Library STEM Subject Guides

Finding the right sources of information for any subject can be tricky, given the vast amount of resources there are available to you via our vast range on online resources. This is especially true of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (or STEM) disciplines. With that in mind, our Academic Librarians have created a set of online guides tailored to these subject areas.

You can find the complete A-Z list of all the guides by following this link:

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/library/subjectguides/

Each link gives you a concise run-down of everything you need to know about finding information for your subject, including the contact details for the Academic Librarian responsible for the School/Department concerned.

Be sure to visit and bookmark the links for future reference – you’ll certainly find them useful!

Need a Bit of a Boost? Look No Further…

14 - Leisure Reading Collection

As today is World Mental Health Day, and with the weather turning nasty and the nights drawing in, what better time to remind you about our range of Books on Prescription and Mood Boosting books up among the Leisure Reading section on Level 4 to help give you a bit of a boost for the start of term.

Reading Well Books on Prescription is a scheme providing self-help reading based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for adults for a range of common mental health conditions including anxiety and depression. These titles can now be accessed from the University Library. Reference copies of most of the books in the scheme are located in the Leisure Reading Collection on Level 4. If you’d prefer to borrow a copy, multiple loanable copies are available from Leicestershire Public Libraries. Loughborough’s public library is located on Granby Street in the centre of town, right next to the park.

Alongside the Books on Prescription titles sit the aptly-named Reading Well Mood-Boosting books, an intriguing range of uplifting novels, non-fiction and poetry. The Mood-Boosting titles have all been recommended nationally by readers and reading groups.

World Mental Health Day is a day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy, first celebrated in 1992. It’s an initiative run by the World Federation for Mental Health, a global mental health organization with members and contacts in more than 150 countries. Every year it highlights a particular mental health theme, with this year’s theme being “Living with Schizophrenia”.

To find out more, visit the World Mental Health Day site here:

http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/world-mental-health-day/

World Health Day 2014

who dayToday is World Health Day, the World Health Organisation’s annual event highlighting the dangers of a particular medical condition. This year’s message is Small Bite: Big Threat, warning of the global threat posed by disease-carrying insects.

World Health Day was launched on April 7th 1948 during the World Health Organisation’s first World Health Assembly. The goal of this year’s campaign is to encourage better protection against diseases carried by mosquitoes, flies, ticks and other bugs, especially for families living in areas where diseases are transmitted by such insects, and travelers to countries where they pose a health threat.

We have a wide variety of medical databases available via Library Catalogue Plus, including PubMed, the United States National Library of Medicine resource containing more than 23 million citations for biomedical literature from the MEDLINE database, life science journals, and online books, and the National Library for Health, a single search environment that will integrate the ‘national’ and ‘local’ information resources of 500 NHS library services across England.

To find out more about World Health Day and this year’s campaign, visit the following link:

http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2014/en/

Beautiful Science at the British Library

British_20Library_20LogoA new free exhibition begins at the British Library today on a scientific theme with an artistic twist.

Beautiful Science: Picturing Data, Inspiring Insight explores how our understanding of ourselves and our planet has evolved alongside our ability to represent, graph and map the mass data of the time.

From John Snow’s plotting of the 1854 London cholera infections on a map to colourful depictions of the tree of life, you can discover how picturing scientific data provides new insight into our lives.

The exhibition is running in the Folio Society Gallery until 26th May. For further details visit the British Library website here.

Happy Birthday Ibuprofen!

Ibuprofen relief! By Niseag03, reproduced under CC Licence from Flickr

Today marks the anniversary of a local discovery which had a profound effect on medicine and pain medication in particular: the invention of Ibuprofen.

A team of research scientists based in a Nottingham laboratory owned by the chemists Boots came up with the formula 50 years ago in December 1961 and swiftly patented it. Originally marketed as Brufen, Ibuprofen is now sold under its own name and under such familiar brand names as Nurofen, and as such is used by millions worldwide to relieve pain, fever and discomfort.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the drug, or about the weird & wonderful world of biomedicine, why not check out our range of databases on the subject on Library Catalogue Plus? You should find Scifinder and Reaxys of particular interest. Please note that for off-campus access please login to the Library pages via the Remote Working Portal.