Journal of the Medical Library Association最新文献

This case study presents the results of a data internship and workshop series on data analysis in qualitative biomedical systematic reviews. In a newly developed librarian-led internship program, an intern was trained on data literacy concepts and data analysis tools and, in turn, helped recruit and train other graduate health sciences students. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, a flipped classroom model was applied to develop a completely virtual learning experience for both the intern and workshop attendees. Both the data intern and workshop participants reported improved confidence in data literacy competence at the end of the project. Assessment results suggest that while the workshop series improved participants' data literacy skills, participants might still benefit from additional data literacy instruction. This case also presents a model for student-led instruction that could be particularly useful for informing professional development opportunities for library interns, fellows, and student assistants.

Objective: A mixed methods survey was conducted at a health sciences library to assess patrons' perceptions of the library's digital and physical environments in relation to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Methods: Developed by the library's DEI Team and preceded by a pilot assessment, the survey posed 17 Likert Scale questions and 2 free-text response questions on the topics of belonging, inclusivity, equitability, emotional and physical safety, and commitment to DEI. The survey was created in Qualtrics, pilot tested, and launched in February 2020 for approximately 12 weeks.

Results: Objective question responses were received from 101 individuals, with 24 open-ended responses. The quantitative findings showed largely positive perceptions of the DEI climate. Questions about feeling welcome and feeling physically safe were among those with the highest responses. The three lower-scoring questions indicate areas for improvement, including services for people whose native language is not English, for individuals with disabilities, and for families. The qualitative findings indicate the library's strengths include its exhibitions, welcoming atmosphere, and LGBTQ+ inclusivity initiatives. In contrast, opportunities for enhancement encompass non-English language resources, website updates, and accessibility to some physical spaces.

Conclusion: The DEI Team is using the online survey data to enhance library services, staffing, programming, policies, and spaces. These improvements include looking into providing a space for patrons with families, expanding services for individuals whose first language is not English, assessing library accessibility for people with physical disabilities, and enhancing the physical space with quiet areas, improved lighting, and meditation spaces. Employee DEI training is ongoing, using results from a training needs survey to identify knowledge gaps. The library has a history of successful partnerships with campus entities, which will help the DEI Team to move forward with their work.

Objective: To compare electronic drug information resources for scope, completeness, and consistency of off-label uses information, and to group resources into tiers based on these endpoints.

Methods: An evaluation study of six electronic drug information resources (Clinical Pharmacology, Lexi-Drugs, American Hospital Formulary Service Drug Information, Facts and Comparisons Off-Label, Micromedex Quick Answers, and Micromedex In-Depth Answers) was conducted. All off-label uses for the top 50 prescribed medications, by volume, were extracted from all resources and used to determine scope (i.e., whether the resource listed the use). Fifty randomly selected uses were then evaluated for completeness (i.e., whether the entry cited clinical practice guidelines, cited clinical studies, provided a dose, described statistical significance, and described clinical significance) and consistency (i.e., whether the resource provided the same dose as the majority).

Results: A sample of 584 uses was generated. The largest number of listed uses was in Micromedex In-Depth Answers (67%), followed by Micromedex Quick Answers (43%), Clinical Pharmacology (34%), and Lexi-Drugs (32%). The highest scoring resources for completeness were Facts and Comparisons Off-Label (median score 4/5), Micromedex In-Depth Answers (median score 3.5/5), and Lexi-Drugs (median score 3/5). Consistency with the majority in terms of dosing was highest for Lexi-Drugs (82%), Clinical Pharmacology (62%), Micromedex In-Depth Answers (58%), and Facts and Comparisons Off-Label (50%).

Conclusion: The top-tiered resources for scope were Micromedex In-Depth and Quick Answers. For completeness, the top-tiered resources were Facts and Comparisons Off-Label and Micromedex In-Depth Answers. Lexi-Drugs and Clinical Pharmacology were the most consistent in dosing.

