Cognetti, Gaetana

de Castro, Paola

Poltronieri, Elisabetta

Proudman, Vanessa

Scotti, Valeria

Truccolo, Ivana

English

Journal of EAHIL

Journal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2014, Vol. 10 (4) 29To participate in the EAHIL 2014 Rome Conference, from June 11 to 13, our Library staff decided to submit fourabstracts, two of which were accepted as posters, and the other two as oral presentations. From the ConferenceInternational Programme Committee we received the suggestion to merge the two oral presentations – both aboutAlternative Metrics – in one, and also to lead a Continuing Education Pre-Conference Course regarding the same topic. Since it was my first experience at an EAHIL Conference and my first international work experience, when I wasasked to lead a course I was both honoured and excited. I knew that participants consider attending Continuing Education Courses at the start of EAHIL Conferences as atradition. The problem was that I had to deal with something still progressing and changing. Actually, in the last yearAlternative Metrics – the methodology also called Altmetrics that measures the impact of biomedical publicationsthrough the use of social media indicators – has totally evolved from the traditional ones, thus leading to new resultsand great interest in the scientific community and among biomedical librarians. Therefore I assumed that setting a titlelike What is Altmetrics? The impact of Altmetrics on researchers and on librarian’s professional life for the CEC wouldhave been a good starting point. The course was attended by a total of 12 participants. I decided to start my CEC presentation with a brief history on the evolution of Bibliometrics during the last years, itsemerging limitations and the consequent need for new metrics for the evaluation of researchers. Next, the presentationpointed out the role of social media in this evolution and the resulting development of new tools. It also showed thepotential of these tools which are able to capture the impact both on scientific and public communities.I then presented the main portals that aggregate data from social media into alternatives metrics. The end of thepresentation highlighted librarians’ present and future roles, suggesting that they could commute into researcherscommunication partners, and might also support researchers and institutions in maximising their own research efforts.Before I knew it, the lesson was over. Even if I do not have a true picture of the satisfaction of participants, I waspleasantly surprised by their interest and involvement. I hope that everyone who took part enjoyed the course andimproved their knowledge on Altmetrics. I believe that librarians are compelled to look around and grasp the full dimension of our profession and, to myexperience at least, leading this Altmetrics CEC course proved to be extremely enriching for me. It was also veryinteresting to listen to the various presentations of the Parallel sessions I sessions in particular, Parallel Session C2 -Technology and Parallel Session E1 - Future of Libraries.I especially enjoyed the lecture by W.M.  Bramer: Removing duplicates in retrieval sets from electronic databases:comparing the efficiency and accuracy of the Bramer-method with other methods and software packages. Thealgorithm he conceived to solve the problem of duplicates really impressed me.I believe that attending an EAHIL Conference is a great opportunity to share work experiences and understanddifferent settings in other countries. It is an essential opportunity to meet people who have like interests willing toshare their knowledge and experience, and create a burst of new ideas. Joining the last EAHIL Rome Conference asa “first-timer” allowed me to improve my self-confidence and professional skills.  I wish to thank the Conference International Programme Committee which made it possible for me to lead aContinuing Education Course during the Pre-Conference programme. I also thank my director Moreno Curti and mycolleague Alberto Perlini for their support.I hope to meet you once again next year in Edinburgh! Reports of the CEC Courses at the Rome ConferencePre-Conference programme – Continuing Education Courses (CEC) What is Altmetrics? The impact of Altmetrics on researchers and onlibrarian’s professional life. June 10, 2014Valeria ScottiBiblioteca Direzione ScientificaPoliclinico San MatteoPavia, ItaliaContact: v.scotti@smatteo.pv.itJournal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2014, Vol. 10 (4) 30The course provided participants with a basic introduction to delivering health information to patients and their relatives,which is an important challenge for medical libraries. The organization and management of libraries for patients/healthconsumers, in order to deliver tailored information and to overcome the Internet divide, was its objective. The quality criteria for health information were described together with the most important websites for lay people inorder to provide participants with the knowledge and tools necessary to identify the most appropriate information.Ivana Truccolo described ETHIC, Evaluation Tool of Health information for Consumers, produced by the libraries’joint venture of the of the Centro di Riferimento Oncologico (CRO) National Cancer Institute, Aviano and theArcispedale Santa Maria Nuova IRCCS, Reggio Emilia.In addition, ethical issues relating to patient information as part of the Patient Education & Empowerment conceptwere included. The case of Lorenzo’s oil was discussed with a video excerpt   from the  famous movie. In 1984, six-year-old Lorenzo Odone was diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy – an incurable genetic disease which destroys thebrains of young boys. His parents, Augusto and Michaela, refused to give up hope and with great determination setout to research the disease and find a cure. Within only a couple of years they had discovered an oil which was ableto halt the progress of the disease and Lorenzo, thanks to the oil, lived a further 25 years. Many children affected bythe same disease recovered thanks to Lorenzo’s oil. Another important topic discussed during the course was health information literacy:“Studies have shown that 40-80 percent of the medical information received by patients is forgotten immediately andnearly half of the information retained is incorrect” (1).