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Category: Apps

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Picture of a person meditating in lotus pose on a yoga mat with a Virtual Reality headset nearby.
Photo by Eren Li

April is Stress Awareness Month. Himmelfarb Library’s Oculus Virtual Reality (VR) headsets now include healthy living apps that can help you manage your stress! These new apps help users meditate, alleviate anxiety, and generally relax. Take a few minutes to unwind and get recentered in virtual reality so you’ll feel refreshed and rejuvenated in actual reality!

Our Oculus headsets can be checked out from the circulation desk on Himmelfarb’s first floor for four hours at a time. You’ll need some unobstructed space to use the headset since the apps allow you to move around within a virtual space. Our VR Headset Overview page includes recommended spaces within Himmelfarb to use the headsets that can accommodate the space needed to use these apps comfortably. 

Guided Meditation VR

The Guided Meditation VR app helps users detach and relax with guided or unguided meditation sessions with calming music and ambient noises from more than 40 digitally-generated environments. This app has over 30 hours of meditations geared toward alleviating anxiety, finding resilience, improving sleep, and even maternity meditations. If you’re unsure about VR but want to experience some of the sessions, you can try them out for free online! This app is available on both of Himmelfarb’s Oculus headsets. 

Nature Treks VR

The Nature Treks VR app lets users choose between nine different natural environments and lets them explore and play. You can choose to explore forests, beaches, or even outer space! You even get to choose your preferred weather and time of day and can summon animals. These individually designed spaces can be used as places to meditate or perform breathing exercises. This app is available on Himmelfarb’s “Walter” headset so that you can ask for it by name at the Circulation Desk. 

National Geographic Explore VR

The National Geographic Explore VR app lets users choose between two different ecosystems to explore: Machu Picchu and Antarctica! In Antarctica, you’ll get to navigate around icebergs in a kayak, climb a massive ice shelf, and survive a raging snowstorm while searching for a lost emperor penguin colony. Or you can visit Machu Picchu, Peru, and explore digital reconstructions of the ancient Inca citadel, raise a cup of sacred chicha, and encounter alpacas while you match Hiram Bingham’s photographs from when he rediscovered the Inca citadel. Not only can you experience the landscape, but you’ll get to take photographs as well. This app is a bit more physically strenuous and can need some additional room to navigate. This app is available on Himmelfarb’s “Paul” headset.

While the noises generated by all three of these apps are gentle and soothing, they are audible outside of the Oculus headset, so it’s best to use these apps in a quiet space away from others who may be studying or trying to concentrate. Himmelfarb study rooms are a great option for using this app and can be reserved in advance!

Other Stress Relief Resources at Himmelfarb

If Virtual Reality isn’t of interest to you, Himmelfarb’s healthy living collection has other stress relief resources that may suit your style. Take a look at our Healthy Living @ Himmelfarb Guide for a full list of resources. Check out the Wellness Apps page of this guide to find useful meditation and stress relief apps. Our healthy living collection also includes books on stress reduction including Stress, Cognition, and Health by Tony Cassidy, The Psychology of Meditation by Peter Sedlmeier, and Managing Stress by Brian Luke Seaward. As always, feel free to stop by the healthy living collection on Himmelfarb’s first floor to make use of our exercise equipment if you’d prefer to manage your stress with some physical activity and use our exercise balls, hand weights, hula hoops, or yoga mats. We also have plenty of games including chess, Sorry, Scrabble, Blokus, and Pandemic. As always, a jigsaw puzzle is in progress on our puzzle table, and we are waiting for your contributions! 

Picture of a jigsaw puzzle on a wooden table.

Want more resources to help you manage your stress? Check out the GW Resiliency and Well-Being Center’s Stress Management page for resources related to mindfulness practice, well-being, physical activity, healthy lifestyle tips, and student resources related to stress management. 

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Himmelfarb Library provides the BrowZine journal reader to library users to help keep current and make browsing journal contents online easy. We are pleased to see an uptick in usage of BrowZine by library users this past year!

