To better meet the needs of students and researchers, Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences this semester offers a robust slate of 20 webinars. Topics range from effective searching in a database to managing citations and references using an online platform.

Teaching workshops, demonstrations and other educational sessions has long been a core function of librarians. Tompkins-McCaw Library has long offered these sessions in its building at 509 N. 12th St. Last year, the library experimented with webinars and with some hybrid sessions, taught in-person and simulcast. Attendance was healthy for the webinars, all of which are recorded and made available for use on demand.  

“Our librarians are experts with information resources and tools. We develop workshops to provide the information about library resources that people need. We strive to to make the workshops relevant to work or research and to enhance student success,” says Emily Hurst, deputy director of the library who also heads the research and education department. “Webinars or recorded sessions are more convenient for many people. We are also aware that this format works better for students in online courses.”

The webinar lineup 

Image Credit: Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Sept. 6

12:10 - 1 p.m.

Getting Started with Zotero

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4546354

Zotero is a tool that helps users manage their citation collections. In this workshop participants will learn to how create a Zotero account, import citations and PDFs from various platforms, organize citation collections, generate in-text citations and bibliographies using Zotero’s Microsoft Word Plugin, and much more.

Sept. 19

12:10 - 1 p.m.

PubMed: Advanced

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4534243

Become a PubMed pro, learn advanced database features that will help you navigate the literature more thoroughly and precisely. This workshops will provide attendees with an overview of features medical librarians including the use of Medical Subject Heading (MeSH), Advanced Search, Search Alerts, Clinical Queries, efficient organizing and collecting options, and an introduction to MyNCBI.

Sept. 27

12:10 - 12:40 p.m.

PubMed for Pharmacy

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4549799

PubMed is a great source of primary literature, including original research related to drug information. This webinar will provide a quick overview of how to locate journal articles related to drugs in PubMed. It will also explain how to search for drug-related terms in the Medical Subject Headings and when to use a Pharmacological Action or Supplementary concept tag.

OCTOBER

Oct. 2 

Noon - 1:30 p.m.

Health Literacy

Community Health Education Center, Gateway Building  

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4559556

The Institute of Medicine defines health literacy as, “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.” This class will provide an overview of health literacy. The speakers will also demonstrate reliable consumer health information for patients, provide an overview of the teach back method, and will explain how to evaluate written patient education materials.

Oct. 5

12:10 - 1 p.m.

Finding Science and Medical Images

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4557878

Need to find images for a paper, poster, class or presentation? This workshop will help you navigate image options and resources. Participants will learn how to access licensed resources including ARTstor, AP Images, and Anatomy.TV through VCU Libraries as well as free resources. Attendees will also learn about copyright considerations for the use of images in the classroom, for publication, and in presentations.

Oct. 8

Noon - 1:30 p.m.

Health Literacy

Community Health Education Center, Gateway Building

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4559589

The Institute of Medicine defines health literacy as, “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.” This class will provide an overview of health literacy. The speakers will also demonstrate reliable consumer health information for patients, provide an overview of the teach back method, and will explain how to evaluate written patient education materials.

Oct. 5

12:10 - 1 p.m.

Finding Science and Medical Images

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4557878

Need to find images for a paper, poster, class or presentation? This workshop will help you navigate image options and resources. Participants will learn how to access licensed resources including ARTstor, AP Images, and Anatomy.TV through VCU Libraries as well as free resources. Attendees will also learn about copyright considerations for the use of images in the classroom, for publication, and in presentations.

Oct. 10

12 - 1 p.m.

Getting Started with Mendeley

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4558893

Mendeley is a tool that helps users manage, share, annotate, and cite their citation collections. Citation collections can be stored in the cloud and used across various devices or platforms. In this workshop participants will learn to create a Mendeley account, import citations and PDFs from various databases, organize citation collections, manage groups, and much more.

Oct. 11

12:10 - 1 p.m.

Web of Science: Basics

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4557872

The Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences provides access to Web of Science. This is an excellent database to enhance your biomedical literature search by allowing one stop cross-disciplinary searching. Along with subject or author searching, you can do a cited reference search to find out who has cited you or who else has cited the method paper you are using for your research.

Oct. 16

Noon - 1 p.m.

Research Poster Design

TML Lecture Room 2-010 and Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4559688

Was your poster accepted at a conference or symposium? Feeling uncertain about the best ways to lay your research out onto a poster? Join VCU Libraries to learn quick tips, tricks and tools that will help take your poster to the next level. You will learn how to make your research poster-eye catching and organized in a way that helps people understand your work. Valuable library resources and services to help you prepare your poster will also be presented.   

Oct. 17

Noon - 1 p.m.

PubMed: Basics

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4558186

Learn to search MEDLINE via PubMed, including basic features and search techniques such as limits, display options and print formats. Methods to identify locally available journals or full-text online articles will also be discussed.

Oct. 25

12:10 - 1 p.m.

Getting Started With Zotero

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4558311

Zotero is a tool that helps users manage their citation collections. In this workshop participants will learn to how create a Zotero account, import citations and PDFs from various platforms, organize citation collections, generate in-text citations and bibliographies using Zotero’s Microsoft Word Plugin, and much more.

NOVEMBER

Nov. 2

12:10 - 12:50 p.m.

SAGE Research Methods

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4559797

Do you ever find yourself stuck at some part of the research process? Are you in a class or program that requires you to do a research project and you don’t know where to start? Or perhaps, you have collected all of your data and are not quite sure how to approach analysis? SAGE Research Methods can help you move forward. This online database has information to guide users through each step of the research process, from defining a topic to research design and writing a manuscript for publication.

Nov. 5

12:10 - 1 p.m.

Web of Science: Advanced

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4559832

Web of Science is a great database of academic literature and so much more. Web of Science contains tools to help you find the top journals, authors, and papers in your field. You can also see how your papers and publication history stack up compared to others in your discipline.

Nov. 7

Noon - 1 p.m.

CINAHL

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4560674

The Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) provides access to full text from over 1300 journals, plus evidence-based care sheets, legal cases, drug records, and more than 200 books. In this workshop, participants will learn the basic features of CINAHL and search techniques such as limits and the use of Boolean Operators. Also, methods to identify locally available journals or full-text online articles will also be discussed.

Nov. 8

2 - 3 p.m.

Getting Started with Mendeley

Webinar

https://vcu.libcal.com/event/4558393

Mendeley is a tool that helps users manage, share, annotate, and cite their citation collections. Citation collections can be stored in the cloud and used across various devices or platforms. In this workshop participants will learn to create a Mendeley account, import citations and PDFs from various databases, organize citation collections, manage groups, and much more.

Most of these events will be recorded, and videos will be stored in our Kaltura archive, accessible to anyone with a VCU eID. Recordings of previous events are already available.