Levy Library Blog

What a year it has been! 2019 for The Levy Library was a time of growth. We welcomed new team members, continuously developed our wellness programming, made strides in the world of academic publishing, connected with our amazing communities, and continued to strive to be the best possible resource that we can be for all within the Mount Sinai Health System. 

Here are some highlights of just a handful of happenings from 2019:

JANUARY

• The Levy Library welcomed Chelsea Rein, librarian for the Phillips School of Nursing at Beth Israel.

FEBRUARY

• Wellness came to the forefront with the introduction of the library's wellness table and relaxation offerings.
• Researchers had the opportunity to receive hands-on training in the best practices for sharing code and data.

MAY

• The Levy Library promoted its resources and services to Mount Sinai Health System communities during the annual Information Forum.

• The library's wellness initiatives were represented at this year's Wellness Fair and the team got the community thinking about what makes them smile.

JULY

• Lily Martin, Reference & Instruction Librarian, joined the team!
• Authors within our very own community took the spotlight in 30 Days of Mount Sinai Authors.

AUGUST

• We learned a little bit more about Evita Rodrigues in this "Behind the Desk" interview.

SEPTEMBER

• Gali Halevi gave a presentation on altmetrics at the 2019 ISSI conference. 

OCTOBER

• The Levy Library co-presented the "Preprints: Fact, Myths and More" event.

• The Levy Library celebrated Open Access Week.

YEAR-LONG

• And, of course, we can't forget all of the excellent classes that were taught and adorable dogs that visited!

Each month 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. Our altmetrics data is provided by the PlumX platform. 

This month we highlight: Funding for Abstinence-Only Education and Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention: Does State Ideology Affect Outcomes? This article was written in part by Ashley M. Fox and Elizabeth A. Howel. 

OBJECTIVES

To examine the relationship between adolescent pregnancy–prevention and sexuality and abstinence-only education funding and adolescent birthrates over time. Also, to determine whether state ideology plays a moderating role on adolescent reproductive health, that is, whether the funding has its intended effect at reducing the number of adolescent births in conservative but not in liberal states.

METHODS

Modeling time-series data on federal abstinence-only and adolescent pregnancy–prevention and sexuality education block grants to US states and rates of adolescent births (1998–2016) and adjusted for state-level confounders using 2-way fixed-effects models.

RESULTS 

Federal abstinence-only funding had no effect on adolescent birthrates overall but displayed a perverse effect, increasing adolescent birthrates in conservative states. Adolescent pregnancy–prevention and sexuality education funding eclipsed this effect, reducing adolescent birthrates in those states.

CONCLUSIONS

The millions of dollars spent on abstinence-only education has had no effect on adolescent birthrates, although conservative states, which experience the greatest burden of adolescent births, are the most responsive to changes in sexuality education–funding streams.

View the PlumX article profile

Data without context - not exactly as helpful as it should be. Plum Analytics is looking to change that with the roll out of a recently-added feature on its PlumX Metrics platform. With a new percentiles option, users can now see how an article stacks up against others published by that same journal. 

Under the provided metrics on an article's page, you will see additional options for 1 Year and 3 Year. These percentiles illustrate how the article compared to other from that same journal within the respective frame of time. Effects of intensive glucose lowering in type 2 diabetes, for example, was in the top 94th percentile for all NEJM articles within the past year and in the 98th percentile for the past three years. 

For questions about this new feature or to learn more about PlumX Metrics, visit our libguide!