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Library Knowledge Services (North)

Knowledge mobilisation and impact on Patient Care - Working like a dog: exploring the Role of Animal-Assisted Therapy.

‘Wag & Company’, a charity which provides animal assisted therapy to older people, was launched in May 2016. The Charity matches and enables professionally assessed volunteers and their dogs, known as ‘Visiting Wag Teams’, to safely offer one to two hour visits per week to older people in a variety of different settings across the North East region. The initiative to investigate the benefits of pet therapy at North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust first came from a ward based therapy team working on the elderly care unit to help patients with dementia. Information gathered from the wider literature revealed evidence to support the benefits of ‘Animal Assisted Therapy’ in helping to reduce anxiety, improve physical health, cognitive function and overall health and well-being.…

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Training Course Reflection: Supporting Researchers

The ‘Supporting Researchers’ course was organised and funded by Health Education England and run by Dr Maria Grant and Lisa Jeskins. The course ran over 4 weeks and there were several cohorts you could join. My cohort ran from 24th October – 15th November 2022. The first week we were asked to take part in a flipped classroom, which was followed-up in the second week by a webinar on Microsoft Teams. This format was repeated in weeks 3 and 4. The first part focused on taking stock of the things that our library service already does to support researchers, while the second part helped us to take a step back in order to work out how to pull our support offer into a coherent strategy, underpinned by SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timebound) objectives and aligned with our library’s and organisation’s strategies. There were plenty of opportunities for us to share ideas and to practise writing SMART objectives.…

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7 Things to do to Prepare Your Library for the New Library Management System

The preparation to move to a new library management system has begun in Bradford. We have started long task of organising and cleaning the library data exists on our current library management system (Heritage Cirqa) and prepare for the upcoming shift. As a library we came across 7 things which we think will help to consider should you need to clean, reformat, or delete any old data which has been left over the years before the switch in Library Management Systems.…

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Northumbria Book Club – New Developments

We launched our Book club in February 2019 to highlight the benefits of leisure reading for clinical staff and students and to promote the library to non-users. Every month, we choose a Book of the month (BOTM), which is displayed in our 4 libraries and recommended on social media. Our choices often tie in with topical events, for example, Women and power for International Women’s Day and Life on our planet for NHS Sustainability Day. We run a Facebook poll to choose a summer reading Book of the month and select a Christmas book for December – Twas the nightshift before Christmas is one of our most popular BOTMs so far.…

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Ten things to do as an Exhibitor at a conference

I recently attended the Ambulance Leadership Forum event as an Exhibitor, the first in person event since COVID19 wiped the calendar clean. Pre COVID, LKS ASE exhibited at many events and occasionally presented as well. Being an Exhibitor is a unique experience, essentially waiting in a hall, ante room or dining room for Delegates to come out for their breaks and meals and hopefully engage you in conversation. Typically, Exhibitors represent publisher's, lifesaving equipment suppliers, professional organisations and medical goods suppliers. There is plenty of time to reflect (and work) between the breaks, one of those reflections was what does it take to be a good Exhibitor. So, here are my top ten tips.…

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Meeting face to face again … and managing a hybrid event

On 29th June 2022, Yorkshire and Humber Health Libraries Network (YOHHLNet) held its first face to face event for over two and a half years. The study day (held at Leeds Central Library) incorporated the AGM and brought around 30 people from across the region together. The event booked up really quickly, even before the agenda had been finalised, showing the keenness of many to meet face to face again.…

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