“Improved health literacy might help patients successfully manage their disease, specifically their compliance withmedication regimens” (2). Information Rx is a project promoted in 2002 by the NLM and the American College of Physician (ACP) Foundationto enhance patient education. Patients are encouraged by health professionals and medical librarians to retrieveinformation about their illnesses on Medlineplus or, in the case of a genetic diseases, on Genetic Home Reference. Theinformation is prescribed by the Physicians in the same way they prescribe a drug, using a prescription pad. In Italy,the CRO National Cancer Institute, Aviano developed in 1998 the first library for patients, as a section of the scientificlibrary, in order to deliver scientific, updated, quality information to lay people. Other libraries, such as the ReginaElena National Cancer Institute Library, have followed the example or CRO. A network of libraries and informationpoints for patients was built, providing statistics on patients’ information needs too. A database for patientdocumentation in Italian language, Cignoweb.it (3) was also produced by CRO.At the end of the course the participants agreed on the need to develop information tools for patients and that aEuropean network of patient libraries should be established in order to permit access to vital health information to allEuropean citizens in their own languages.Reports of the CEC Courses at the Rome ConferencePatient Information, Health Consumer/Patient Libraries Rome, 10th June 2014 – CEC04Gaetana CognettiNational Cancer Institute, Regina Elena Library, Rome, ItalyContact: cognetti.bib@ifo.itIvana Truccolo CRO – National Cancer Institute Scientific and Patient Library, Aviano(PN), ItalyContact: itruccolo@cro.itReferences1. Available from: http://www.nchealthliteracy.org/toolkit/tool5.pdf2. Shipman JP. J Med Libr Assoc. 2009;(97):4.3. Available from: http://www.cignoweb.it/Journal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2014, Vol. 10 (4) 31The 2014 EAHIL course on Open Access gave participants the opportunity to get up-to-date on OA developmentsand to raise awareness of library opportunities in the light of the Horizon 2020 Open Access mandate and other policydevelopments. This session was jointly run by SPARC Europe and local Open Access experts from the Italian IstitutoSuperiore di Sanità (National Institute of Health). Participants came from various types of institutions ranging from universities to health care knowledge centres. Theywere at different stages of Open Access implementation, with one participant still to implement an institutionalrepository (IR). Participants attended from Belgium, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Norway.Capacity-building in three tracksVanessa Proudman, Programme Manager to SPARC Europe, opened the half-day session with a short outline of whatSPARC Europe does in its mission to make long-term change to scholarly communication. She explained that it lobbiesfor more Open Access to Europe’s research results and helps libraries develop and implement policies to accelerate andincrease Open Access to quality scholarly content. The session started by bringing all participants up-to-date on OA policy and OA service developments from across theworld particularly in the areas of increasing institutional impact and visibility. The SPARC Europe workshop then went on to focus on two key areas: policy matters and OA advocacy. Policy matters was opened by Paola De Castro from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità who described OA developmentsincluding the OA policy for the HORIZON 2020 Framework Programme for research in the health sector contextdirectly relating to EAHIL health care information professionals. She then described training experiences carried out bythe NECOBELAC project in Latin American / Caribbean countries in the years 2009-2012. These included over 50training courses focusing on scientific writing and open access publishing and the development of a network ofcollaboration between European and Latin American academic and research institutions operating in the health sector.Paola then shared further international OA experiences with participants gathered since NECOBELAC in theenvironmental health and HIV/Aids sectors in Latin America and Africa. Vanessa Proudman then informed participants of the new innovative Pasteur4OA and FOSTER EU projects as futureprojects to support them with OA policy-making and training. The short policy taster session ended with participantsraising pressing questions.  