Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association最新文献

Background: The Health Sciences Library and Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) program at McMaster University worked together to build a multi-year information literacy (IL) curriculum embedded within the program under a suite of courses called Praxis Pathways.

Description: Praxis Pathways consists of four Threads. Thread 4: information literacy is the focus of this case report. The authors will describe the multi-year embedded IL curriculum, which is scaffolded to build both IL skills, such as database searching, and introduce students to key conceptual conversations in IL, production, and dissemination.

Outcomes: BHSc program graduates in 2023 will be the first to have completed all four years of the Praxis Pathways courses, including the IL program developed and delivered by the library. The authors will describe how the impact of the program will be evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively going forward.

Conclusion: Embedded librarianship for multi-year, scaffolded IL education in undergraduate programs continues to be a rarity, despite acknowledgement that one-shot instruction has several limitations. The authors present this case report to share how they embedded a for-credit IL curriculum in an undergraduate program that looks beyond the one-shot, skill-based tutorial and focuses on developing adaptive, information literate lifelong learners.

Introduction: Evidence-based practice is an important aspect of health science librarianship. However, good evidence-based practice can only occur if the body of evidence is also of adequate quality. By using bibliometric techniques to map the health science librarianship research field, one can better understand the properties of the evidence base in health science librarianship.

Methods: The Library Literature & Information Science Full Text database was used to generate a bibliography of publications pertaining to health librarianship limited to the time span of 2012-2022. Using Excel and Microsoft Power BI, a descriptive analysis was conducted. VosViewer was used to create a subject term co-occurrence map.

Results: The average number of publications per year is 207.3 and it was trending downwards for 2012-2022. The most frequently assigned subject term was "survey". The average number of authors per paper is 2.5 and was trending upwards. The subject term co-occurrence map identified 5 clusters of keywords, which were interpreted as major themes found in the body of literature.

Discussion: The 5 keyword clusters were interpreted as major themes found in the body of literature. The identified themes were professional development, measuring the value output of librarian services, measuring the return on investment of library resources, improving the quality of LIS research, and outreach to other library and healthcare institutions. This depicts the health science librarianship research landscape as one of collaboration, concerned with finding ways of demonstrating value, and connecting with other types of libraries and the public.

Objective: This study explored changes in the practice of academic nursing librarianship at large Canadian universities during the COVID-19 pandemic with a particular focus on academic nursing librarians' work with nursing graduate students and nursing faculty.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven academic nursing librarians about changes to their librarianship practice during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Interviews were conducted between 20 April and 14 May 2021, discussing experiences during the study period March 2020 to May 2021.

Results: Canadian academic nursing librarians experienced (i) the adoption of the completely virtual library ; (ii) changes to the type and prevalence of online instruction ; (iii) the discovery that online consultations work well ; (iv) the discovery of the extent to which relationships are valued and intentional ; (v) an increase in requests for instruction and co-authorship of knowledge syntheses; and (vi) the benefits and challenges of remote work.

Discussion: Experiences were divergent, shaped in part by the institutions' pre-pandemic practices. Additionally, some participants reported no impact of the pandemic on their research, instruction, and collaborations with nursing graduate students and nursing faculty. In particular, institutions already offering online masters programs in nursing reported less significant disruption. The temporary transition to the completely virtual library revealed benefits of online consultations, opportunities for reaching more students through asynchronous learning, the importance of relationships to nursing liaison work, and value of the flexibility to work remotely .

Conclusion: The COVID-19 global pandemic continues to evolve. With a return to in-person classes at Canadian universities, there is much to learn from the experiences during the first 18 months of the pandemic.

Introduction: The interdisciplinary field of bioinformatics is considered an information-based discipline by many. Yet, it is unclear how Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degrees prepare librarians to apply their expertise in this unique, often non-textual information environment. The goal of this study is to identify the availability of MLIS-based bioinformatics educational opportunities to provide an update to the current bioinformatics landscape in North American MLIS programs or iSchools.

Methods: We conducted a survey of available bioinformatics courses and program concentrations within 69 ALA-accredited master's programs. Using course catalogues and program descriptions on department websites, we identified the existence of courses and concentrations specific or related to the field of bioinformatics. We also surveyed the availability of associated certificate programs or degree alternatives.

Results: Only two library and information science (LIS)-based bioinformatics courses are currently offered to MLIS students in ALA-accredited programs. There are no bioinformatics concentrations offered in the programs surveyed, however two graduate certificates could be applied towards an ALA-accredited master's degree. Students interested in related fields can pursue degree alternatives, including eight dual degree options.

Discussion: The scarcity of LIS-based bioinformatics courses and program concentrations may suggest that LIS has not adopted bioinformatics into their field nor curricula. As a result, students interested in pursuing careers in bioinformatics and related disciplines must actively seek out opportunities for education and professional development. Bioinformatics degree options within MLIS or iSchools points towards an increased dialogue and acceptance of the connection between bioinformatics and information science, but the lack of ALA -accreditation limits possibilities for emerging librarians.