Category Archives: About the Library

Important NCBI Account Changes Coming in June: Choosing Your Best Third-Party Option

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NCBI announced it will transition to federated account credentials on June 1, 2021. What does this mean for you?

We’ve noted before that creating a My NCBI account is a key tool within PubMed and other NCBI databases. It retains your user information and database preferences to help you keep track of research, customize your search experience, and stay compliant with the NIH Public Access Policy. While these account changes are being implemented for privacy and security reasons, they won’t affect what you’ve stored within your NCBI account. Look to the NCBI Account Login Changes FAQs page for more information.

Starting now, if you only have a Native NCBI Account (a NCBI username and password), you will need to add a Linked Account to it. This means signing in via a third-party organization, and letting it confirm your identity. This will give you federated account credentials within NCBI, and make your account more secure. Examples of organizations that you can link through are eRA Commons, Google, ORCiD, Login.gov, Microsoft, Facebook, and NIH.

As there are 4,000+ third-party login options to choose from, it’s important you select what works best for you. See this list for a breakdown of recommendations by role, activity, or preference. Here are two common scenarios for our MSK user community:

If your work involves using NCBI within the grant application process:

If your work involves using NCBI as a researcher or clinician:

Below are instructions for adding your chosen third-party option(s). The Library recommends adding at least two in case one is disrupted.

Instructions to add a Linked Account from the main NCBI page:

  1. Go to NCBI
  2. Select an option from the list or click on “more login options” for all organizations listed alphabetically

If you’d like to add more Linked Accounts once logged in to NCBI:

  1. Click on your NCBI username in the upper right corner
  2. Select Account Settings
  3. Under Linked Accounts, select Change
  4. In the search box, search for and select your desired account
  5. Authenticate with the third-party

Reflecting on National Library Week’s Theme

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National Library Week was first sponsored in 1958 by the American Library Association (ALA). Libraries of all types (academic, research, special, school, public) across the United States recognize this special week in April. This year’s National Library Week took place April 4 – 10, 2021. The theme “Welcome to Your Library” focused on the importance of how we deliver library services beyond the traditional brick and mortar library.

While the MSK Library did not organize a celebration, I want to take a moment to reflect on this theme and how the MSK Library team (and other hospital and research libraries’ staff) respond to their user communities. 2020 changed how libraries interact with their users and COVID-19 pushed us to rethink how to best support our users and look for opportunities to continue to be part of their day-to-day work/life activities. Many libraries strived to continue to deliver a positive user experience with synchronous virtual reference and consultation services, moving training and orientation classes completely online, and creating safe areas where clients could drop by the library to pick up print materials. We have always offered online services, the pandemic amplified the need for ongoing promotion and awareness of how we can collaborate on information-intense projects, answer reference questions, or handle research requests, in a virtual setting.

MSK staff can learn more about our Virtual Services, but I also want to extend an invitation to our users to reach out directly to us to schedule a brief Library Orientation to better understand these services, and the digital resources accessible via the Library Website.

Finally, another way for users to gain insights and stay in touch with the MSK Library is through our social media presence, so don’t hesitate to start following us on Twitter or Instagram.  And feel free to send me your Twitter handle, so we can follow you!

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

Available Upon Request Webinar Recap

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On March 31, MSK Library hosted our first Advancing Authorship event of 2021 – Available Upon Request: Towards Meaningful Data Discoverability. 

In this session, 105 attendees learned about the current FAIR guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship, data availability statements, the MSK Library’s Research Data Management Service and Data Catalog, and data governance at MSK. 

Panelists/speakers included:

If you were not able to attend the session, we have you covered and invite you to view the recording. To learn more about our Advancing Authorship series, just ASK US. We have some exciting plans for our 2021 event series, so we hope to see you then!