Erika Love (1925–2020)

Erika Love, MLA president and early advocate for research in libraries, died October 8, 2020. Erika held many leadership positions in the profession and received several MLA awards recognizing her contributions. She has been called “the midwife” of MLA's early research initiatives [1].

Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness in New Mexico: opening a local conversation by hosting a national traveling exhibit

Background: The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center hosted the National Library of Medicine’s Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness traveling exhibit. The authors’ goal was to promote local interest in the Native Voices exhibit, with an emphasis on making the exhibit content and materials available to American Indian communities throughout rural New Mexico.Case Presentation: We convened a daylong summit to highlight the exhibit and encourage discussion among 30 American Indian community health educators. The summit prompted the compilation and distribution of descriptions of 23 community projects that promote health and wellness. We also took a scaled-down version of the exhibit to 4 rural college campuses around the state that serve significant Native American student populations. Approximately 140 students and faculty interacted with the exhibit materials, and all 4 sites incorporated the exhibit into curriculum activities.Conclusions: A hosted national exhibit developed into a multifaceted, funded project that engaged with Native American communities. We demonstrated successful field deployment of a downsized, portable version of the full traveling exhibit to make meaningful connections with members of our outreach population.

New Mexico practitioners' access to and satisfaction with online clinical information resources: an interview study using qualitative data analysis software

QUESTIONS

What information resources are available to health care practitioners not affiliated with the University of New Mexico? How satisfied are they with those resources?

SETTING

The state is rural and medically underserved.

METHODS

The authors interviewed practitioners, using a nine-item guide. Interview transcripts were coded using QSR NVivo 9 software.

MAIN RESULTS

Fifty-one practitioners were interviewed. Most use online information resources. Many have access to a point-of-care resource within an electronic health records system. They often expressed dissatisfaction with available patient education resources.

CONCLUSION

New Mexico practitioners routinely use electronic information resources but indicate they need better patient information.

How accurately does the VIVO Harvester reflect actual Clinical and Translational Sciences Award-affiliated faculty member publications?

OBJECTIVE

The research tested the accuracy of the VIVO Harvester software in identifying publications authored by faculty members affiliated with a National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA) site.

METHODS

Health sciences librarians created "gold standard" lists of references for the years 2001 to 2011 from PubMed for twenty-five randomly selected investigators from one CTSA site. These gold standard lists were compared to the same twenty-five investigators' reference lists produced by VIVO Harvester. The authors subjected the discrepancies between the lists to sensitivity and specificity analyses.

RESULTS

The VIVO Harvester correctly identified only about 65% of the total eligible PubMed references for the years 2001-2011 for the CTSA-affiliated investigators. The identified references produced by VIVO Harvester were precise yet incomplete. The sensitivity rate was 0.65, and the specificity rate was 1.00.

CONCLUSION

While the references produced by VIVO Harvester could be confirmed in PubMed, the VIVO Harvester retrieved only two-thirds of the required references from PubMed. National Institutes of Health CTSA sites will need to supplement VIVO Harvester-produced references with the expert searching skills of health sciences librarians.

IMPLICATIONS

Health sciences librarians with searching skills need to alert their CTSA sites about these deficiencies and offer their skills to advance their sites' missions.

Personalized Information Service for Clinicians: Users Like It

A Review of: Jerome, Rebecca N., Nunzia Bettinsoli Giuse, S. Trent Rosenbloom, and Patrick G. Arbogast. “Exploring Clinician Adoption of a Novel Evidence Request Feature in an Electronic Medical Record System.” Journal of the Medical Library Association 96.1 (Jan. 2008): 34-41, with online appendices. Abstract Objective – To examine physician use of an Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) literature request service available to clinicians through the institution’s electronic medical record system (EMR). Specifically, the authors posed the following questions: 1) Did newly implemented marketing and communication strategies increase physicians’ use of the service? 2) How did clinicians rate the relevance of the information provided? 3) How was the information provided used and shared? Design – Ten-month, prospective, observational study employing a questionnaire, statistics, a focus group, and a “before and after marketing intervention” analysis. Setting – Adult primary care outpatient clinic in an academic medical centre. Subjects – Forty-eight attending and 89 resident physicians. Methods – In 2003, a new service was introduced that allowed physicians in the Adult Primary Care Center clinic to request evidence summaries from the library regarding complex clinical questions. Contact with the library was through the secure messaging feature of the institution’s electronic medical record (EMR). From March through July 2005, the librarian employed “standard” publicity methods (e-mail, flyers, posters, demonstrations) to promote the service. A focus group in July 2005 provided feedback about the service as well as recommendations about communicating its availability and utility. New communication methods were implemented, including a monthly electronic “current awareness” newsletter, more frequent visits by the librarian during resident clinic hours, and collaborations between the librarian and residents preparing for morning report presentations. At the end of the study period, a 25-item Web-based questionnaire was sent to the 137 physicians with access to the service. Main Results – During the 10-month study period, 23 unique users submitted a total of 45 questions to the EBM Literature Request Service. More questions were from attending physicians than residents: 36 (80%) vs. 9 (20%). At least one of the 23 users asked 12 (26%) of the questions. Utilization did not significantly change after the mid-study intervention. At the end of the study, 48 physicians (35%) completed the survey (32 attending physicians and 16 residents). While 94% of the respondents indicated awareness of the service, only 40% indicated using it. The 19 who used the service, on average, agreed that the information provided was relevant and “sometimes leads to a change in my clinical practice” (p.37). Those who indicated that they shared the information (n=15) mostly did so with other attending physicians and residents, but also mentioned sharing with fellows, patients, and nurses. Information was typically shared verbally but also by distributing a printout, forwarding by e-mail, and forwarding within the EMR message system. The information was used primarily for general self-education, instruction of trainees, and confirmation of a current plan. Conclusion – The newly implemented marketing and communication strategies did not significantly increase the use of the EBM Literature Request Service. Those who used the service found it relevant and often shared the information with others. Based on a small number of respondents and survey information, the librarian-provided EBM Literature Request Service was “well-received” (39).

