designed for core concepts of an undergraduate course in Anatomy and Physiology.
  2. Human Anatomy Atlas: This is a 3D anatomy reference app for healthcare professionals, students, and professors. Includes dental anatomy, lab activities, dissection tools, and the Gross Anatomy Lab that mirrors what you would experience in a cadaver lab (without the smell).
  3. Muscle Premium: Ideal for orthopedic specialists, kinesiologists, practitioners of sports medicine, physical therapists, and other professionals and students of muscle and skeletal function. Includes muscle index, muscle movement videos, and a pathologies section.
  4. Physiology Animations: A video reference atlas with 3D animations that communicate core physiology and common conditions.

A screenshot of the Visual Body database showing a mandible movement

Hurry and dissect these databases before the trial ends on November 16th!

Sage Stats

Need some statistics to shore that research paper?  Test drive Sage Stats—a data download and visualization tool focused on statistical information in the United States.  Includes social science data on U.S. states, counties, cities, and metropolitan statistical areas from more than 150 different government and non-government sources. It spans topics like employment, crime, religion, and education, and includes over 400,000 datasets from sources like Woods & Poole Economics, U.S. Census, American Medical Association, and more.

Screenshot of Russellville, AR location in Sage Stats showing population and data series

Search by Topic or Location.  Compare two or more data series using charts.  This database includes tools for citing, exporting, downloading, and sharing.  There are also guides for using Sage Stats in the classroom as well as video tutorials.

Screenshot of Sage Stats showing active SNAP participants by county in Arkansas

The trial for this resource ends on November 30th.

Statistical Abstract of the United States

The go-to source for the most common statistics on the American economy, demographics, education, prices, and more is the Statistical Abstract of the United States.  While the Ross Pendergraft Library has this bulky tome in print at the Reference Desk, from now until November 25th, you can browse key statistics for the United States from anywhere with an internet connection.

Screenshot of Statistical Abstract topics and tables

This online version is a compilation of social, political and economic statistics. The focus is on national data, but some tables cover regions, states, cities, and comparative international statistics. It is divided into broad sections such as Population, Health and Nutrition, Education, Foreign Commerce and Aid, Prices and many others.

Screenshot of Statistical Abstract table 437 : Voting-Age population

Each table identifies the source of the data and the citation.  Tables can be downloaded in .xls or .pdf format.

These databases will only stick around for a short while UNLESS you speak up via Ask Us.  If you like these, hate these, or want to test something else, let us know!  Stay tuned to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more news and database trials in the future.

Filed Under: Library Tagged: , , , ,

Have it all with CINAHL

Posted on January 29, 2015 Written by

nurse buttonNursing students: are you tired of zero results?  Tired of submitting ILL requests for articles you needed yesterday?  Tired of wandering endless result pages, looking for full-text?  Look no further than our new and improved CINAHL Plus database with full text.

cinahl4

Recently acquired by the Library to help bolster a growing Nursing Department at Arkansas Tech, this update to our older version of CINAHL includes more full text to nursing and allied health journals and deeper indexing to include allied health literature and bio-medical resources dating back to 1937.

What does this mean to you?  With an expanded index, you have a greater chance of finding articles relating to your topic, no matter how obscure.   In addition, available full-text coverage expanded from 70 journals to 700.  While not every article you find will include full-text, a greater number will, including articles from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses’ Association publications.

In addition, this database offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, audiovisuals, book chapters and more.

For example, the expanded database also includes 134 Evidence-Based Care Sheets which provide concise overviews of diseases and conditions and outlines the most effective treatment options.

cinahl2

Want to find Evidence-Based Practice articles?  Scroll down from the advanced search screen to limit your results.  You can also limit by Clinical Query type, Peer-Reviewed, Nurse authored, age group, randomized controlled trials, region, and other variables.

If you find yourself still lacking in relevant results, use CINAHL Headings to select appropriate heading terms for your topic.

cinahl3

There’s so much you can do with CINAHL, you might need a tutorial to explore all of the features.  But a dedicated team of friendly neighborhood librarians are standing by to help if you have any questions.  Give it a try today—we promise, it won’t hurt a bit.

Filed Under: Library Tagged: , ,

Nursing Resources

Posted on November 4, 2013 Written by

This week, we’re spotlighting the medical resource, OvidSP—a full-text database containing over 67 journals in the field of Nursing, Public Health, Pharmacology, Patient Education, Clinical Medicine, and more.

You can find OvidSP though our Library homepage, under Research–>Tech Databases.  Scroll down to find it in our alphabetical list of database titles.

Main search box of OvidSP

OvidSP4

What makes OvidSP different from of the other databases is its ability to retrieve multimedia files, including video, charts, and photographs, to help give life, movement, and color your research results.  Imagine preparing presentation for your topic, and having access to charts and images to include in your slides?  Just search a topic and check the box for “Include Multimedia.”  If the full-text articles include pictures, OvidSP gives you the option of exporting all images into a PowerPoint file.

OvidSP is also able to manage your citations by allowing you to export in your preferred style—such as Chicago, APA, MLA, and many others—into your email, a word document, or other citation management systems.  Send articles to yourself via email or create a personal login to save your searches and search results.

You can also limit search results by publication year, article type, journal subjects, and relevancy (also known as “star ranking).  Avoid the information overload and try limiting to results published just in the last year or just within one or more sets of journals.

Having trouble with too little information?  Change the resource selection in Ovid SP to include the Abstracts and Table of Contents for Ovid Journals as well as the Arkansas Tech Full Text resource.

Displays 2 resource types

This will broaden your search to include the abstracts and table of contents of hundreds of other journals.  However, you may have to use Inter-Library Loan or search for journal titles in our A-to-Z electronic journal list to retrieve full text of the articles.

For more information about OvidSP, view this quick tutorial available on Youtube:

You can also contact one of your friendly neighborhood librarians at the Reference Desk or through email at askalibrarian@atu.edu if you have any more questions about this database, other databases, or research of any kind.

Filed Under: Library Tagged: ,