Pilot implementation of a leadership framework in the National Library of Medicine Associate Fellowship Program

The National Library of Medicine Associate Fellowship Program is a nearly fifty year-old fellowship program for recent library science graduates interested in developing a leadership role in health sciences libraries. The program has used a number of informal methods of leadership development including the use of behavioral assessments, mentoring, and meeting with senior leadership. In 2015, the Associate Fellowship Program Coordinator introduced the “Five Practices of Exemplary Leaders” leadership model developed by Kouzes and Posner (2007) and began a pilot program of a series of leadership exercises to formally reinforce the leadership development aspect of the program. The model was selected after reviewing a number of leadership models because of its clarity, and the presumed adaptability of the practices to professionals early in their careers. The model uses the practices: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. The program used the participating cohort members to explore the effectiveness of the leadership exercises and to shape the program going forward. The leadership framework and exercises were successfully revised based on comments from the cohort

Examining the role of MEDLINE as a patient care information resource: an analysis of data from the Value of Libraries study

Objective: This study analyzed data from a study on the value of libraries to understand the specific role that the MEDLINE database plays in relation to other information resources that are available to health care providers and its role in positively impacting patient care.Methods: A previous study on the use of health information resources for patient care obtained 16,122 responses from health care providers in 56 hospitals about how providers make decisions affecting patient care and the role of information resources in that process. Respondents indicated resources used in answering a specific clinical question from a list of 19 possible resources, including MEDLINE. Study data were examined using descriptive statistics and regression analysis to determine the number of information resources used and how they were used in combination with one another.Results: Health care professionals used 3.5 resources, on average, to aid in patient care. The 2 most frequently used resources were journals (print and online) and the MEDLINE database. Using a higher number of information resources was significantly associated with a higher probability of making changes to patient care and avoiding adverse events. MEDLINE was the most likely to be among consulted resources compared to any other information resource other than journals.Conclusions: MEDLINE is a critical clinical care tool that health care professionals use to avoid adverse events, make changes to patient care, and answer clinical questions

Examining the role of MEDLINE as a patient care information resource: an analysis of data from the Value of Libraries study

Objective: This study analyzed data from a study on the value of libraries to understand the specific role that the MEDLINE database plays in relation to other information resources that are available to health care providers and its role in positively impacting patient care. Methods: A previous study on the use of health information resources for patient care obtained 16,122 responses from health care providers in 56 hospitals about how providers make decisions affecting patient care and the role of information resources in that process. Respondents indicated resources used in answering a specific clinical question from a list of 19 possible resources, including MEDLINE. Study data were examined using descriptive statistics and regression analysis to determine the number of information resources used and how they were used in combination with one another. Results: Health care professionals used 3.5 resources, on average, to aid in patient care. The 2 most frequently used resources were journals (print and online) and the MEDLINE database. Using a higher number of information resources was significantly associated with a higher probability of making changes to patient care and avoiding adverse events. MEDLINE was the most likely to be among consulted resources compared to any other information resource other than journals. Conclusions: MEDLINE is a critical clinical care tool that health care professionals use to avoid adverse events, make changes to patient care, and answer clinical questions

Toward an understanding of the epistemic values of biological scientists as expressed in scholarly publication

