Alexander Street Press is a relative newcomer to the world of health sciences libraries. Academic librarians know this company mostly for its full-text products in the social sciences, arts, and humanities, as well as its vast online music libraries. In recent years, Alexander Street Press has expanded its product line to include streaming videos in a variety of subjects: criminal justice, history, ethnography, dance, and health sciences. Several products are available in the latter group in the areas of sports medicine and exercise science, rehabilitation therapy, counseling and psychotherapy, health issues and their societal impacts, and nursing education.
Content
Developed exclusively by MedCom-Trainex, the content of Nursing Education in Video is intended for the educational and training purposes of nurses, nursing assistants, and other allied health workers. As of April 19, 2012, there were a total of 276 streaming videos available or 96 hours of content. The videos cover a wide range of subjects, including airway management, anatomy and physiology, anxiety disorders, basic clinical skills, cardiology, communications, dietary/nutrition, compliance, legal documentation (e.g., informed consent), ethics, gastrointestinal care, gerontology, infection, medication administration, neurological care, nursing assistant skills, nursing management, obstetrical nursing, operating room, pain management, pediatrics, quality assurance/care (e.g., fall prevention), and wound management.
Generally, the quality of the video recordings is excellent. Filming is appropriately nonintrusive, without compromising the instructional content. Related text is relevant to the video and is often used to summarize what has been shown or provide an overview of a process or technique. Diction is precise, is crisp, and lacks regional accents. Each video has a brief introduction and lasts an average of twenty minutes.
Overall, the content of Nursing Education in Video is current, with the majority of the videos produced after 2007. The newest video in the database was from 2011; the oldest was from 1985. The publisher states on its website that all videos are regularly reviewed. However, in at least 2 instances, the last time the content of a specific video was reviewed was listed as 2001, and 5% of the overall content was last reviewed as long ago as 2003.
Browsing, searching, and viewing
Viewers have several options for finding content, using either the browse or search function. Videos can be browsed via predefined subject areas, series, or customized clips. A clip can be created by any authorized viewer and can be used to highlight techniques or add comments. A permalink uniform resource locator (URL) can then be linked to another web page. Alternatively, a script tag can be used to embed the video on a website. Videos can also be searched using Boolean operators. Playlists can be created for customized training. At this time, it is not possible to load videos that are not from MedCom-Trainex into this resource.
All videos have accompanying transcripts, with highlighting that corresponds to the spoken audio track. In most instances, the highlighting matches what is heard, but occasionally one lags behind the other.
Pricing
Nursing Education in Video is available as an annual subscription or a one-time purchase. However, this is not an inexpensive resource. Pricing is based upon full-time equivalents (FTE) and the subscribing library's materials budget. A thirty-day free trial is available.
Comparison to other products
Videos are becoming a standard part of any clinical resource. A drawback to the Alexander Street Press product is that it only provides videos. Mosby's Nursing Skills contains animated videos of many of the same techniques and procedures as Nursing Education in Video. It also provides additional content such as quick reference sheets, checklists, and so on. While Nursing Education in Video has live action video, for libraries that already have access to video content, this resource falls into the “nice to have” category.
References
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