Infographic showing increased usage of BrowZine bookshelf, table of contents and full-text downloads for 2022-23

When searching Health Information @ Himmelfarb, the library catalog, you may have seen and used the links to View Issue Contents in catalog records:

Article search result screenshot with Download PDF and View Issue Contents options circled

These links direct users to BrowZine to view journal tables of contents and download full-text when available.

Screenshot of BrowZine table of contents for the journal Infants & Young Children

Library users can set up a BrowZine account and follow journals of interest to them by putting them on a BrowZine bookshelf. Whenever a new issue is published for a bookshelf journal, an email notifying of the new content is sent.

You can access BrowZine from a web browser or download the app for iOS or Android. When using the mobile app you can save articles to read offline later.   

Learn more about BrowZine in our Current Awareness Research Guide.

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We’d like to welcome everyone joining the SMHS, GW Nursing and GWSPH communities this month! Himmelfarb Library has a wealth of resources and services to meet your patient care, education, and research needs and you don’t need to visit the building to take advantage of most of what we offer. Our electronic collections are available 24/7 from anywhere, on campus or off campus when using VPN or web authentication services.  

Himmelfarb Resources and Collections

Himmelfarb has 125 databases to search, including PubMed, Scopus, and our library discovery service Health Information @ Himmelfarb. Health Information @ Himmelfarb enables users to search physical and electronic books, journals, articles, dissertations, and more from one search box.

To browse and access our collection of e-journals we recommend using BrowZine. BrowZine can be accessed on a browser or you can download the app to your IOS or Android device. You can assemble a personalized bookshelf of journal titles, follow your favorite journals, and be alerted to new issues with a table of contents.

We also recommend installing LibKey Nomad on your favorite browser for easy access to full-text when searching PubMed, Scopus, EBSCO databases, Google Scholar, Amazon, publisher sites, and more. Nomad will alert you to the full-text availability of articles and e-books from Himmelfarb and in many cases deliver a PDF with one click.

Himmelfarb provides a wide range of electronic book titles from Access Medicine, ClinicalKey, EBSCOhost, and R2 Digital Library. You can browse our e-book collections or view our special collections in Health Information @ Himmelfarb. We also have many print books! Our main book collection is on the basement level and most books can be borrowed for 3 weeks with up to 2 renewals.

If we don’t have what you need, we can get it for you through the Consortium Loan Service or Documents2Go. Consortium Loan Service provides free loans of materials from most of the academic libraries in the DC metro area. Documents2Go provides scanned article and chapter copies or physical book loans with up to 30 free requests for Himmelfarb users a year.

Clinical Tools and Applications

For those providing patient care, Himmelfarb has specialized apps and information services to support you. DynaMed, Lexicomp, and others are available to be downloaded as apps for easy access from your device. Check our App Shelf to browse for tools.

For residents specifically, we offer NEJM Resident 360. This resource contains interactive cases, videos, rotation prep materials, clinical pearls, morning reports, and more! To learn more about NEJM Resident 360 and our many resources for residents, check out our Residents and Fellows Research Guide.

Research Support

Himmelfarb can support you in your research from helping with literature searches or systematic reviews to organizing sources with RefWorks or Covidence. We can even assist with your data management and sharing plan if you are applying for NIH funding. See our Resources for Early Career Research Guide if you’re just getting started with research. Our Scholarly Publishing tutorials are a great way to learn about all aspects of the scholarly publishing lifecycle at your own pace. For more seasoned researchers, we offer a Research Profile Audit Service to get the most out of the various profile services, like ORCiD and SciENcv.

24/7 Access

For most of the academic year, the Himmelfarb Library facility is open 24/7. We will be observing shorter hours during the month of July - but will still be open nightly until midnight. Note that from June 12 to July 26, 2023 entry to both Himmelfarb Library and Ross Hall will be through the Himmelfarb courtyard entrance doors from 7pm to 7am Monday through Friday and on weekends. You need your GWorld badge to enter the library. There is space for quiet conversation and group work on the first floor and quieter spaces for study on the second floor. Reserve our study rooms in advance. 

Can’t come to the library? Our librarians can assist you via chat or phone (202-994-2850) during business hours or email us anytime at himmelfarb@gwu.edu. We look forward to seeing you in the library or assisting you remotely!

