DOI: 10.1111/hir.12077
Editorial The role of the health information professional Abstract This virtual issue has been published to mark the CILIP Health Libraries Group 2014 Conference, taking place in Oxford on 24th and 25th July 2014. The issue’s theme is to highlight the key role of the health information professional and it shines a spotlight on professional expertise, demonstrating what we can share and learn from each other. It comprises a collection of articles published in the Health Information and Libraries Journal during the last 2 years but is very much about looking forward. The articles selected embrace three main themes: new ways of working; acquiring new skills and competencies; and fine-tuning existing skills and practices. The virtual issue mirrors the format of the regular journal, namely a review article, six original articles and the three regular features, covering Dissertations into Practice, International Perspectives and Initiatives and Learning and Teaching in Action. All articles included in this virtual issue are available free online. Keywords: library and information professionals; libraries, health science; competencies, information skills; web 2.0 This virtual issue has been published to mark the CILIP Health Libraries Group 2014 Conference, taking place in Oxford on 24th and 25th July.1 The issue’s theme is to highlight the key role of the health information professional and it shines a spotlight on professional expertise, demonstrating what we can share and learn from each other. The theme mirrors the tag line for the conference itself: . . . ‘Attention will shift from the library to the librarian. The information professional is the library of the future. Sage BL Summit 2012.’ The issue comprises a collection of articles published in the Health Information and Libraries Journal during the last 2 years but is very much about looking forward. The articles selected
embrace three main themes: new ways of working; acquiring new skills and competencies; and finetuning existing skills and practices. The virtual issue is freely available online and mirrors the format of the regular journal, namely a review article, six original articles and the three regular features. The issue begins with a review article which was published in June 2012 and which systematically mapped the literature on the use and effectiveness of Web 2.0 technologies for end users in academic, medical and research libraries. Gardois et al.2 reviewed journal articles published between 2006 and 2010 and discovered that academic, medical and research libraries were actively experimenting with Web 2.0 services. The prevalent services over the period studied were conferencing/chat/instant messaging alongside blogs, social networking, wikis, podcasts and aggregators. The authors further report that under half of the articles in the sample contained evaluative data and that most evaluated different outcomes using diverse assessment methods. They identify the need for libraries aiming to implement such services to adopt a clear and rigorous evaluation strategy. The article also recommends a systematic review of the relevant literature, to evaluate the effectiveness of Web 2.0 services and to identify gaps in the evidence base. The six original articles reflect the three main themes of the virtual issue: new ways of working and the impact on end-users; emerging professional competencies; and fine-tuning effective information retrieval skills and strategies. Powelson and Reaume3 investigated the impact of a new library service model for health providers in Alberta, Canada. In 2005, the University of Calgary entered into a contract to provide library services to the staff of Alberta Health Services Calgary Zone, creating the Health Information Network Calgary (HINC). The authors conducted a satisfaction survey to determine whether the new library service delivery model was satisfying the information needs of the target user group. The paper reports user satisfaction with the new service model and argues
© 2014 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2014 Health Libraries Journal Health Information & Libraries Journal
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that contracting with a university library can create capacity for hospital library staff to focus primarily on client services. It also suggests that virtual library services can eliminate information access disparities between rural and urban practitioners. Staying with end-users, but in the form of the general public, the paper by Austvoll-Dahlgren et al.4 describes the development of a web-based portal in Norway designed to improve the health literacy skills of health consumers. The paper contextualises the development within the growing trend towards user involvement in health and the counter-balancing evidence of poor levels of health literacy across populations. The paper identifies the barriers which people face with regard to finding and evaluating health information and moves on to describe three toolsets which were developed to tackle the problems: improving critical appraisal skills; enabling exchange of health information in consultations and improving access to reliable sources of health information. The tools are available on the portal, which is still live at http://www.sunnskepsis.no. The authors suggest that it is a unique resource which can be used by members of the public independently or in consultation with health practitioners. They also advocate its use for health educators working to improve health literacy skills and for anyone involved in developing patient information. Switching the focus from improving the skills of end-users to those of service providers, Sutton and Booth5 report on a piece of work which was commissioned by the UK’s National Library for Health. This took the form of a training needs analysis (TNA), in which health library and information managers (HLIMs) assessed their own leadership skills and identified development needs. Responses to an online self-assessment questionnaire were collated and characterised into four influencing styles: Opportunist-collaborator; Strategic-collaborator; Opportunistic-battler and Strategic-battler. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the dominant style of the HLIMs was collaborative. The authors conclude that in increasingly difficult times, HLIMs may have to act in a different style to their usual approach, applying aspects of the opportunist and battler. The paper also identifies leadership skills as an under-reported area of training needs for health library and information professionals.
