Lister Hill Library E-mail and

Chat Reference

Service Guidelines

• Lister Hill Library staff answers questions from UAB faculty, staff, and students as well as Alabama healthcare professionals and residents.

• UAB faculty, staff, and student requests are answered before requests from others.

• Questions from persons outside of Alabama concerning information specific to UAB or Alabama will also be answered.

• Library staff will generally refer other out-of-state users to their nearest health sciences library.

• Chat hours are posted on the Ask a Lister Hill Librarian page. A librarian is available for assistance during the posted times. Questions will be answered promptly and in the order in which they are received.

• E-mail requests may be sent at anytime. Response time is usually within 24 hours and e-mails are answered in the order in which they arrive. In-house and telephone reference requests, however, will be answered before e-mail requests.

• Library staff provides answers, URLs, source suggestions, search strategies, and referrals to appropriate agencies using both print and electronic resources.

• Licensing and copyright restrictions prevent Lister Hill Library from distributing full text documents electronically. Instead, staff will assist UAB patrons in accessing the online full text resources provided by UAB.

Expert Searches and/or

Literature Reviews

Upon request, Lister Hill Librarians reference librarians will perform online database searches for citations and/or abstracts on a specific topic. Once a list of citations and/or abstracts has been generated, it can be retrieved from the library’s Info Desk, faxed, e-mailed, or mailed to the patron. There is no charge for this service.

Please note that most literature searches are conducted through MEDLINE PubMed. Although the MEDLINE database is considered to be the premier database of medical literature, even a thorough search may not be comprehensive. It may be necessary to search additional databases to ensure that the search is all-inclusive.

A fee will be charged if LHL librarians are requested to search a specialized or commercial database which is accessible only through a non-licensed vendor. This type of search may be expensive as these databases charge per connect time. Contact the Info Desk at 934-2230 or e-mail us for more details on this service.