Point of Care Tools and Libraries: 12th Annual Health Sciences Lively Lunch

This session included a discussion about point of care tools in the health information setting. Klimley provided a presentation on the point of care tools landscape that highlighted the importance and relevance of this topic now, evaluations that have been published about these tools, funding issues, and desirable elements of the tools. The presentation included examples of marketing techniques and product advertisements to portray the various claims and testimonials regarding these products, which provided a critical discussion on the products and their use in health information settings. A lively discussion followed the presentation to allow participants to express some of their concerns about point of care tools and their role in the future. The results of the session are explained in the document

A Guided Tour of Issues and Trends: The Thirteenth Annual Health Sciences Lively Lunch

In this year\u27s sponsored but no holds barred lunch, the conference theme, Too much is not enough , resonates. Lunch host, Wendy Bahnsen from Rittenhouse offers a brief greeting, and Ramune Kubilius provides the traditional “year in review” synopsis. Moderator Andrea Twiss-Brooks sets the scene and provides a brief introduction to issues of current interest in the health sciences information arena. Topics of this session include: methods of measurement of health sciences journal use (Deborah Blecic); shared collection development and policies (Elizabeth Ketterman); scholarly communication activities in health sciences libraries (Robin Champieux); current challenges, trials, pitfalls and successes of e-books in the health sciences (Anneliese Taylor); provision of information resources for basic scientists (Marysue Schaffer)

Deal or No Deal? Evaluating Big Deals and Their Journals

This paper presents methods to develop metrics that compare Big Deal journal packages and the journals within those packages. Deal-level metrics guide selection of a Big Deal for termination. Journal-level metrics guide selection of individual subscriptions from journals previously provided by a terminated deal. The paper argues that, while the proposed metrics provide helpful quantitative data for comparative analysis, selection of individual subscriptions must also involve informed judgment about a library’s subject coverage needs and alternative sources of access. The paper also discusses how replacing a Big Deal with a reduced number of individual subscriptions may affect the collections budget, use of other resources, and interlibrary loan.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96846/1/178.full.pd

Scholarly Communication Education Initiatives: SPEC Kit 299

Access to information, the foundation of scholarly communication, has traditionally been provided through academic journals, research collections, and other print publications. Recent advances in digital technology, however, have revolutionized scholarly communication, leading to innovations in the conduct of research as well as in the conveyance of ideas to readers. Librarians have sought to inform their communities about scholarly communication issues such as author rights management, open access, and journal costs through such activities as classes, Web sites, symposia, and workshops to help create change. The purpose of this survey was to find out what kind of initiatives ARL member libraries have used or plan to use to educate faculty, researchers, administrators, students, and library staff at their institutions about scholarly communication issues. A survey distributed to the 123 ARL member libraries in May 2007 to determine the nature of library-initiated education activities about scholarly communication issues that had taken place in their institutions in the past three years or that were expected to take place soon. Of the 73 libraries that responded to the survey, 55 (75%) indicated that the library has engaged in educational activities on scholarly communication issues; 13 (18%) have not, but indicated that planning is underway. Only three libraries indicated that they had not engaged in this activity and were not planning to do so; another two responded that this is the responsibility of another, non-library unit of the institution. This excerpt from SPEC Kit 299 contains the Executive Summary (7 pgs), the Survey Questions and Responses (64 pgs), the lists of Selected Resources (6 pgs). The excerpt does not include the Representative Documents that were submitted by the respondents (106 pgs) which included proposals for education initiatives, scholarly communication and copyright Web pages, job descriptions, and education materials.published or submitted for publicationnot peer reviewe

Information-seeking behavior and the use of online resources: a snapshot of current health sciences faculty

