Health Information and Libraries Journal最新文献

Community health workers are responsible for finding, processing, and transferring health information to communities with limited access to health-related resources, including farmworkers. This paper is the culmination of an undergraduate student research project to explore the learning processes and preferences of farmworker-serving community health workers in the USA. The project was designed for students from farmworker or agricultural backgrounds at two North Carolina universities and was supported by a North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services workforce development grant. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, in person and virtually, with a convenience sample of 17 current and former community health workers. The interview data were analysed thematically and identified a preference for a combination of learning styles, with visual and hands-on learning being the most preferred. Community health workers also identified the importance of learning preferences in relation to their responsibilities as health educators. This study provides librarians, along with public health and medical professionals, with useful information about learning preferences to inform the creation of new and varied learning materials for community health workers.

This article presents an analysis of seven articles published within the International Perspectives and Initiatives regular feature series on the impact of technology on the provision of health information. The articles provide a road map of how technology is facilitating new and enhanced services for library users in seven countries: Australia, Bangladesh, China, England, Germany, Sweden and the United States. Although there are differences in how countries are implementing technological solutions, only one describes problems in leveraging technology to improve library services. Authors from the remaining six countries describe how they ensure that the 21st century library consults with its user groups and find way of using the latest applications.

Medical and health sciences librarians who are involved in evidence synthesis projects will know that systematic reviews are intensely rigorous, requiring research teams to devote significant resources to the methodological process. As expert searchers, librarians are often identified as personnel to conduct the database searching portion and/or are approached as experts in the methodology to guide research teams through the lifecycle of the project. This research method has surged in popularity at our campus and demand for librarian participation is unsustainable. As a response to this, the library created self-directed learning objects in the form of roadmap to assist researchers in learning about the knowledge synthesis methodology in an expedient, self-directed manner. This paper will discuss the creation, implementation and feedback around our educational offering: Systematic & Scoping Reviews: Your Roadmap to Conducting an Evidence Synthesis.

Background: The Library and Knowledge Services at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has been at its current location since 1975 and, in September 2020, it was deemed necessary to examine the library environment and assess the signage.

Objectives: The main objective was to conduct a methodical assessment of all the current library signage in order to improve the library environment, wayfinding, and clarity.

Methods: A methodical signage audit was conducted by library staff, photographing signs, assigning them to categories, and creating a signage map.

Results: In total, 58 different signs were counted in the library. Of these, 22 signs were deemed satisfactory, 4 should be moved to a more appropriate location, 15 should be updated with a branded design and better messaging, and 17 were recommended for removal.

Discussion: The results demonstrated that there were three main areas where signage could be improved: reducing the quantity of signs, updating the language and design, and the use of ad hoc signage.

Conclusion: By assessing the signs and assigning categories and types, areas were identified as problem points that were impacting the library user's experience and small changes were implemented to improve the library environment.

In this editorial, Anthea Sutton and Veronica Parisi reflect on ChatGPT, how it may contribute to systematic searching, and provide their overview of some recent training they attended on ChatGPT, AI and systematic literature reviews.

Background: Although knowledge sharing online has been recognised as an important strategy for health professionals to apply research findings to their practice, limited research exists on how to develop and implement these platforms to help facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Objectives: This study evaluated an online knowledge sharing platform and community of practice developed in the North East of England and Yorkshire during COVID-19 to support UK health and care professionals to reduce the impact of the wider consequences of COVID-19.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (n = 8) and users of C-WorKS (n = 13), followed by an online survey (n = 19) among a wider group of users to analyse knowledge use.

Results: Interview and survey findings highlighted several strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to support future development of online knowledge sharing platforms.

Discussion: Online knowledge sharing supports six 'pillars' of successful research and innovation partnerships. This requires distributed forms of leadership and linking of different knowledge sharing strategies, and careful combination of platforms with communities of practice.

Conclusion: Online knowledge sharing provides pragmatic and timely strategies for health professionals in the UK to apply research evidence to their practice. Our study provides generalisable, practical insights in how to develop and implement a knowledge sharing platform.

This study highlights the present status of medical libraries in Bangladesh. It mainly focuses on the four key areas of medical libraries: Medical Library Services, Research4Life from Bangladesh perspective, Institutional Repository (IR), and Library Automation status. The research study also explores the various key challenges faced by the medical libraries in Bangladesh and finally provides necessary recommendations like a sufficient library budget, implementation of  an Integrated Library System (ILS), skilled manpower, more participation in information networking and resource sharing, sound ICT environment, online collection development for the overall development of medical libraries in Bangladesh.