Volunteering at MSK

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A recent Washington Post column by Steven Petrow describes his experience with volunteerism at MSK, both as a patient and a volunteer. His interaction with MSK volunteers began on his first night as a patient 35 years ago, when a volunteer from the patient-to-patient program came to his room and made him realize he had hope for life after cancer. About a decade later, Petrow joined the volunteer program, becoming one of the 900 people between the ages of 14 and 90 who give their time and talents as MSK volunteers.

A volunteer (in blue coat) and a caregiver. (Source: Richard DeWitt)

To learn more about volunteering at MSK, visit the Department of Volunteer Resources website.

2019 Sci-Hub Debate: What Better Way to Reflect About this Website

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Sci-Hub, a website founded by Alexandra Elbakyan is a topic that I have previously written about. My last post on this subject was entitled “The Dangers of Using Sci-Hub” (09/28/2018) where I highlighted a guest author’s post from The Scholarly Kitchen.

I have another interesting post to share from The Scholarly Kitchen which appeared April 16, 2019. Entitled “Researcher to Reader (R2R) Debate: Is Sci-Hub Good or Bad for Scholarly Communication?”, this piece is the transcript between Daniel Himmelstein (postdoctoral fellow in genomics at the University of Pennsylvania), and Justin Spence (partner and co-founder of PSI Ltd., and the IP Registry), covering their opening debate statements and responses. Both individuals argued their positions to produce a discussion worth reading. If you prefer, you can also watch the debate in action as the video recording was made available via YouTube (debate starts at 9:20 min; total time: 58.05 min). Watch to the end to find out who was declared the debate winner – you might be surprised!

As an information professional, I feel it is important to continue to express my concerns about a Website that would allow visitors to illegally access published journal articles, and often compromise users’ credentials. Even for those who “donate” their credentials, they should understand that their actions have a ripple effect and could lead to a negative outcome, impacting their institutions. And why would a researcher go to a “pirate” site if the research was published in an open access title? Why not simply obtain the full text article from a legitimate source!

For now, we will encourage our researchers to resist the urge to use Sci-Hub or any other third-party aggregator of this nature, and instead choose our Document Delivery Service for articles not found in the MSK eJournal collection.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

New Classes @ MSK Library

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The MSK Library’s May/June workshop schedule is now available! Be sure to read  the descriptions below of our newest training class offerings before registering for a session.

Please note that if the scheduled class times do not fit your calendar, you’re welcome to request an individual session (either in person or via WebEx) at a date/time that works best for you.

1) Finding Evidence Fast

Course Description:  Need answers on the go? This class will show you where to go to find the best evidence in easy to read formats for quickly answering clinical questions.

Learning Objectives – Learners will be able to:

  • Understand the levels of evidence
  • Differentiate between background and foreground questions
  • Identify mobile point of care tools
  • Learn where to find answers to clinical questions

2) EndNote for Systematic Reviews

Course Description:  Learn how to leverage the features/functionality of EndNote to streamline key citation management steps in your Systematic Review process.

Learning Objectives – Learners will be able to:

  • Use Groups to organize your citations (e.g., by source database searched for proper documentation, by reference/publication type, etc.) or to track items ordered via inter-library loan to minimize duplication of effort, etc.
  • Remove duplicates more efficiently by adjusting sensitivity, by rearranging the fields displayed to allow for easy record prioritization, etc.
  • Streamline obtaining full-text PDFs by using Find Full-Text via EndNote, by using the EndNote records to launch ILLiad request submissions, etc.
  • Export citation data in appropriate formats for importing into other tools that will be used for the subsequent (title/abstract/full-text) review steps (e.g., Excel, Covidence, DistillerSR, etc.).
  • Save compressed EndNote libraries to archive/document SR stages that will be needed for the development of the PRISMA flow chart.

3) ORCID: Open Research and Contributor ID

Course Description: As more and more publishers require that authors include an ORCID iD during the publication submission process, you might be wondering – what is ORCID, anyway? In this class, attendees will learn ORCID basics (what it is and how it works) and why an ORCID ID is an important tool for all authors who want to distinguish their work from others, maximize their research impact, and maintain compliance with publishers and granting agencies. Attendees will also learn about the connection between ORCID iD and Synapse, MSK’s publications and author profile system.

Learning Objectives – Learners will be able to:

  • Define what ORCID iD is and describe why it exists
  • Identify how author name disambiguation impacts researchers
  • Understand how to sign up for an ORCID iD and the benefits of the ORCID@MSK service
  • Understand how MSK’s publications and author profile system (Synapse) can be leveraged to populate ORCID profiles

4) Evaluating Journal Quality

Course Description: Come to this workshop to find out about the library and information resources that can help you to more comprehensively evaluate a journal’s “quality”. A variety of criteria that should be considered when deciding on where to submit a research manuscript for publication will be discussed.

Learning Objectives – To learn how to evaluate a journal by considering such criteria as:

  • Indexing & abstracting services
  • Journal metrics, publisher workflow stats
  • Unique Identifiers (DOI, ORCID, etc)
  • Other journal policies & requirements (protocol registration, reporting standards, etc)
  • Peer-review status/system, credit
  • Open Access vs. traditional publishing models
  • Copyright & permissions for re-use
  • Digital archiving for posterity

Questions? Just Ask Us!