Levy Library Blog

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week will bring the Information & Education Forum to the Mount Sinai Health System libraries. Over three days and three locations, vendors will be on-hand to provide information and demonstrations on the resources that the libraries currently offer to their communities. These include research programs, metrics platforms, mobile apps, exam preparations and more!

All faculty, students, staff and health professionals are invited to attend!

Tuesday, March 6th

9:00am - 2:00pm

Mount Sinai West

First Floor Lobby

Wednesday, March 7th

9:00am - 2:00pm

Mount Sinai Beth Israel

2nd Floor Rotunda

Thursday, March 8th

9:00am - 2:00pm

Mount Sinai Hospital

Guggenheim Atrium

On Tuesday, February 20th, Gali Halevi and Robin O'Hanlon presented "Social Media for Scientists" to members of the Mount Sinai community. Though ages and experience levels varied, a common thread existed - the desire to learn how social media can be used to benefit one's career and work and to gain traction within the online scientific community. 

Robin, Assistant Library Director of Outreach & Public Services, covered how social media promotion is an excellent strategy to use in the dissemination of scientific research and work. Promoting your work on social media with proven tactics can help get our name out there and get your work noticed. Being active in online communities also opens up opportunities for networking, outreach and partnerships. 

Gali Halevi, Chief Library Director, brought altmetrics to the conversation. Scientists are well-versed in citations and usage when it comes to their published articles but new kinds of metrics are making their way onto the scene. Altmetrics (alternative metrics) are other dimensions in which the impact of your article can be measured. These dimensions include mentions in news articles, mentions in blog articles, Twitter activity and Facebook activity. In an increasingly digital world, these markers of success will certainly solidify their place. 

Thank you to everyone who attended! 

Click here for more upcoming classes at Levy Library!

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With The "Behind the Desk" interview series, we meet the people behind the curtain of the Mount Sinai Health System Libraries. Today we get to meet Sonali Sugrim, Electronic Resources & Cataloging Librarian. 

Sonali Sugrim

How long have you been working at Levy Library and what were you doing before?

I have been at the Levy Library since September 2017. Prior to Levy, I worked as a cataloger for an Art Gallery and as an Assistant Archivist for a hospital. Before I received my library degree, I worked at a couple of universities in New York managing their databases and producing reports.

Describe the duties and responsibilities of your job.

I manage the library catalog which includes print, e-books, e-journals, and other e-resources. I also oversee all cataloging procedures and perform any original cataloging that needs to be done. As a measure to maintain the catalog, I liaise with OCLC to ensure and improve our access to records. I also contact vendors and publishers in the event of access issues.

Another aspect of my job is to generate reports and usage statistics which also includes the library and the Archives. Some reports I create or pull and others I have to contact publishers to provide us with the data.

What is the most challenging aspect of your job?

The most challenging aspect is to keep everything organized as the more organize I am, the better I can manage the many aspects of maintaining the catalog and making materials easily discoverable.

What is the most rewarding aspect of your job?

The most rewarding aspect of the job is getting everything to work and as well as being able to track our holdings effectively. I do enjoy the reporting aspect of the job. Statistics is used to determine what we purchase and from which vendors so keeping this aspect organized as well is very important.

What are your interests outside of work?

I like to read and explore the many museums in the city. 

Special thanks to Sonali! Stay tuned to Levy Library Blog for the next "Behind the Desk" interview!

Each month the Levy Library showcases the achievements of Mount Sinai faculty and researchers by highlighting an article and its altmetrics. Altmetrics are alternative measures of impact that capture non-traditional data like abstract views, article downloads, and social media activity.

This month we highlight Mind the Hype: A Critical Evaluation and Prescriptive Agenda for Research on Mindfulness and Meditation, written by a team of researchers including Mount Sinai’s Nicholas Van Dam, Researcher with the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. 

Citation: Volume: 13 issue: 1, page(s): 36-61. Article first published online: October 10, 2017; Issue published: January 1, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617709589. Nicholas T. Van Dam, Marieke K. van Vugt, David R. Vago, Laura Schmalzl, Clifford D. Saron, Andrew Olendzki, Ted Meissner, Sara W. Lazar, Catherine E. Kerr, Jolie Gorchov, Kieran C. R. Fox, Brent A. Field, Willoughby B. Britton, Julie A. Brefczynski-Lewis, David E. Meyer

Abstract: 

During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and “key to building more resilient soldiers.” Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting it have not gone without criticism. Misinformation and poor methodology associated with past studies of mindfulness may lead public consumers to be harmed, misled, and disappointed. Addressing such concerns, the present article discusses the difficulties of defining mindfulness, delineates the proper scope of research into mindfulness practices, and explicates crucial methodological issues for interpreting results from investigations of mindfulness. For doing so, the authors draw on their diverse areas of expertise to review the present state of mindfulness research, comprehensively summarizing what we do and do not know, while providing a prescriptive agenda for contemplative science, with a particular focus on assessment, mindfulness training, possible adverse effects, and intersection with brain imaging. Our goals are to inform interested scientists, the news media, and the public, to minimize harm, curb poor research practices, and staunch the flow of misinformation about the benefits, costs, and future prospects of mindfulness meditation.

Main: 

Mindfulness is an umbrella term used to characterize a large number of practices, processes, and characteristics, largely defined in relation to the capacities of attention, awareness, memory/retention, and acceptance/discernment. While the term has its historical footing in Buddhism, it has achieved wide-ranging popularity in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, neuroscience, and beyond, initially through its central role in mindfulness-based stress reduction —an intervention/training “package” introduced in the late 1970s as a complementary therapy for medically ailing individuals. The term mindfulness began to gain traction among scientists, clinicians, and scholars as the Mind and Life Institute emerged in 1987 and facilitated formal regular dialogues between the Dalai Lama and prominent scientists and clinicians, as well as regular summer research meetings, the latter starting in 2004 . In the early 2000s, mindfulness saw an exponential growth trajectory that continues to this day. The term mindfulness has a plethora of meanings; a reflection of its incredible popularity alongside some preliminary support, considerable misinformation and misunderstanding, as well as a general lack of methodologically rigorous research...

Conclusion:

Contemplative psychological scientists and neuroscientists, along with other researchers who study mental processes and brain mechanisms underlying the practice of mindfulness and related types of meditation, have a considerable amount of work to make meaningful progress. Much work should go toward improving the rigor of methods used, along with the accuracy of news media publicity and eliminating public misunderstandings caused by past undue “mindfulness hype.” These efforts have to take place on several related fronts....

Only with such diligent multipronged future endeavors may we hope to surmount the prior misunderstandings and past harms caused by pervasive mindfulness hype that has accompanied the contemplative science movement.

Click here to view the full article via PlumX

We are currently experiencing an issue with our 360 Linking Service - this means that our electronic journal search and linking to the full text of electronic journal articles may be unavailable.

We are working as quickly as possible to resolve this issue and apologize for any inconvenience. A notification will be sent when this issue has been resolved. We apologize for any inconvenience.

In the meantime, eJournals may be accessed via the Levy Library catalog page - http://libguides.mssm.edu/catalog

Simply select “Journals” from the tab at the top of the page and search by title for the journal you wish to access.

Please contact refdesk@mssm.edu with any questions or concerns.