OBJECTIVE: The research assesses the information-seeking behaviors of health sciences faculty, including their use of online databases, journals, and social media. METHODOLOGY: A survey was designed and distributed via email to 754 health sciences faculty at a large urban research university with 6 health sciences colleges. RESULTS: Twenty-six percent (198) of faculty responded. MEDLINE was the primary database utilized, with 78.5% respondents indicating they use the database at least once a week. Compared to MEDLINE, Google was utilized more often on a daily basis. Other databases showed much lower usage. CONCLUSIONS: Low use of online databases other than MEDLINE, link-out tools to online journals, and online social media and collaboration tools demonstrates a need for meaningful promotion of online resources and informatics literacy instruction for faculty. IMPLICATIONS: Library resources are plentiful and perhaps somewhat overwhelming. Librarians need to help faculty discover and utilize the resources and tools that libraries have to offer

Measures of health sciences journal use: a comparison of vendor, link-resolver, and local citation statistics

OBJECTIVE: Libraries require efficient and reliable methods to assess journal use. Vendors provide complete counts of articles retrieved from their platforms. However, if a journal is available on multiple platforms, several sets of statistics must be merged. Link-resolver reports merge data from all platforms into one report but only record partial use because users can access library subscriptions from other paths. Citation data are limited to publication use. Vendor, link-resolver, and local citation data were examined to determine correlation. Because link-resolver statistics are easy to obtain, the study library especially wanted to know if they correlate highly with the other measures. METHODS: Vendor, link-resolver, and local citation statistics for the study institution were gathered for health sciences journals. Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients were calculated. RESULTS: There was a high positive correlation between all three data sets, with vendor data commonly showing the highest use. However, a small percentage of titles showed anomalous results. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Link-resolver data correlate well with vendor and citation data, but due to anomalies, low link-resolver data would best be used to suggest titles for further evaluation using vendor data. Citation data may not be needed as it correlates highly with other measures

The measurement of use of web-based information resources: an early look at vendor-supplied data

To manage Web-based resources effectively, librarians need to evaluate vendor-supplied data about their use. This article explores the types of data available, using as its starting point the elements defined by the International Coalition of Library Consortia's (ICOLC) "Guidelines for Statistical Measures of Usage of Web-based Indexed, Abstracted, and Full-text Resources." It discusses the problems and issues of comparing use data from different vendors. Then, illustrated with data from one library, the article addresses five measures that have implications for collection management: variability of ICOLC data elements over time, which demonstrated the need to examine data continually; ratios of queries per session, which showed more stability over time than individual ICOLC elements; use by hour, which documented remote use but confirmed that most use occurred during regular library hours; use of electronic journal collections, which was more scattered than the classic 80/20 distribution; and use of Web-based resources in relation to a disciplinary population, which provided an index of value for assessing use of a particular resource. This study identifies aspects of data collection that librarians need to pay special attention to, recommends that vendors report the maximum number of simultaneous users per day and data gaps in addition to ICOLC elements, and suggests per capita use as a comparative measure among libraries

Measurement of use of electronic resources: advances in use statistics and innovations in resource functionality

The ICOLC guidelines and Project COUNTER codes of practice have advanced the measurement of use of electronic resources. At the same time, innovations in functionality within and among electronic resources are changing the environment in which use is measured. The present article explores measures of sessions and searches for one research library’s electronic resources. The article analyzes the transition from vendor-specific to COUNTER-compliant statistics, how vendors measure the running of search alerts, and the effects of federated searching on reported use. The analysis suggests that innovations in functionality may have changed the meaning of sessions and searches. The analysis also suggests the following principle: innovations in electronic resource functionality will necessitate advances in electronic resource usage measures to describe use meaningfully

Publication Patterns of US Academic Librarians and Libraries from 2003 to 2012

This study investigated contributions to the peer-reviewed library and information science (LIS) journal literature by U.S. academic librarian (USAL) authors over a ten-year period (2003-2012). The results were compared to those of two previous five-year studies that covered the time periods of 1993-1997 and 1998-2002 to examine longitudinal trends. For USAL authors as a group, publication productivity, the proportion of peer-reviewed articles contributed to the LIS literature, and sole-authorship declined. Among USALs who did publish, productivity patterns remained similar over twenty years, with a slight increase in the percentage of USAL authors who published three or more articles in five years. The top twenty high-publication libraries from 2003 to 2012 were from public research universities, unlike two earlier studies that found private university libraries among the top twenty