Lorenzetti and Rutherford6 explore a different aspect of professional competence, namely participation in research. In a pilot study conducted in Canada the authors used in-depth interviews with four biomedical information professionals to explore the conditions that either support or hinder information professionals’ participation in interdisciplinary research. They report that successful research collaborations appear to be created through the integration of certain elements, which include an awareness and willingness on the part of researchers along with a willingness on the part of information professionals to work outside their comfort zone. Developing the competencies and confidence necessary to engage on an equal footing with other researchers can have a positive impact on successful research team participation. The paper by Beyer and Wright7 tackles a very real practical issue for information practitioners and describes a method to answer the key question: ‘how much searching is enough?’. They note that no evidence-based guidance exists on how to prioritise resources to search or decide when to stop searching for evidence to inform a systematic review. They argue that such guidance might save significant time and resources. Using a case study of frozen shoulder management they conclude that at least two databases alongside reference checking were required to retrieve all included studies. They further recommend specific combinations of databases for systematic reviews – such as Cochrane CENTRAL and either MEDLINE or Science Citation Index (SCI) – and for literature searches in musculoskeletal medicine. Also exploring the topic of literature searching, Nourbakhsh et al.8 report on a comparison study of PubMed and Google Scholar. The article details the methods used to compare the two to answer relatively uncomplicated clinical questions. It discusses how both the PubMed database and the Google Scholar search engine retrieve useful but different initial sets of journal articles. The authors argue that Google Scholar articles were more likely to be classified as relevant, have a higher number of citations and appear to come from higher impact journals when compared with PubMed articles. They conclude that Google Scholar searches can identify important information on clinical questions and should be used in conjunction with PubMed searches.
© 2014 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2014 Health Libraries Journal Health Information & Libraries Journal
Editorial
The three articles from the regular features section of the journal offer a snapshot of the virtual issue’s general thematic coverage, highlighting an innovative use of new technology and the growing emphasis on the library and information professional as teacher and trainer. From the Dissertations into Practice feature, Herbert9 reports on a study completed as part of an MSc in Health Informatics at the University of Sheffield. The study set out to evaluate the effectiveness of the FirstPort intranet site used by NHS Lanarkshire for knowledge management and to test opinion on what would be required for a new version of the site. The author concludes that the resource is well-used and that users are generally satisfied with the content. The new site has the potential to meet the information needs of users as long as certain improvements are made, mainly to do with interface design and an improved search facility. The International Perspectives and Initiatives feature has gone from strength to strength as it has progressed around the world. The article included here is the third in the series and looks at the Nordic countries. Haglund et al.10 carried out a survey of librarians in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland to identify common developments in their countries. A focus on pedagogy was seen as the most important trend, highlighting the increasing importance of the health librarian as guide, trainer, teacher or coach. Writing for the Learning and Teaching in Action feature, Stevenson11 considers how information literacy training initiatives delivered by health library services are evaluated. The article presents three validated assessment and evaluation models and, using examples from practice, discusses how these can be used to establish the impact of information literacy training and to improve current evaluation practices. This virtual issue complements the programme for the HLG’s 2014 conference. The conference is billed as the main event in 2014 for anyone with an interest in health and social care library and information issues. The programme offers a wide variety of speakers and events and an opportunity to share experience and good practice. It promises to be a buzzy and inspiring affair and I look forward to seeing you there!
