WITH USUAL APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING

Call for papers for Health Information and Libraries Journal, December 
2007.

In December 2007 the 'Health Information and Libraries Journal'
(http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/hir) will publish its annual themed 
issue. In 2007 the title will be ‘Assessing the impact of information 
services in the health sector’, and the issue will be edited by Rowena 
Cullen, Associate Professor, Victoria University of Wellington, and Rachel 
Esson, Medical Librarian, Wellington Medical School, in New Zealand..

HILJ is the official journal of the United Kingdom's Health Libraries 
Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

Prospective authors across the world are asked to submit a 150-250 word 
abstract of their proposed paper to Rowena Cullen 
([log in to unmask]) by Friday 2 February 2007. Papers (which should 
be from 1000-5000 words in length) should be grounded in research, link 
research to practice, and be of value to health information specialists in 
assessing the value and impact of their own services and programmes. 
Papers with an evidence-based focus will be especially welcome. Case 
studies that can demonstrate the impact of services will also be 
considered.

Authors chosen for the special issue will be asked to submit manuscripts 
by 1 May 2007 for peer review. Authors will receive comments from 
reviewers in early June, and will be asked to submit the final version of 
their paper by 31 July 2007.

Theme: Accountability is present in many aspects of public services and 
private industry. There is pressure to justify to all stakeholders that 
the resources needed for an activity are appropriately used and result in 
quality outputs that impact in some way on health services. Health library 
and information services across the world cannot escape from these 
pressures where proof has to be provided that their activities make a 
difference. Clinical decision making, learning outcomes, outcomes of 
education programmes in information literacy and evidence-based decision-
making, and the economic benefits of services are all areas upon which 
health library and information services impact. Impact measurement thus 
has a strategic role as it provides an opportunity for the library or 
information service to show to the wider organization its contribution and 
value. The challenge is to identify, gather and report the information 
which shows the scale and level of this impact.

Different approaches are available to measure the value and impact of 
health library and information services. These include determining 
information needs and uses, bench marking, performance measures and 
metrics, cost-benefit analysis and outcomes measurement. In all these 
there is a need to understand the steps involved in planning the 
evaluation, how the results of the assessment are best organized and 
presented, and the strengths and limitations of the chosen approach.  

For the purpose of this issue, information services are considered to 
include standard library services supporting teaching and healthcare, 
instructional programmes, services offered to health administrators, 
clinical librarian programmes, services offered on a variety of technology 
platforms including web-based services, community health and patient 
information services.