Though not specific to policy per se, the variety of questions that arose reflected the diversityof the group. They ranged from practical questions such as what type of APC (article processing charge) information dowe need to provide to our authors, to infrastructure questions on what is likely to be the legal situation on OA 5 yearsfrom now, to more advocacy-related questions such as how to make the case for investing in Gold Open Access.The short OA advocacy session focussed on authors in the form of a presentation by Elisabetta Poltronieri from theIstituto Superiore di Sanità. It guided the author through the publishing process, particularly on where to publish. Theauthor-focussed presentation informed participants about journal audiences and readership, journal impact and qualityindicators, publishing costs, and rights management issues including copyright and Creative Commons. Elisabetta alsotouched on predatory publishing. She then went on to look at some journal services to help identify journals in authorfields such as www.journalguide.com or DOAJ. The day ended with participants agreeing that lessons learnt and examples from the course had inspired them. Theyserve to raise more awareness about Open Access amongst their staff and authors and can potentially help them toimplement and develop local policies in the future.SPARC Europe looks forward to offering similar courses in the future. For more information, please contactsparceurope@arl.orgReports of the CEC Courses at the Rome ConferenceOpen Access (OA) capacity-building for Europe’s libraries: 2020,EAHIL Open Access Policy and Training, June 2014Vanessa ProudmanSPARC Europe Programme ManagerPaola de Castro, Elisabetta Poltronieri Istituto Superiore di SanitàThe 2014 EAHIL course on library research support services aimed to provide guidance and stimulation toparticipants intending on making improvements to their research support service offers. This included learning fromgood practices from libraries across the world and considering the diversity of your stakeholders as well as makingessential strategic choices. The pre-conference half-day course was given by Vanessa Proudman fromProud2Know.eu on 9 June 2014 in Rome. Attendees mainly came from the North of Europe from universities inFinland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Italy. Sweet research supportVanessa Proudman started on a humorous noteemptying a bag of sweets in front of the participantsas a metaphor for research support. She invitedparticipants to organise the wide selection of sweetsin all shapes and sizes, tastes and colours. Thesweets were then physically brought to eachparticipant; some indulged whereas others declinedand/or took sweets later when the sugar need wasthere. The fun went on to reveal a metaphor for thechange in research support, and the need to organiseand bring together attractive and appetising servicesfor a wide array of tastes.No two stakeholders are the sameThe course began by looking at the wide selection of different stakeholders who have a need for or have a positiveor negative influence on library research support services. Internal and external stakeholders need to be identifiedand analysed; they vary across a number of levels. For example, needs vary between professions such as doctors,practitioners or nurses; as do they across organisations such as the dean’s office, research office or graduate schoolsright through to the institution’s PR and communications unit. Participants concluded that no two stakeholders arethe same and therefore need individual consideration and different approaches when discussing and designingresearch support services. The course leader pointed out that these differences need to be structurally considered fromthe outset before planning more comprehensive research support activities. Strategic choicesThe course then went on to highlight some of the strategic choices that need to be made when considering theintroduction or development of research support services. These included: Who do you want to satisfy with yourresearch support service offer: a particular discipline or as many disciplines as possible? Do you choose for quickwins as against longer term gains for example, which would mean focusing on low-hanging fruits versus newinnovations. Do you want to develop sustainable or rather experimental or temporary projects or services to solve animmediate problem? Do you need or want to collaborate or do you want to develop things independently? Posingsuch questions at the beginning of your development stage will help sharpen your focus on what to do for whom.Research support trends and examplesThe course then shared numerous examples of library research support services from across the world from USA,Australia, Canada, Asia and Europe. This gave food for thought for the development of research support serviceReports of the CEC Courses at the Rome ConferenceLibrary Research Support Services WorldwideA snapshot of some of the world’s examples at an EAHIL course inJune 2014Vanessa Proudman, Proudknow.euJournal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2014, Vol. 10 (4) 32portfolios by highlighting existing library services and activities from across the world.. Services were listed underthe following eight categories:Vanessa Proudman outlined some of the international trends in research support services. These included OApublishing funding support and APC management, academic integrity and plagiarism, impact management, researchdata management, CRIS management, PhD research skills development, how to use social media as a researchprofiling tool, 3D printing and more. For more information, see www.proud2know.eu/libreveConclusionsThe course combined critical thinking related to the motivations in developing research support with concrete goodpractices in research support from abroad. The course helped course members appreciate that not all stakeholders arethe same and that a varied service approach and offer is therefore necessary to truly answer their needs. For more information and access to the over 250 examples of research support service examples from across theworld, don’t hesitate to contact libreve@proud2know.euReports of the CEC Courses at the Rome ConferenceJournal of  the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 2014, Vol. 10 (4) 33

Reports of the CEC Courses at the Rome Conference

http://ojs.eahil.eu/ojs/index.php/JEAHIL/article/download/425/379/

Reports of the CEC Courses at the Rome Conference

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Journal of EAHIL