An Organizational Model for Increasing Access to the Scholarly Literature

Abstract

Incorporating literature into practice can help behavior analysts provide better services and achieve better outcomes. In addition, behavior analysts have an ethical obligation to remain current with the scholarly literature and to use it to inform services. Despite the merits of maintaining regular contact with the published literature, barriers exist to doing so. In this tutorial, we present a system that was created for a human service agency to increase practitioner access to the scholarly literature. The system consisted of an electronic search request form, a literature team, and a liaison. We present 7 years of data including the frequency of use, topics of interest, and other noteworthy patterns of submitter responding. We discuss the value of this type of system, limitations of its design, and considerations for practitioners who may wish to implement a similar system in their agency. We discuss modifications that could be made to fit organizations of diverse sizes and with different resources, while presenting ideas for improvement and expansion of the system.