Health Library News

The Ian Smith Drug Reference Library bulletin focusing on substance misuse is now available to view by clicking here . This issue cover the latest government documents and reviews from the Cochrane Collaboration.

Mental Health and Social Care Current Awareness Bulletin No. 183 is now available for viewing here . The bulletin is designed to provide current awareness updates for mental health and social care services. Newsletter produced by Eastern Counties Library and Knowledge Services Alliance. Content covers updates from the Department of Health, national and international news and condition specific updates. Useful conferences and websites are also listed.

The Commissioner is a current awareness newsletter produced by North West Primary Care Librarians Group to support practice based commissioning. The latest issue (volume 3, issue 11)is now available from the Fade Library blog . All news items are available as text articles (blog entries) or as a 6 min audio summary (podcast).

The monthly Health E-news produced by the Halton & St Helens Health Improvement Library Service, the Primary Care Library, and St Helens Health Partnership is now available by clicking here . The update contains information which relates to the six key areas of the Department of Health’s White Paper Choosing Health: Making Healthier Choices Easier .

The latest issue of the Ian Smith Drug Reference Library update news letter is now available by clicking here . The update covers the latest articles on alcohol and the effectiveness of treatment produced by the Cochrane Collaboration, Department of Health as well articles from top peer reviewed journals like Alcohol, Behaviour Research and Therapy and Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health. Alcohol policy UK news produced by Ranzetta Consulting, public health specialists in alcohol is now also available . Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust is holding the conference Alcohol: Everyone's Problem, Alcohol Treatment in Primary Care Wednesday 10th December 2008 in Bury. Full details available here .

A new Vascular Specialist Library has now been added to the National Library for Health. It is being officially launched today to co-incide with the Vascular Society's Annual General Meeting in Bournemouth 12th - 14th November 2008. A launch editorial is available via the homepage . The first newsletter with the latest systematic reviews, guidelines, conferences and research is available online . Currently updates are only available via RSS format from this website. Please take your time to feedback on this resource and how it could be improved.

Please be advised that on Wednesday 5th November 2008 between 07:00am and 10:00am there will be essential network maintenance on the National Library for Health’s Search 2.0 databases. During the maintenance window there will be a loss of service on the saved searches feature. For this reason, please do not use Search 2.0's saved searches facility between the hours specified. Please contact the library if you experience any further problems with the service.

From 28th Nov 2008, the NHS A-Z journal list will be transferring from TDnet (MyJournals) across to the new NHS in-house service . There will be a month overlap between the two platforms, before the new A-Z list takes over the current web address (1st January 2009), so there should be no need to alter any saved book marks. Please be aware that this means the loss of the current table of contents (TOC) service provided by TDnet and linking of favourite journals in the National Library for Health's My Library pages. The British Library owned Zetoc service has been purchased as an interim measure, but will require the manual creation of new alerts. Visit the Zetoc support service for further information on creating TOC alerts. The current Zetoc licence will only valid until 31st July 2009. Zetoc alert service is also available to all Keele Athens users. For alternate methods of keeping up to date with your favourite journals or news services, please contact the Health Library or

From November 1st, local authority social care staff in selected regions, including the West Midlands, are eligible to access electronic resources via NHS Athens accounts. Access to the Core Content collection which includes high quality journals and databases is currently operating on a 10 month trial basis. In the past, access has been restricted only to only NHS staff, however, the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and Skills for Care have successfully argued that those working in government-funded social care organisations should be given equality of access. For further information and online registration please visit the Social Care Online website .

Please click here to access the latest current awareness bulletin provide by National Primary Care Research & Development Centre. This bulletin highlights key articles in areas such as access to care, health inequalities, need and demand for care, patient and public involvement, primary secondary care interface, quality of care, research and development and self management.