Also, don’t forget that if you’re an HLG member you can now access the Health Information and Libraries Journal (HILJ) free of charge from the CILIP website or at http://bit.ly/1ifBf8d. You can also receive the latest HILJ news via @HILJnl. Audrey Marshall Senior Lecturer University of Brighton, Lewes Road, Brighton, BN1 8BA Email: [email protected] References 1 CILIP Health Libraries Group Conference 2014, Oxford Examination Schools and Oxford Town Hall, 24th–25th July 2014. Accessible at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/health-libraries-group/events/cilip-health-libraries-group-conference-2014 2 Gardois, P., Colombi, N., Grillo, G. & Villanacci, M. C. Implementation of Web 2.0 services in academic, medical and research libraries: a scoping review. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 90–109. 3 Powelson, S. E. & Reaume, R. D. Using the results of a satisfaction survey to demonstrate the impact of a new library service model. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 223–232. 4 Austvoll-Dahlgren, A., Danielsen, S., Opheim, E., Bjørndal, A., Reinar, L. M., Flottorp, S., Oxman, A. D. & Helseth, S. Development of a complex intervention to improve health literacy skills. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2013, 30, 278–293. 5 Sutton, A. & Booth, A. What type of leader am I?: a training needs analysis of health library and information managers. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 39–46. 6 Lorenzetti, D. L. & Rutherford, G. Information professionals’ participation in interdisciplinary research: a preliminary study of factors affecting successful collaborations. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 274–284. 7 Beyer, F. R. & Wright, K. Can we prioritise which databases to search? A case study using a systematic review of frozen shoulder management. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2013, 30, 49–58. 8 Nourbakhsh, E., Nugent, R., Wang, H., Cevik, C. & Nugent, K. Medical literature searches: a comparison of PubMed and Google Scholar. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 214–222. 9 Herbert, P. The NHS Lanarkshire Intranet site (FirstPort) and its effectiveness as a knowledge management tool. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2013, 30, 72–75. 10 Haglund, L., Buset, K. J., Kristiansen, H. M. & Ovaska, T. International trends in health science librarianship: part 3 – the Nordic countries. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 2012, 29, 247–251. 11 Stevenson, P. Evaluating educational interventions for information literacy. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 81–86.
© 2014 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2014 Health Libraries Journal Health Information & Libraries Journal
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Editorial The role of the health information professional Abstract This virtual issue has been published to mark the CILIP Health Libraries Group 2014 Conference, taking place in Oxford on 24th and 25th July 2014. The issue’s theme is to highlight the key role of the health information professional and it shines a spotlight on professional expertise, demonstrating what we can share and learn from each other. It comprises a collection of articles published in the Health Information and Libraries Journal during the last 2 years but is very much about looking forward. The articles selected embrace three main themes: new ways of working; acquiring new skills and competencies; and fine-tuning existing skills and practices. The virtual issue mirrors the format of the regular journal, namely a review article, six original articles and the three regular features, covering Dissertations into Practice, International Perspectives and Initiatives and Learning and Teaching in Action. All articles included in this virtual issue are available free online. Keywords: library and information professionals; libraries, health science; competencies, information skills; web 2.0 This virtual issue has been published to mark the CILIP Health Libraries Group 2014 Conference, taking place in Oxford on 24th and 25th July.1 The issue’s theme is to highlight the key role of the health information professional and it shines a spotlight on professional expertise, demonstrating what we can share and learn from each other. The theme mirrors the tag line for the conference itself: . . . ‘Attention will shift from the library to the librarian. The information professional is the library of the future. Sage BL Summit 2012.’ The issue comprises a collection of articles published in the Health Information and Libraries Journal during the last 2 years but is very much about looking forward. The articles selected
embrace three main themes: new ways of working; acquiring new skills and competencies; and finetuning existing skills and practices. The virtual issue is freely available online and mirrors the format of the regular journal, namely a review article, six original articles and the three regular features. The issue begins with a review article which was published in June 2012 and which systematically mapped the literature on the use and effectiveness of Web 2.0 technologies for end users in academic, medical and research libraries. Gardois et al.2 reviewed journal articles published between 2006 and 2010 and discovered that academic, medical and research libraries were actively experimenting with Web 2.0 services. The prevalent services over the period studied were conferencing/chat/instant messaging alongside blogs, social networking, wikis, podcasts and aggregators. The authors further report that under half of the articles in the sample contained evaluative data and that most evaluated different outcomes using diverse assessment methods. They identify the need for libraries aiming to implement such services to adopt a clear and rigorous evaluation