Resource of the month - Africa-Wide Information

What information does Africa-Wide Information contain?

Over 4 million items from 50 different data sources, the majority from 19th C to present.

Focus on information produced in Africa.

Updated every quarter

Includes information on the following topics from all 56 African countries:

• Politics & Economics
• Industry & Mining
• Agriculture
• Development
• Legal systems
• Religion
• History & Cultural history and heritage
• Health
• Natural resources & Biodiversity
• Current affairs
• Sport
• Literature, Art, Drama & Music

Includes records from African Journals Online, South African Journals Online, African Development Database, African Healthline

Africa-Wide Information does not contain full-text 

How do I get access to Africa-Wide Information?

Africa-Wide Information is supplied by EBSCO. It is available to all current LSHTM staff and students from any computer with an internet connection.

• Go to http://search.ebscohost.com/
• Click the Shibboleth Login link
• Choose “UK Higher Education” from the drop-down list
• Click on London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• Enter your username and password (staff and London-based students enter your network username and password, Distance Learning students, enter your Portal username and password).
• Click “Africa-Wide Information” from the list of available databases

Opening hours : 30th November

The Library will be open from 5pm to 8.25pm only on 30th November and will re-open for normal opening hours at 8.30am on 1st December

World AIDS Day exhibition

An exhibition to mark World AIDS Day is now on display in the Library. The exhibition contains AIDS awareness campaign posters, leaflets and ephemera from the 1980s and 1990s. The posters and ephemera were brought together from a wide range of European countries, including Russia, Romania and Switzerland and were intended to prevent the spread of the disease by informing the public of how AIDS can be transmitted. They serve as a fascinating visual record of how the world was beginning to come to terms with such a widespread threat over twenty years ago.

The items on display are just a selection from a large collection of AIDS awareness material that was originally collected by the School’s Centre for Sexual and Reproductive Health and is now held in the School Archives. For more information on the exhibition or the Centre for Sexual and Reproductive Health collection please contact the archives team at: archives@lshtm.ac.uk

The exhibition will be on display in the Library exhibition area until 22 December 2011.

Collection of the month - Sir Henry Harold Scott (1874-1956)

Our recent ‘Gems from the Collections’ session on breakthroughs and discoveries in public health and tropical medicine got us thinking about some of our smaller collections in the Archives. One of these is the papers of Sir Henry Harold Scott relating to his investigations into vomiting sickness in Jamaica, 1915-1918.

While serving as a government bacteriologist and pathologist in Jamaica, British physician Scott made a significant contribution to the understanding of vomiting sickness. A connection between ackee fruit and vomiting sickness had been noted around the time of Scott’s birth, but his investigations into cases of ackee poisoning raised awareness of the dangers of eating the fruit when it had not been properly ripened, in which state it was later proved to contain the toxins hypoglycin A and hypoglycin B.

Scott went on to become Milner Research Fellow in comparative pathology at the London School of Tropical Medicine and later Director of the Bureau of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases (1935-1942) and President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (1943-1945).

The Archives hold a series of letters sent to Scott from individuals who believed they had suffered from vomiting sickness after eating unripe ackee fruit, publications, press cuttings and reports relating to vomiting sickness and ackee poisoning.

If you would like to view or find out more about the Scott collection visit our webpage or contact us at archives@lshtm.ac.uk

Take part in the SCONUL library access student survey

Studying at LSHTM? Do you use other academic libraries? Would you like to? Can you get what you need?

The Higher Education library community wants to provide the best possible service to students, researchers and staff who, for all sorts of reasons, wish to access other academic and specialist libraries.

Please help us develop the services and access you need by completing this short online survey - it should take 5-6 minutes.

You can access the survey at http://www.sero.co.uk/sconul_access.html, and if you'd like to be entered for a prize draw you can opt to provide your email address at the end of the survey for a chance to win one of six £30 Amazon vouchers. The survey closes on Friday 9th December.

Data Protection - Sero Consulting is registered with the Information Commissioner and undertakes that your data will be held securely and will not be disclosed in any way that can be traced to an individual.

Library Laptops

The Library has re-launched its student laptop loan scheme. You can now borrow a laptop in the Library whenever you need. There is no need to book, just come to the Library desk with your LSHTM card and you can use it straight away. There is more information on laptops and other IT in the Library from our web site.

New exhibition: Wartime at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Bomb damage to the Malet Street side of the School's Keppel Street building, May 1941. Photo credit: TH Everitt & Sons/LSHTM Library & Archives Service

An exhibition to mark Remembrance Day (11 November) is now on display in the Library exhibition area. Designed as a tribute to staff and students who have served in or been affected by war, the exhibition features photographs, official war records and reports from the School’s archive collections. ‘Wartime at LSHTM’ includes material relating to the activities of the School and the roles of staff, students and associated individuals during the First and Second World Wars.

Highlights include photographs and documents recording: Sir Ronald Ross’s military service in Alexandria in 1917; an extract from Ross’s memoir where he records his experience of serving as a consultant on malaria and dysentery during the First World War; the bombed Keppel Street building in 1941 and work of former School staff, Dean Smith and AW Woodruff, on malnutrition in prisoner of war camps in Hong Kong and Singapore during the Second World War.

The exhibition will be on display until the end of November.

The LSHTM Archives preserve and make accessible manuscript material, personal papers, photographs and artefacts relating to the history of tropical medicine and public health since the mid-nineteenth century. Further information is available at on our website.

Rada Vlatkovic and Emma Golding, LSHTM Archives Service

Pioneers: discoveries and breakthroughs in public health and tropical medicine

Box of blood slides used by Sir Ronald Ross for his research into the mosquito transmission of malaria. Image credit: LSHTM

Staff and students are invited to have a closer look at the wonderful historical collections that are held at the School. On Wednesday 16th November, between 12pm and 2pm on the ground floor of the South Courtyard, the Library & Archives Service is holding a 'Gems from the Collections ' session where staff will be available to show you some of the rare and unique documents, artefacts and books that we hold relating to important breakthroughs and discoveries in the fields of public health and tropical medicine. Material on show will include:

• A first edition of Edward Jenner’s book on smallpox vaccination from 1798, with annotations by the Southampton Anti-Vaccination League
• The notebook where Sir Ronald Ross made his discovery of the mosquito transmission of malaria on 20 August 1897
• The box used to transport malaria infected mosquitoes from Italy to London for an experiment by Sir Patrick Manson which demonstrated Ross’ 1897 discovery
• Map by John Snow showing cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854

There is no need to make an appointment, just drop by and see us outside the Manson Lecture Theatre and find out more about the School's historical collections.

For further information, please contact Emma Golding, Assistant Archivist at archives@lshtm.ac.uk