The Library & Archives Service will be closed over Christmas and New Year

The Library and Archives Service will be closed from 8.25 pm on 21 December, re-opening at 8.30 am on 3 January 2013. E-resources continue to be available throughout this period and can be accessed via http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/library/index.html.

Christmas Cards from the Archive Collections

The LSHTM Archive’s Ross Collection contains more than just material relating to Ronald Ross’s scientific and medical research – there are also are large number of his photographs, notebooks, postcards and sketchbooks that tell us more about Ross as a person and his wide array of interests.

Scattered among Ross’s correspondence are several Christmas cards that Ross received from his friends and colleagues. These formed a distinguished and wide-ranging group, including politicians, statesmen and dignitaries from the counties that Ross visited during his time in the Indian Medical Service and his expeditions to advise on the extermination of malaria.

They date from the early 1900s to the 1920s and provide a fascinating snapshot into the lives of the circle of Ross and his wife Rosa.

The collection also contains 2 copies of cards Ross and his wife had printed to send out to ‘Our friends in Sweden’. Ross travelled to Sweden several times and had many friends there. After winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine, he was awarded an honorary M.D. degree in Stockholm in 1910, as well as being made a fellow of the Royal Society of Sweden in 1919.

 Ross was remembered with particularly great respect in India, due to his revolutionary work on malaria. This is reflected in several very impressive looking cards from His Highness Raj Rana Sir Bhawani Singh of Jhalawar, one of which shows a picture of ‘The Kemball Library’, a large library established by the Maharaja.

The Ross Collection can be viewed at the LSHTM Archive. Please see the archives website for further information: http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/library/archives/.

MeSH - changes for 2013

NLM have released details of the changes to MeSH for 2013. The new MeSH terms will go live in PubMed in mid-December and in Ovid with the completion of the 2013 global reload on 7 January.

New MeSH terms are added to new records in the database, they are not retrospectively changed. Therefore, you may need to use both old and new MeSH terms in your search to ensure you retrieve all relevant articles.

Changes which may be relevant to School staff and students include:

New MeSH terms (complete list)

Binge drinking Community integration Controlled substances Crowdsourcing Drug overdose Epidemiological monitoring Food quality Genocide Geographic mapping Geography, medical Hand hygiene Health impact assessment Health information management Health information systems Healthcare financing

Homophobia Human migration Human papillomavirus DNA tests Maternal death Prescription drug misuse Public health surveillance Racism Smoke-free policy Social discrimination Social marginalization Solid waste Spatial analysis Tobacco products Waste water Water resources

Deleted MeSH terms (complete list)

• Overdose - use Drug overdose instead
• Residential mobility - use Population dynamics instead

Changed MeSH terms (complete list)

•  Handwashing - replaced by Hand disinfectant

Contact the Library if you have any queries about how this may impact your saved searches. For more information about MeSH see the National Library of Medicine help pages.

Definitions: hybrid and open access journals

Image credit: Osteospermum hybrid Soprano Purple  (18 June 2009) by Ltshears
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Osteospermum_hybrid_01.jpg)

Terminology in open access publishing can be confusing, so below we have defined what we
mean when we use the terms ‘hybrid’ and ‘open access’ journal.

Hybrid journal

A hybrid journal offers authors the choice of publishing via the ‘traditional’ method of access to
articles via a subscription OR making individual articles freely available online (often termed ‘open access’). Hybrid journals usually charge authors, their institutions or funders an additional fee for making an article open access. The open access article will appear in the subscription-based print and electronic versions as normal. Open access articles in hybrid journals should be marked as ‘open access’ or have a symbol that signifies they are open access.

Examples of publishers that have hybrid journals include:

• Elsevier: their open access option is Sponsored Article.
• Oxford University Press: their open access option is Oxford Open.
• Springer: their open access publishing option is Open Choice.

Fully Open Access Journal

A fully open access journal makes every article freely available without a subscription to the
user. An Article Processing Charge (APC) will usually have to be paid to cover the cost of making the publication open access. Many open access journals are peer-reviewed in the same way as traditionally published journals and are gaining high impact factors.

