What’s Hiding in the Spine? A Study of Adhesives in Medieval Books Using Mass Spectrometry

Glues, and in particular glued spines, are notable features of late medieval European books, yet little research has been done into how they were sourced, produced, and used. In this article we present preliminary results from using the paleoproteomic methods of Electromagnetic Zooarchaeology through Mass Spectrometry (eZooMS) and Peptide Mass Fingerprinting (PMF) to identify the source species for animal glues used in late medieval books. We first introduce readers to the principal kinds of glue used in medieval craftsmanship and what is known about their use in bookbinding, principally from the discipline of book conservation. We describe the micro-sampling methods of eZooMS, in which a PVC eraser is rubbed gently on the surface of the book. We then describe the process through which we tested and fine-tuned our sampling methods on eight medieval books held in Canadian repositories, addressing some of the challenges we faced, potential further uses or expansions upon the technique, and the benefits of our collaborative approach to such “manuscientific” studies

Impact of Librarians on Reporting of the Literature Searching Component of Pediatric Systematic Reviews

Abstract Objective: The goal of this study was to compare the reporting rigour of the literature searching component of systematic reviews with, and without, the help of a librarian. Methods: Systematic reviews published from 2002 to 2011 in the 20 highest Impact Factor paediatrics journals were collected from MEDLINE. Corresponding authors were contacted via an email survey to determine if a librarian was involved, the role played, and functions performed. The reviews were scored using a 15 item checklist by two reviewers independently. The overall reporting for each role category was expressed as the mean value of the total score. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pairwise comparisons were used for multiple comparisons. The comparison of frequency of reported methodological elements between different role categories was accomplished using Pearson Chi-square analysis, and expressed as the risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidential interval (CI). Results: 186 reviews met the inclusion criteria. 44% of the authors indicated the involvement of a librarian in conducting the systematic review. In the presence of a librarian as the co-author/team member, the mean score was 8.40, (95% CI 7.69-9.11) compared to 6.61, (95% CI 6.26-6.95, p \u3c0.001) for reviews without a librarian. The presence of the librarian as a co-author/team member was correlated with higher scores for reporting in various components of the methodology, in comparison to studies without a librarian, particularly the flow diagram of study inclusion process (RR=1.76, 95% CI 1.36-2.30), the date search was updated (RR= 2.29, 95% CI 1.32-3.98), the full search strategy (RR=3.55, 95% CI 1.81-6.97), the use of subject-specific and regional bibliographic databases (RR=1.94, 95% CI 1.57-2.40), and searching grey literature (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.17-2.53). Conclusions: Our results show that having a librarian or information professional as a team member or co-author contributes to more rigorous reporting of the literature searching component of systematic reviews