This dissertation develops a deeper understanding of the epistemic values of scientists, specifically exploring the proposed values of community, collaboration, connectivity and credit as part of the scholarly communication system. These values are the essence of scientists actively engaged in conducting science and in communicating their work to others. In studying the epistemic values of scientists, this dissertation identifies the research problem within the literature: the lack of an understanding of what the epistemic values of scientists are; and in answering that question, does so informed by the literature that community, collaboration, connectivity and credit are probable values (Latour & Woolgar, 1987; Polanyi, 1962; Cohen, 1995). Using a qualitative approach incorporating the concept of emerging theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954), the dissertation: 1. Explores the extent to which community, collaboration, connectivity and credit are dimensions of values. 2. Examines the inter-relationship, if any, of the values. 3. Explores the possibility of additional dimensions of values. The methodology uses semi-structured interviews to conduct one-on-one, face-to-face interviews with life scientists who are currently engaged in research and were writing or had recently written a peer-reviewed paper. Data are analyzed using a constant comparative process (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Berg, 2001), with each interview informing the subsequent interview. The data are first open coded without regard to the literature-identified values of community, collaboration, connectivity and credit; then a second coding occurs, identifying themes from the first set of codes and viewing the data through the framework of the literature-identified epistemic values. Through a constant comparative process, data are coded and re-examined until a story line and themes emerge from the data. The epistemic values of community, collaboration and credit were all identified and interpreted from the data. The epistemic value of connectivity was not identified from the interview data, which may be due to a limitation of the use of a single method. Other epistemic values, not previously identified in the literature, were identified in the data: contribution and competition. Deepening an understanding of scientists' epistemic values within scholarly communication is critical to librarians and others engaged in collecting and managing scientific knowledge because the epistemic values shape and motivate the scholarly communication process.Ph.D.Includes abstractVitaIncludes bibliographical referencesby Kathel Dun

Impact of the Inclusion of Grey Literature on the Scholarly Communication Patterns of an Interdisciplinary Specialty

Researchers who more routinely use traditional scholarly literature published in peer-reviewed journals are especially disadvantaged in understanding, accessing and obtaining grey literature in their fields of research (Lasker, 1998). For example, researchers in health policy find that their research depends on both the well-organized and relatively easily accessible journal literature used by scientists and clinicians; the researchers also need to find reports literature published by think tanks and independent research organizations. The purpose of this research is to identify the interconnectedness – or not – of health care policy research through a citation analysis of journal literature and grey literature (GL). This research is a citation analysis study of health care policy, expanding the literature studied to include not only the journal literature used by researchers but also the GL produced by think tanks and independent research organizations. The working hypothesis of this paper is that the evidence will bear out anecdotal comments that there is a division or separateness between the two types of literatures; and also, that the literatures are seemingly inaccessible to the researchers and users of the different groups. That is, that the literature most used and identified with Group A is difficult to locate and less likely to be used by Group B and vice versa. The study will analyze the references/citations of journal articles to both journal articles and GL and the references/citations of GL to journal articles and GL published in the last five years on changes in Medicaid, a health care policy issue. The purpose of the study is to assess the impact that the inclusion of GL has in a citation analysis of a particular field. Inclusion of GL may have no impact on the citation-generated network of a particular field, serving only to strengthen the already existing network or image. Or, inclusion of GL may have a strong impact on a network, revealing parts previously invisible when using only the journal literature. The revealed, or more complete network picture, may indicate that both literatures are well integrated, each citing the other to a high degree. Or, the complete network picture of a field may indicate that the literatures instead exist in parallel, each communicating on the same topic, but seemingly – as indicated by the citation analysis – not communicating to, or for, each other. If the literatures exist side by side, and are not well integrated – as indicated by citations – this raises a series of questions for health policy researchers. Is the lack of shared citations a sign that one of the literatures does not cite? Or does the lack of shared citations mean that the literatures do not have significance for each other? It is anticipated that the journal literature will have more references, more references to journal literature and fewer references to GL (specifically reports literature). Grey reports literature will have fewer references than journal literature. And, when the grey literature does cite it, it will more frequently cite non-journal literature.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

Measuring the value and impact of health sciences libraries: planning an update and replication of the Rochester Study*

In 2007, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM), Middle Atlantic Region (MAR), formed a planning group to explore the possibility of replicating a landmark study on the value of hospital libraries and their impact on clinical care, popularly known as “the Rochester Study” [1]. The Rochester study was among the first studies to relate information services provided by librarians to patient care outcomes, and it continues to be cited as evidence of the value of library services. The purpose of this paper is to update the library community on the progress of the proposed value of libraries study