Examples of publishers of fully open access journals:

• PLoS
• BioMedCentral (The School has supporter membership of BMC. This entitles all School
• members to a 15% discount on BMC's fees)
• SpringerOpen

The Directory of Open Access Journals has a list of fully open access journals.

More information about open access publishing is available from our website or by
contacting us at: researchonline@lshtm.ac.uk

Remembering World Aids Day at the LSHTM

Saturday 1st December is World AIDS Day, observed every year to raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of the HIV infection.To mark the day the School have put together an exhibition, including material from the Archive service, focusing on LSHTM and HIV/AIDS. It goes on display from Monday 3^rd December in the reception area of the Keppel Street building.







Poster from Europe Against AIDS campaign



Around 100,000 are currently living with HIV in the UK and globally an estimated 34 million people have HIV. More than 25 million people between 1981 and 2007 have died from the virus, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history. Staff from LSHTM are involved in working towards a better future for people living with HIV and preventing new infections with research in a wide range of disciplines.

The exhibition features material from the Archive dating from the 1980s and 1990s, originally collected by the School’s Centre for Sexual and Reproductive Health. It includes a range of promotional items from campaigns and propaganda used by governments during the early days of AIDS awareness. The items, include badges, pins, condoms, lubricants, postcards and hats and were brought together from a wide range of European countries, including Russia, Romania and Switzerland. 

The material uses cheeky and humorous cartoons and whimsical imagery to get across the message of the importance of using condoms in preventing the spreading of the HIV virus. The collection as a whole serves as a fascinating visual record of the different ways the world came to terms with the threat of AIDS.



Material featured in the AIDS exhibition



To continue this theme, within the library entrance area there is a display of AIDS awareness posters from a range of European countries, also collected by the School’s Centre for Sexual and Reproductive Health.

Today, many scientific advances have been made in HIV treatment. There are laws to protect people living with HIV and we understand so much more about the condition. But despite this, it is still important to remember that HIV has not gone away – and that there is still a need to increase awareness, fight prejudice and improve education.

The exhibition ‘AIDS - It's Not Over: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and HIV/AIDS’ will be in the entrance hall from Monday 3rd December until February. For further information, please see: http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/multimedia/features/world_aids_day_2012_.html

The full collection of papers of The Centre for Sexual and Reproductive Health Research are available to view in the LSHTM Archive. Please see the archives website for further information: http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/library/archives/.

You can learn more about HIV in the UK by visiting the HIVaware website.

Wartime at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

To mark Remembrance Day on 11th November there is a display in the entrance area and reading room of the library highlighting the role played by the School during the First and Second World Wars.



Staff and students in 1916

The exhibition features photographs, official war records and reports from the School’s Archive collections and 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.

During the First World War many members of staff were called up for service and student levels fell dramatically, with only two students present for the January 1918 session.  



In the Second World War the School played a vital role in providing intensive courses in tropical medicine and hygiene for those leaving on overseas service.

The School’s buildings were badly damaged by bombing in the Second World War, the extent of which can be seen in photos as part of the display.



Bomb damage to Keppel Street building in 1941



There is also a chance to read extracts from the memoirs of the malariologist Ronald Ross covering his wartime experiences.

NEW DATABASE - Scopus

The Library has purchased a subscription to the Scopus database. It is available on any computer using the School network or via Remote Desktop. We are working with Scopus to provide access to all current staff and students via your network username and password as soon as possible.

Scopus is a multidisciplinary database covering: physical sciences (chemistry, physics, engineering etc), health sciences (medicine, nursing dentistry etc), social sciences (psychology, economics, business etc), life sciences (neuroscience, pharmacology, biology etc) and some arts and humanities content. Most coverage is in the physical and health sciences. Most journals are from Western Europe (47%) or North America (32%) but other geographical regions are covered. 21% of titles are non-English language sources ( English abstracts are provided).

Scopus also provides bibliometrics information. We have provided a spec sheet on Scopus detailing coverage, update frequency, search syntax and current awareness features.

The Library decided to subscribe to Scopus following positive feedback obtained in the free trial run in March 2012.

Please contact us if you have any comments or queries about Scopus, or leave a comment below.