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cilip: Health Libraries Group
For the newsletter, June
2005
Current Literature
Column Editor: Tiffany Moxham, Information
Support Team Assistant.
For submissions or comments please contact
Tiffany at: [log in to unmask]
Or: Medical
Library
Royal Free
Hospital
Rowland Hill
Street
London NW3
2PF
Professional Marketing
Lindberg, D.A.,
M.D., Humphreys, B.L., M.L.S. “2015 – The Future of Medical
Libraries.” The New England Journal of Medicine 2005; 352(11):
1067-1070.
A must read: Not because of the journal it’s in or because it
says anything new, but because this is what medical professionals are reading
about medical libraries and it acts as a reminder that we are responsible for
the future of our profession.
Schott, M.“Dodos 101: A cautionary tale.”
Journal of Hospital Librarianship 2004; 4(4): 1-6.
While a little
exaggerated at the end of this tale, Schott reminds us of the importance of
marketing our profession to those outside of it. Schott’s story is set in
a future classroom where students discuss why the medical library profession
became extinct. The key to the tale lays in the idea that knowing we
contribute to the health care system is not good enough; we as individuals and
as a profession need to proactively ensure that those holding the budget strings
know our contributions.
Sladek, R.M., Pinnock, C., Phillips, A.
“The informationist: a prospective uncontrolled study.” International
Journal for Quality in Health Care. 2004. 16(6): 509-515.
And
on the subject of promoting our profession…included in the conclusion is that
the use of an informationist service substantially contributes to medical
decision making, clinical education, and clinical outcomes. Although a
poorly designed study unlikely to be taken as hard evidence, the survey is a
good start at encouraging us to systematically show our
worth.
Search
Strategies/Databases
Eldredge, J.D. “Search strategies for
population and social subjects in a medical school curriculum.” Medical
Reference Services Quarterly.
Winter 2004; 23(4): 35-47.
In
addition to sharing his teaching experiences, Eldredge provides searching
techniques, a search protocol, and a list of MeSH terms related to population
topics.
Montori, V.M., Wilczynski, N.L., Morgan, D., Haynes, R.B.
“Optimal search strategies for retrieving systematic reviews from Medline:
analytical survey”
BMJ 2005; Jan: 330: 68.
Generally interesting and
includes potential improvements in future classification to ensure maximum
recall.
McGowan, J., Sampson, M. “Systematic reviews need systematic
searchers.” Journal of the Medical Library Association 2005; Jan 93(1):
74-80.
Provides a detailed description of the methods, skills, and
knowledge needed by searchers who conduct systematic reviews.
Alpi,
K.M. “Expert searching in public health.” Journal of the Medical Library
Association 2005; Jan 93(1): 97-103.
Alpi explains the needed for
specialised knowledge in this area and provides tips for improving skills in
finding information in public
health.
Training
Dinwiddie, M., Winters, J.
“Two-stepping with Technology: An instructor/librarian collaboration in health
promotion for Baccalaureate nursing students.” Journal of Library and
Information Services in Distance Learning. 2004; 1(4): 33-45.
All
trainers will have faced the difficulties of lack of student retention and/or
lack of interest in information skills. This study looks at the benefits
of creating a strong partnership between course instructors and librarians,
which allow information skills training to be conducted in association with
‘real’ situations, allowing the students to understand why they would need these
skills and the benefits to patient care of using them.
O’Donovan,
P. “Creating web tutorials for nursing students using power point.”
Journal of Hospital Librarianship. 2004; 4(4): 99-106.
Not just
basic power point but how to animate presentations to make them more
user-friendly, interesting, and practical for self
study.
Collaborations
Youngkin, M.E.
“Access Marries Archive: BioMed Central/PubMed Central: An open access
partnership.” Journal of Electronic Resources in medical Libraries. 2004;
1(4): 1-11.
Youngkin discusses the partnership of open access publishers
BioMed Central and the US National Library of Medicine’s Digital Life Science
Journal Archive. In addition to information on how the collaboration
works, Youngkin discusses how this collaboration and other publishing models
directly affect libraries.
Web Site
Design
Felker, K and Chung, S.K. “If at first you don’t
succeed…: web site redesign at the UNLV libraries.” Library Hi Tech. 2005;
23(1): 50-65.
This article follows the library web site redesign of the
UNLV libraries (Nevada, USA) from start to finish with the emphasis on
process. Although technical problems did occur, the hardest part of the
redesign dealt with political and communication issues.
Kyne, A.
“Improving user’s ability to find online health resources: creating
search-engine-friendly web pages.” Journal of Hospital Librarianship. 2004;
4(4): 65-71.
Explains in a user friendly way the difference between
search engines and directories and provides some basic insights into how to
design a site to improve the chances of it being found for its intended purposes
from both search engines and directories.
Preservation/Archival
Work
Very few medical libraries are fortunate enough to have an
archivist on their staff, yet many librarians find themselves with special
collections and historically significant materials to preserve and display or
store. These articles provide tips and/or share experiences of handling
such collections.
Gorman, L. “Preservation of a Lifetime.”
Journal of Hospital Librarianship. 2004; 4(3): 23-33.
Although not a
comprehensive review, this article provides information and thoughts on some of
the different considerations that should be considered when working on a
preservation project. The case study covers a one off donation from the
widower of the library’s namesake and as such includes not only information on
preservation and display but also on the dedication service.
Sokolow,
D. “You want me to do what? Medical Librarians and the management of
archival collections.” Journal of Hospital Librarianship. 2004;
4(4):31-50.
************
Tiffany Moxham
Information Support Team
Assistant
Royal Free and University College Medical School Library
Royal
Free Hospital
Rowland Hill Street
London, NW3 2PF
+44(0)20 7794
0500 ext4997