strategy. The article also recommends a systematic review of the relevant literature, to evaluate the effectiveness of Web 2.0 services and to identify gaps in the evidence base. The six original articles reflect the three main themes of the virtual issue: new ways of working and the impact on end-users; emerging professional competencies; and fine-tuning effective information retrieval skills and strategies. Powelson and Reaume3 investigated the impact of a new library service model for health providers in Alberta, Canada. In 2005, the University of Calgary entered into a contract to provide library services to the staff of Alberta Health Services Calgary Zone, creating the Health Information Network Calgary (HINC). The authors conducted a satisfaction survey to determine whether the new library service delivery model was satisfying the information needs of the target user group. The paper reports user satisfaction with the new service model and argues
© 2014 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2014 Health Libraries Journal Health Information & Libraries Journal
1
2
Editorial
that contracting with a university library can create capacity for hospital library staff to focus primarily on client services. It also suggests that virtual library services can eliminate information access disparities between rural and urban practitioners. Staying with end-users, but in the form of the general public, the paper by Austvoll-Dahlgren et al.4 describes the development of a web-based portal in Norway designed to improve the health literacy skills of health consumers. The paper contextualises the development within the growing trend towards user involvement in health and the counter-balancing evidence of poor levels of health literacy across populations. The paper identifies the barriers which people face with regard to finding and evaluating health information and moves on to describe three toolsets which were developed to tackle the problems: improving critical appraisal skills; enabling exchange of health information in consultations and improving access to reliable sources of health information. The tools are available on the portal, which is still live at http://www.sunnskepsis.no. The authors suggest that it is a unique resource which can be used by members of the public independently or in consultation with health practitioners. They also advocate its use for health educators working to improve health literacy skills and for anyone involved in developing patient information. Switching the focus from improving the skills of end-users to those of service providers, Sutton and Booth5 report on a piece of work which was commissioned by the UK’s National Library for Health. This took the form of a training needs analysis (TNA), in which health library and information managers (HLIMs) assessed their own leadership skills and identified development needs. Responses to an online self-assessment questionnaire were collated and characterised into four influencing styles: Opportunist-collaborator; Strategic-collaborator; Opportunistic-battler and Strategic-battler. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the dominant style of the HLIMs was collaborative. The authors conclude that in increasingly difficult times, HLIMs may have to act in a different style to their usual approach, applying aspects of the opportunist and battler. The paper also identifies leadership skills as an under-reported area of training needs for health library and information professionals.
Lorenzetti and Rutherford6 explore a different aspect of professional competence, namely participation in research. In a pilot study conducted in Canada the authors used in-depth interviews with four biomedical information professionals to explore the conditions that either support or hinder information professionals’ participation in interdisciplinary research. They report that successful research collaborations appear to be created through the integration of certain elements, which include an awareness and willingness on the part of researchers along with a willingness on the part of information professionals to work outside their comfort zone. Developing the competencies and confidence necessary to engage on an equal footing with other researchers can have a positive impact on successful research team participation. The paper by Beyer and Wright7 tackles a very real practical issue for information practitioners and describes a method to answer the key question: ‘how much searching is enough?’. They note that no evidence-based guidance exists on how to prioritise resources to search or decide when to stop searching for evidence to inform a systematic review. They argue that such guidance might save significant time and resources. Using a case study of frozen shoulder management they conclude that at least two databases alongside reference checking were required to retrieve all included studies. They further recommend specific combinations of databases for systematic reviews – such as Cochrane CENTRAL and either MEDLINE or Science Citation Index (SCI) – and for literature searches in musculoskeletal medicine. Also exploring the topic of literature searching, Nourbakhsh et al.8 report on a comparison study of PubMed and Google Scholar. The article details the methods used to compare the two to answer relatively uncomplicated clinical questions. It discusses how both the PubMed database and the Google Scholar search engine retrieve useful but different initial sets of journal articles. The authors argue that Google Scholar articles were more likely to be classified as relevant, have a higher number of citations and appear to come from higher impact journals when compared with PubMed articles. They conclude that Google Scholar searches can identify important information on clinical questions and should be used in conjunction with PubMed searches.
