Following the success of our hugely popular laptop loan scheme, we are pleased to announce that members of the Royal Free Medical Library will now be able to borrow iPad minis.

You can request an iPad mini at the Royal Free issue desk, and it will be issued to your account exactly like a book. Please note that the loan period for the iPad minis is one week.

The iPad mini offers convenient, portable access to UCL IT services like Eduroam and Print@UCL. Although you won’t be able to download your own apps onto the iPad, it comes preloaded with lots of apps you might find useful for your studies, including:

• ClinicalKey
• UpToDate
• DynaMed
• Best Practice
• MedHand mobile libraries
• NICE BNF
• NICE BNFC

If you have any further questions, or require a demonstration of the iPad, just ask at the library issue desk.

We have an exciting medical research resource for you to try! You may already be familiar with the freely available TRIP database, which can be accessed from any PC without the need for a log in or subscription. TRIP Pro is an enhanced, subscription version of the TRIP database, and is now freely available to Royal Free NHS London Foundation Trust staff. You can access TRIP Pro via any Royal Free networked computer.  If you have any problems accessing Trip, please contact the Medical Library.

If you haven’t used either TRIP Pro, or the freely available version of TRIP before, here’s a quick introduction:

What is Trip?

TRIP (which stands for Translating Research Into Practice) is a clinical search engine covering over 150 health resources, including indexing of content from sources such as  NICE, PubMed, the Cochrane Library and BMJ. Its main purpose is to act as a search engine for the most accurate and up to date clinical evidence. TRIP provides information on guidelines, systematic reviews, controlled trials, regulatory guidance, patient information leaflets, and e-books.

How is TRIP Pro different?

As well as all of the above features of the free version of TRIP, with TRIP Pro you’ll also have access to over 100,000 extra systematic reviews, millions of extra full-text articles, and the ability to search through ongoing clinical trials. You’ll also gain access to a database of medical images and videos.

Some hints and tips:

Sort by clinical area

Refine your search by articles which focus on your specialism – just click ‘Clinical Area’ in the ‘Refine by’ area on the right-hand side of the screen. E.g. a search for “asthma” can be refined by paediatrics, geriatrics, oncology, etc.

PICO Search function

This function allows you to break down a clinical question into four specific parts – Patient, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome. This allows to focus your search even further, and provides you with a useful structure for your clinical research.

Exporting results

To make writing journal articles a little easier, TRIP can automatically export your search results into a reference management service of your choice. Just select the desired search results, download them and upload them onto your chosen reference management service:

If you’d like to find out more about searching TRIP, some handy video guides explaining the basics of using TRIP can be found here.

Happy searching, and please send any questions or feedback to rlibrary@ucl.ac.uk or tweet us @RFHMLibrary

• ———Do you want to feel confident that you have access to all the knowledge and resources that you need to make evidence based clinical decisions?
• Do you want to make sure you have skills and ability to efficiently find and appraise the latest literature in your field of study or work?
• Are you a PhD student wanting to get to grips with your literature search or review?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then this is the blog for you!

The RFH Medical Library blog is back for 2017, with a fresh new look. We promise to bring you news, information and tips to help you keep up to date and make the most of our resources and services.

What’s it all about?

Our regular features will include news about new resources, enhancements to our services and library events. We’ll give you the inside scoop on the resources available to you as a Library member, including time-saving top tips on how to use them effectively. We’ll be highlighting the services we offer to NHS staff at the Royal Free  London NHS Foundation Trust and UCL staff and students based at the Royal Free Campus. The old blog remains available but will no longer be updated.

To get the most out of your library, follow our blog and follow us on twitter @RFHMLibrary.