Talk from Christine Goodair, Head of Website & Information Services at DrugScope. This talk provided an introduction to working in information services in the voluntary sector, the variety of work that it is possible to undertake and some of the more negative (or challenging) aspects. Discussion of the DrugScop blog (and RSS feed) and how it has proved such a success. A very positive aspect of working in the voluntary sector appears to be that there is great scope for initiative but this is balanced by limited funding and sometimes uncertainty about future funding/sustainability – “an exciting if not entirely secure place to work”.

Course on how to undertake a critical appraisal, including how to understand and judge statistics and other charts and diagrams commonly used in healthcare articles.

Spent a few hours workshadowing Information Pharmacist colleagues to gain a better understanding of their work and the resources they require to undertake their job.

This course was an excellent day providing a large amount of information about clinical trials, drug development and the role of information within the pharmaceutical industry and was followed by discussion of a large number of free resources. This course was extremely useful and I wish that I had had the chance to go on it slightly earlier in my current job, especially with regard to learning fully about the process of drug development – a topic that is covered in the collection policy and about which a number of our enquirers do expect us to know the basics. I am going to provide a briefing to other library staff (and possibly produce a basic factsheet with some further reading links for users as well as library staff) .

The second half regarding useful online resources was particularly relevant as I am in the process of putting together a long structured list of annotated links to quality, free information and resources on the web for pharmacists with the hope that this will be mounted on our webpage. I also aim to allow users to download the structured file of favourites to ensure that they can access them easily in the future. People are unlikely to want to save a long list but if they can simply download and add to their own bookmarks then perhaps this might make them more accessible. Other formats apart from IE will need to be considered.

I will also need to become more familiar with the PubMed interface – especially as we will be promoting it to Society members. I aim to undertake the short online training modules – and will need to develop a PubMed search sheet as it is unlikely that the SilverPlatter databases that we use in the library and have guides for will become available to members in the near future.

Walking tour between the London headquarters of the Royal College of Physicians, the Association of Anaesthetists and the British Dental Association including a visit to their museums. 

A workshop introducing users to the biomedical resources of the British Library, including both the print collectionn and subscription online resources available from the BL reading rooms.

Short talk from an information pharmacist colleague regarding proprietary books and pharmacopoeias, their history and current uses, and print and online versions available to visitors to the Information Centre.

Workshop on using MEDLINE via the OVID interface.

Visit to the BMA Library providing an overview of services open to members (including institutional members) and an introduction to their electronic document delivery service.