© 2014 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2014 Health Libraries Journal Health Information & Libraries Journal
Editorial
The three articles from the regular features section of the journal offer a snapshot of the virtual issue’s general thematic coverage, highlighting an innovative use of new technology and the growing emphasis on the library and information professional as teacher and trainer. From the Dissertations into Practice feature, Herbert9 reports on a study completed as part of an MSc in Health Informatics at the University of Sheffield. The study set out to evaluate the effectiveness of the FirstPort intranet site used by NHS Lanarkshire for knowledge management and to test opinion on what would be required for a new version of the site. The author concludes that the resource is well-used and that users are generally satisfied with the content. The new site has the potential to meet the information needs of users as long as certain improvements are made, mainly to do with interface design and an improved search facility. The International Perspectives and Initiatives feature has gone from strength to strength as it has progressed around the world. The article included here is the third in the series and looks at the Nordic countries. Haglund et al.10 carried out a survey of librarians in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland to identify common developments in their countries. A focus on pedagogy was seen as the most important trend, highlighting the increasing importance of the health librarian as guide, trainer, teacher or coach. Writing for the Learning and Teaching in Action feature, Stevenson11 considers how information literacy training initiatives delivered by health library services are evaluated. The article presents three validated assessment and evaluation models and, using examples from practice, discusses how these can be used to establish the impact of information literacy training and to improve current evaluation practices. This virtual issue complements the programme for the HLG’s 2014 conference. The conference is billed as the main event in 2014 for anyone with an interest in health and social care library and information issues. The programme offers a wide variety of speakers and events and an opportunity to share experience and good practice. It promises to be a buzzy and inspiring affair and I look forward to seeing you there!
Also, don’t forget that if you’re an HLG member you can now access the Health Information and Libraries Journal (HILJ) free of charge from the CILIP website or at http://bit.ly/1ifBf8d. You can also receive the latest HILJ news via @HILJnl. Audrey Marshall Senior Lecturer University of Brighton, Lewes Road, Brighton, BN1 8BA Email: [email protected] References 1 CILIP Health Libraries Group Conference 2014, Oxford Examination Schools and Oxford Town Hall, 24th–25th July 2014. Accessible at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/health-libraries-group/events/cilip-health-libraries-group-conference-2014 2 Gardois, P., Colombi, N., Grillo, G. & Villanacci, M. C. Implementation of Web 2.0 services in academic, medical and research libraries: a scoping review. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 90–109. 3 Powelson, S. E. & Reaume, R. D. Using the results of a satisfaction survey to demonstrate the impact of a new library service model. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 223–232. 4 Austvoll-Dahlgren, A., Danielsen, S., Opheim, E., Bjørndal, A., Reinar, L. M., Flottorp, S., Oxman, A. D. & Helseth, S. Development of a complex intervention to improve health literacy skills. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2013, 30, 278–293. 5 Sutton, A. & Booth, A. What type of leader am I?: a training needs analysis of health library and information managers. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 39–46. 6 Lorenzetti, D. L. & Rutherford, G. Information professionals’ participation in interdisciplinary research: a preliminary study of factors affecting successful collaborations. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 274–284. 7 Beyer, F. R. & Wright, K. Can we prioritise which databases to search? A case study using a systematic review of frozen shoulder management. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2013, 30, 49–58. 8 Nourbakhsh, E., Nugent, R., Wang, H., Cevik, C. & Nugent, K. Medical literature searches: a comparison of PubMed and Google Scholar. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 214–222. 9 Herbert, P. The NHS Lanarkshire Intranet site (FirstPort) and its effectiveness as a knowledge management tool. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2013, 30, 72–75. 10 Haglund, L., Buset, K. J., Kristiansen, H. M. & Ovaska, T. International trends in health science librarianship: part 3 – the Nordic countries. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 2012, 29, 247–251. 11 Stevenson, P. Evaluating educational interventions for information literacy. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2012, 29, 81–86.
© 2014 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2014 Health Libraries Journal Health Information & Libraries Journal
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