Rare book collections do not form in a vacuum; they are shaped by the individuals who assemble and curate them. This is certainly the case with the rare book holdings of Becker Medical Library at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. This paper examines some of the most significant donors to Becker's rare book collections in order to explore how these collections are a reflection of the interests and priorities of the physicians who assembled them, and also raises the issue of how the makeup of these collections create a Western-focused narrative regarding the history of medicine.

Objective: This study updates a 2009 study which examined uniform resource locator (URL) decay in health care management journals and seeks to determine whether continued URL availability relates to publication date, resource type, or top-level domain. The authors also provide an analysis of differences in findings between the two study periods.

Methods: The authors collected the URLs of web-based cited references in articles published in five health care management source journals from 2016 to 2018. The URLs were checked to see if they were still active and then analyzed to determine if continued availability was related to publication date, resource type, or top-level domain. Chi-square analysis was conducted to determine associations between resource type and URL availability, and top-level domain and URL availability. A Pearson's correlation was conducted to determine the relationship between publication date and URL availability.

Results: There were statistically significant differences in URL availability across publication date, resource type, and top-level domain. Domains with the highest percentage of unavailable URLs were .com and .net, and the lowest were .edu and .gov. As expected, the older the citation, the more likely it was unavailable. The overall percentage of unavailable URLs decreased from 49.3% to 36.1% between studies.

Conclusion: URL decay in health care management journals has decreased in the last 13 years. Still, URL decay does continue to be a problem. Authors, publishers, and librarians should continue to promote the use of digital object identifiers, web archiving, and perhaps study and replicate efforts used by health services policy research journals to increase continued URL availability rates.

VOSviewer (version 1.6.17, July 22, 2021). Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands. https://www.vosviewer.com; free, donations accepted. Bibliometrix (version 3.1, Sep 24, 2021). Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Naples Federico II, Italy. info@bibliometrix.org; https://www.bibliometrix.org/; free, donations accepted.

Objective: At many institutions, literature search services are an important aspect of health science librarianship. This exploratory study analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the use of an academic hospital medical library's literature search service.

Methods: To evaluate the pandemic's impact on literature searching at The University of Tennessee Medical Center's Preston Medical Library, data were analyzed for changes from the year before the pandemic (March 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020) to the first year during the pandemic (March 1st, 2020 to February 28, 2021). This was accomplished using LibWizard, a library feedback and assessment application, to review literature search data during the two periods. Variables of interest included total searches, purpose of searches, affiliation of the searcher, and searches with a pandemic-related research question.

Results: A 36.6% drop in literature search service usage was reported from the pre-pandemic year to the during-pandemic year. There was a 55.3% decrease in searches intended for research, as well as significant decreases in the number of searches requested by all patron affiliations. After March 2020, 10% of all searches concerned a COVID-related topic.

Conclusion: The overall decrease in literature search requests, decrease in research searches, decrease in searches among all patron affiliations, and increase in searches on a COVID-related topic suggest that healthcare worker and institutional priorities changed during the pandemic. The results revealed research interests during the first year of the pandemic, as well as an overall change in library service functionality.

Background: Concerns over scientific reproducibility have grown in recent years, leading the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to require researchers to address these issues in research grant applications. Starting in 2020, training grants were required to provide a plan for educating trainees in rigor and reproducibility. Academic medical centers have responded with different solutions to fill this educational need. As experienced instructors with expertise in topics relating to reproducibility, librarians can play a prominent role in providing trainings, classes, and events to educate investigators and trainees, and bolstering reproducibility in their communities.

Case presentations: This special report summarizes efforts at five institutions to provide education in reproducibility to biomedical and life sciences researchers. Our goal is to expand awareness of the range of approaches in providing reproducibility services in libraries.

Conclusions: Reproducibility education by medical librarians can take many forms. These specific programs in reproducibility education build upon libraries' existing collaborations, with funder mandates providing a major impetus. Collaborator needs shaped the exact type of educational or other reproducibility support and combined with each library's strengths to yield a diversity of offerings based on capacity and interest. As demand for and complexity of reproducibility education increases due to new institutional and funder mandates, reproducibility education will merit special attention.