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Healthcare professional with stethoscope holding smart phone image by Ivan Samkov on Pexels
Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-in-medical-gown-using-a-smartphone-4989177/

Himmelfarb Library offers a couple of apps to help stay current with health sciences literature. Browzine is an e-journals app that allows users to follow publications the library subscribes to.  Search by title, ISSN, or subject to find your favorite journals and then set up a personal bookshelf for easy access to table of contents and full-text, or have table of contents sent to you via a notification feature when new issues are available. Browzine integrates with Zotero, Mendeley, and RefWorks to help you organize (and cite!) the articles you read. You can also download full-text for offline reading. Set up a free account by accessing Browzine and selecting My BookShelf.  You can download the app from the Apple and Google app stores.

Read by QxMD is another app that allows you to follow specific health sciences journals or subject areas.  Read is like a social media app that will tailor your feed based on what you like or follow. The primary content source for Read is PubMed and new articles become available in Read as they are added to the PubMed database. Read recently began including preprint content from medRxiv, bioRxiv, and Research Square. Note that there is some sponsored content on Read which is highlighted and identified as promoted. 

Read recently introduced 2 Minute Medicine Collections that feature a brief synopsis of newly published articles in a specialty. Each article’s level of evidence is indicated. 

Screenshots of Read by QxMD 2 Minute Medicine collections and article summary.
Read by QxMD 2 Minute Medicine Collections and Summary

Read is a current awareness tool that relies on keyword searching and algorithms for article retrieval.  It is not recommended for in depth research or finding the best evidence for patient care. For complex queries that need regular update, consider setting up a database alert from PubMed or Scopus.  Instructions for setting up an alert are on the Keeping Up with Health Sciences Information Research Guide, or reach out to our reference team at himmelfarb@gwu.edu or library chat for assistance.

Download the Read app for either Apple or Android devices and set up a free account. Choosing George Washington University as your institution will provide access to Himmelfarb Library subscription full-text as well as open access content. Once your account is set up you can choose to follow topics based on keyword search, specialty, specific journals, or curated collections. You can also set up your own collections and opt to share them.

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Promotional image of The Medical Letter and Drugs of Choice 2022.

When you need to make the best treatment decisions for your patients, where do you turn to find information on drugs when you want to be sure the information hasn’t been influenced by the pharmaceutical industry? Himmelfarb Library provides access to two great options: The Medical Letter and Drugs of Choice!

The Medical Letter

The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics has a long history of being among the most used journal titles in Himmelfarb’s journal collection and is a trusted source for critical appraisals of new drugs and comparative reviews of drugs used to treat common diseases. Busy healthcare professionals don’t always have the time or resources to research manufacturers’ or pharmaceutical companies’ claims about a drug. The Medical Letter, a non-profit organization that is subscription funded, provides unbiased, reliable, and timely drug information that has been reviewed by medical experts who have come to an unbiased consensus. 

Whether you want to find out if a new prescription drug has advantages over older drugs, learn about the drug's effectiveness, and toxicity issues, or learn if the drug price is reasonable enough to justify prescribing it to patients, The Medial Letter has the information you need! Follow-up reports highlight any new information that may have changed the status of previously reviewed drugs, so you can be sure you are getting the most updated information. Himmelfarb’s subscription to The Medial Letter provides access to continuing education credits. You can also download the mobile app to access The Medical Letter from your mobile device.

https://youtu.be/v-IAZQNsqT4

Drugs of Choice

The Drugs of Choice 2022 Handbook provides updated information on preferred and alternative treatments for conditions such as alcohol use disorder, multiple sclerosis, onychomycosis, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, heart failure, and more. There is even information on topics such as insect repellents and sunscreens. Drugs of Choice is a definitive guide for finding:

  • Recommendations for first-line and alternative drugs
  • Potential Adverse Effects
  • Dosing Recommendations
  • Risk of Drug Interactions
  • Use in Pregnancy

Information is presented in easy-to-read tables, making this resource handy for quick reference.

