FHSLA is proud to present a blog post by Visible Body- Diamond Sponsor of the FHSLA annual  meeting.

Calling All Librarians: A Visual and Interactive 3D Database for your Library 

At Visible Body, we feel a kinship with academic librarians. Taking vast amounts of information, making sure it is accurate, organizing it in a logical, user-friendly system, and presenting it in such a way that it sparks understanding and learning—librarians do it, and we do it too! 
Visible Body creates highly visual and interactive content for students and professionals who need to understand and communicate human anatomy, physiology, pathology and biology. 
The professionals behind Visible Body's content are part of our in-house biomedical visualization team. Everything they create is reviewed by outside panels of experts before being included in the products we provide to libraries and medical institutions around the world. Our content collection includes over 24,000 items. 
Here are some samples: 

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Our library is a collection of apps that can be accessed on whatever electronic platform our users prefer: PCs or Macs, iPhones or Android phones, tablets, or zSpace.

Web Suite is one of our most popular subscription licenses. With this package, users get access to so much content. This package includes our interactive Anatomy & Physiology content as well as all of our new Biology models.
Professors and students tend to view Visible Body’s apps as companions or replacements to textbooks. Librarians often describe them as databases. In Human Anatomy Atlas, for example, a quick search for “thyroid” results in:

• 16 names and definitions of anatomical structures with the term “thyroid” within. Tapping/clicking on each of these definitions launches an interactive model of that structure within the context of surrounding anatomy.
• 11 regional/systemic anatomical 3D model views, such as “Thyroid Vasculature” and “Parathyroid Glands,” that can be launched and explored further.
• Six quizzes, such as “Neck and Laryngeal,” which include thyroidal structures. 

Once added to an academic library’s collection, Visible Body is often used by Allied Health students: nursing, physical therapy, radiology, personal training, etc. An Anatomy & Physiology course is a prerequisite for these careers and is notoriously difficult. “We (at NCCC) are working at retention in all fields, and particularly in the health sciences,” Nancy Kennedy says. “A&P is a tough class for our students, so we’re looking to Visible Body to help.”

Health sciences, biology and medicine students and faculty are not the only users of Visible Body on campus. Visual arts students, both in 2D art (drawing, animation) and 3D art (sculpture) also use the highly accurate medical visualizations to better understand human anatomy. Jennifer Martinez Wormer is Library Director at Laguna College of Art + Design and has included Visible Body in their collection since 2012. “The impact [Visible Body] is having is helping our students develop a better understanding of human anatomy and muscular systems so that the humans they portray in their art are more realistic and believable,” she says.

Check out our Visible Body Librarians page or Request a Trial.

Is your library and hospital working through the challenges of one or more of the current healthcare trends? Rittenhouse strives to provide solutions to meet the ever-changing collection management challenges due to ensuring healthcare equity, burnout among health professionals, streamlining operations, and continuation of providing telehealth options for patients. We surveyed our librarian partners for a better understand of the biggest challenges faced today with collection management. We found that those challenges include declining budgets, loss of library space, transiting from print to electronic resources, and reduction in staff.

Rittenhouse offers a variety of free programs, tools, and services to help librarians overcome these challenges while supporting the needs of their patrons.

Limited staff and budget?
There are several ways to start or enhance your digital health sciences collection, review usage statistics, and purchase only resources that you know your patrons need.
        1. Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) Program—try our fully mediated program. Provide free, immediate access to thousands of eBooks.
        2. Open Educational Resources—the R2 Digital Library offers a catalogue of more than 50 free resources including—The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Fast Facts, Environmental Health in Nursing, and much more!
        3. Free Trial—New to R2? Start a free trial and discover the health sciences eBooks that would gain solid usage in your digital collection. Access is immediate, and usage statistics are available for your reference.

Shifting from print to electronic resources?

The R2 Digital Library has thousands of life and health sciences eBooks available, and Rittenhouse has the service to help support your library’s print-to-e migration. Take advantage of our Core Collection Update service—send us your shelf list in an Excel format, and we’ll return a quote for matched eBooks that are active on the R2 Digital Library. The service is free, and you can select the titles that you would like to purchase.

Need help getting started?

There are a variety of collection management tools to help enhance or start your R2 Digital Library collection. Rittenhouse makes the following resources available to serve as guide to selecting the right content for your digital collection—Doody’s Core Titles, Doody’s Special Topics Lists, and Special Collections focused on various subjects and disciplines.
The seasoned sales team and customer service department at Rittenhouse are available to help you start a trial, a PDA collection, or to assist with your print-to-e transition. To learn more, visit R2library.com or email customerservice@r2library.com.
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