The Medical Letter and Drug of Choice are both key resources that provide quick, easy-to-use tools to get the information you need to stay updated with the latest drug information! For more information or if you have questions about Himmelfarb’s access to these resources, contact Ruth Bueter (rbueter@gwu.edu).

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Welcome!
Photo by Nico Smit on Unsplash

From all of us here at Himmelfarb Library, we’d like to welcome all new residents, fellows, physician assistants, and students! We are excited that you’re here and we look forward to serving you during this phase of your medical or health sciences training. We know the beginning of any journey can be daunting, so we’d like to make it easier for you to familiarize yourself with Himmelfarb Library and help you get to know us a bit.

To help you get your bearings, here’s a short, video tour of the library.

Resources for Residents & Fellows:

Himmelfarb has numerous resources to help new residents and fellows navigate this new stage of your training. Our Residents and Fellows Guide is filled with helpful information about how to access Himmelfarb’s resources from the GW Hospital and other off-campus locations. Links to our most popular clinical resources including DynaMed, ClinicalKey, Lexicomp, and PubMed are also available in this guide. The guide also provides links to specific program resources, so you can easily find resources geared towards your specialization.

NEJM Resident 360 is available! Start by creating your free personal account using your GW email address (GWemail@gwu.edu). After creating your account, access the resource through the library or directly through NEJM Resident 360. This resource contains interactive cases, videos, rotation prep materials, clinical pearls, morning reports, and more!

Do you want to use our resources from your mobile device? Check out our App Shelf to download apps to selected resources and make Himmelfarb’s resources even more easily accessible. To learn more about GW University and GW Hospital wireless access, accessing your GW email, and GW Hospital clinical systems, visit the Wireless and Clinical Systems Guide.

Himmelfarb Resources Available 24/7 from Anywhere!

Himmelfarb’s 125+ databases, 6,500+ journals, and 6,700+ ebooks are available 24/7 from anywhere! For seamless access to full-text articles available from our collection, install the LibKey Nomad browser extension. Use the Read by QxMD app and website to keep up with published research in your specialty. When accessing our resources remotely, we encourage you to use the GW VPN. You can find directions on how to install the VPN on our off-campus access page. If you need help troubleshooting an access issue, don’t hesitate to reach out to us (himmsubs@gwu.edu).

Need Research Help? 

Getting help with your research is a breeze at Himmelfarb! Our knowledgeable reference librarians are available to help answer your questions both in person at our reference desk or remotely. Our Ask a Librarian service connects you directly with our reference and research staff! Need help with a systematic review? Consider using our Systematic Review Service for help developing a search strategy, finding relevant articles, and organizing your search results. 

Tutorials, Guides, and More!

As you get settled into this new chapter of your medicine and health sciences journey, don’t forget that Himmelfarb has more to offer than just databases, journals, and books. We have a wealth of research guides that can connect you with resources on a variety of topics. Do you need help navigating the publishing landscape? Check out our Early Career Researchers, Scholarly Publishing, Predatory Publishing, and Measuring Scholarly Impact guides and our Scholarly Communications webinars and short tutorials. We also have a large selection of tutorials on a wide range of topics. 

Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for the latest Himmelfarb news and updates. 

We look forward to serving you! Welcome to the GW community!

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Lexicomp logo with the words "Comprehensive Pharmacology Information".

Spring is a time of renewal and growth following the cold winter months, and it's also time to renew (or newly set up) your Lexicomp app!

Lexicomp is a comprehensive clinical drug information app including Lexi-Drugs, a drug interaction tool, and an extensive library of clinical calculators. Lexicomp is available both via web access and as an app that you can install on your phone (iPhone or Android), iPad, or other handheld device.

The Lexicomp app is free and Himmelfarb Library’s subscription allows you to install Lexicomp‘s high-quality drug information to your phone, iPad, or other handheld device. Follow the below instructions to obtain Lexicomp app access at no charge via Himmelfarb Library's license!

Lexicomp app renewals:

  1. Access Lexicomp then click on Mobile Access Codes; select your platform (iOS or Android) and Returning Customer, then copy the displayed Authorization Code.
  2. Access http://www.lexi.com/account and login with your Lexicomp login/password.
  3. In the Add a Subscription by Code section, paste the authorization code.
  4. You will receive an email with a 5-character PIN at your registered email address; enter the PIN into the Verify PIN field then click Verify.
  5. Click Finish
  6. On your phone/iPad/handheld, open the Lexicomp app and update.

New Lexicomp app users:

  1. Access Lexicomp, then click on Mobile Access Codes; select your platform (iOS or Android) and New Customer, then copy the displayed Authorization Code.
  2. Create a personal Lexicomp account then login to your Lexicomp account.
  3. In the Add a Subscription by Code section, paste the authorization code.
  4. You will receive an email with a 5-character PIN at your registered email address; enter the PIN into the Verify PIN field then click Verify.
  5. On your phone/iPad/handheld, install the free Lexicomp app then open it and login with your personal Lexicomp login/password.

You can find additional clinical apps on Himmelfarb Library’s App Shelf.

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When you search Health Information @ Himmelfarb, the library’s search box, you will now be alerted to retracted content in the search results. This service is courtesy of Third Iron’s LibKey which provides the PDF and View Issue Contents buttons in article records. When an article is retracted, the PDF button is replaced with a Retracted Article button as illustrated below.

Screenshot of result with retracted article link on Health Information @ Himmelfarb

Clicking on the Retracted Article button opens a window that displays the retraction details (why the article was retracted) and PDF link if you still want to read or download the article. 

Screenshot of LibKey retraction notice window

Retraction data comes from Retraction Watch, a service of the Center for Scientific Integrity. 

Retraction notices are now available in other Third Iron products. For example, if you use the Browzine app to read e-journals from Himmelfarb, alerts to retracted articles will appear there.  LibKey Nomad can be installed as an extension to your Chrome, Edge, or Firefox browser to provide PDF buttons in databases like PubMed. Nomad will now display Retracted Article buttons in those databases.

Screenshot of Article Retracted button on PubMed

Need help searching for articles or other resources? Contact our reference team at himmelfarb@gwu.edu or through our chat service.

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The Read by QxMD app and website provide a personal awareness service for health sciences professionals, making it easier to keep up with published research. Users create a free account login, enter their profession and specialty, and the service uses an algorithm to deliver a feed of recommended articles. Articles with high levels of interaction and views appear higher in the feed. Like a streaming music service, the more you read, like, and save on Read, the more tailored your feed becomes.

Featured feed screen from Read by QxMD

Users can save articles to collections that can be shared with colleagues or used for research projects, journal clubs, or other purposes. Users can also choose to follow curated collections or a particular journal and get regular push notifications when items are added. My Keywords allows users to enter a set of keywords and be alerted when a new resource that’s a match is added. The content source for QxMD is PubMed. New materials become available as they are added to the PubMed service.

Collections screen from Read by QxMD

It’s easy to access full-text of articles in the form of PDFs in Read. Many articles are open access. Himmelfarb Library is now updating library holdings with QxMD. GW users can now indicate their affiliation and access the library’s full-text collection. Downloaded PDFs are saved to the user’s device.

Read users with the mobile app can earn up to 20 CME credits for reading articles on the app. 

The Read app is available for iPhone, iPad, Android tablets and smartphones. Read can also be accessed on your workstation via a browser.

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RefWorks logo.

RefWorks is a great way to collect, manage and organize your research papers and documents and generate citations and bibliographies easily. RefWorks recently released a number of updates that may be of interest to Himmelfarb Library users. RefWorks users can now export references from Web of Science directly to RefWorks with just a few clicks! Simply select a reference in Web of Science and select RefWorks from the Export menu.

Screenshot of Web of Science export to RefWorks option described in above paragraph.

You can also import references with multiple attachments from the legacy RefWorks or Mendeley into RefWorks. Prior to this update, importing references with multiple attachments created one reference for each attachment. 

Screenshot of option to import from another reference manager.

To learn more about RefWorks, check out our RefWorks Guide! This guide has a wealth of information that can get you started using this great tool including instructions on creating an account, adding citations, sharing resources and collaborating with other RefWorks users, building bibliographies and creating in-text citations.

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