Risk Profile May Affect Search Process but Not Results

Objective – To compare the use, in terms of process and outcomes, of electronic information resources by primary care physicians with different risk profiles and comfort with uncertainty. Design – Survey, and observation using “think-aloud” method. Setting – Physicians’ offices. Subjects – Canadian and U.S. primary care physicians who report seeing patients in clinic settings. Methods – Volunteers were recruited from personal contacts and the list of physicians who rate current studies for the McMaster Online Rating of Evidence (MORE) project. Physicians completed the Pearson scale to measure attitude toward risk and the Gerrity scale to measure comfort with uncertainty, and those who scored at the extremes of each of these two scales were included in the study (n=25), resulting in four groups (risk-seeking, risk-avoiding, uncertainty-stressed, uncertainty-unstressed). One researcher observed each of these physicians in their offices for an hour during which they completed questionnaires about their computer skills and familiarity with resources, answered multiple-choice clinical questions, and indicated level of certainty with regard to those answers (scale of 0 to 100%). Physicians also chose two of the clinical questions to answer using their own resources. The think-aloud method was employed, and transcripts were coded and analyzed. Main results – The study analysis included two comparisons: risk-seeking (11 subjects) versus risk-avoiding (11 subjects) physicians, and uncertainty-stressed (11 subjects) versus uncertainty-unstressed (10 subjects) physicians. Most physicians were included in both sets of analyses. The researchers found no association of risk attitude and uncertainty stress with computer skills nor with familiarity and use of specific information resources (Internet, MEDLINE, PIER, Clinical Evidence, and UpToDate). No differences were found for the following outcomes: time spent searching, answers correct before searching, answers correct after searching, and certainty of answer if answer is right, certainty of answer if answer is wrong. There was a statistically significant association of participants’ indicating certainty for answers that were correct versus those that were not correct (p

Users’ Awareness of Electronic Books is Limited

A review of: Levine-Clark, Michael. “Electronic Book Usage: A Survey at the University of Denver.” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 6.3 (Jul. 2006): 285-99. Abstract Objective – To determine if university library users are aware of electronic books, and how and why electronic books are used. Design – Survey. Setting – University of Denver. Subjects – Two thousand sixty-seven graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and staff. Methods – In Spring 2005, the University of Denver faculty, and graduate and undergraduate students were invited to participate in a survey about awareness and use of electronic books. A link to the survey was also posted on the library’s home page and on the university’s Web portal. The 19-question survey consisted of 11 questions to get feedback about electronic books in general, five questions focused on netLibrary, and the remaining were demographic questions. Eligibility to win one of two university bookstore gift certificates provided incentive to complete the survey. Main results – Surveys were completed by 2,067 respondents, including undergraduate students (30.1%), graduate students (39.1%), faculty (12.5%), and staff (11.8%). Results were reported by question, broken out by status (undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty) and/or by discipline (Business, Humanities, Nontraditional, Professional, Sciences, Social Sciences), and presented in tables or in the text. In general, most respondents (59.1%) were aware that the library provides access to electronic books. The library catalog and professors were the main ways respondents learned about electronic books. Approximately half (51.3%) indicated they had used an electronic book. Of those who indicated that they used electronic books (1,061 respondents), most (72%) had used electronic books more than once. The main reasons mentioned for choosing to use an electronic book included: no print version available, working from home makes getting to the library difficult, and searching text in an electronic book is easier. When asked about typical use of electronic books, most respondents indicated they read only a part of an electronic book; only 7.1% of 1,148 respondents indicated they read the entire electronic book. In answer to a question about choosing the print or electronic version of the same book, 60.7% responded that they would always or usually use print, and 21.5% indicated they would always or usually use electronic. The amount of material to read, the need to refer to the material at a later time, and the desire to annotate or highlight text are all factors that influence whether users read electronic books on a computer or PDA, or print out the material. U.S. government publications and netLibrary were the electronic resources used the most by survey participants. Conclusion – The results of this survey suggest the need to market availability of the library’s electronic books. Problems associated with the use of electronic books are related to reading large amounts of text on a computer screen, but a reported benefit is that searching text in an electronic book is easier. Responses to the survey suggest that the use of electronic resources may not be generic, but rather depends on the type of resource (content) being used. The author notes that this finding should lead to further investigation of which items will be preferred and used in which format.

Computers and medical information: an elective for fourth-year medical students

The Computers and Medical Information elective is a collaborative effort to expose students to a variety of computer applications for medical information management. The course has a modular format so that students can work with a variety of people who are enthusiastic users of computer-based information systems. The elective emphasizes learning by doing. Faculty introduce concepts and systems and serve as guides in the use of systems. Students have rated the course positively and, after four years as an elective, some of the course's content has been integrated into the required curriculum.

Computers as learning resources in the health sciences: impact and issues

Starting with two computer terminals in 1972, the Health Sciences Learning Resources Center of the University of Minnesota Bio-Medical Library expanded its instructional facilities to ten terminals and thirty-five microcomputers by 1985. Computer use accounted for 28% of total center circulation. The impact of these resources on health sciences curricula is described and issues related to use, support, and planning are raised and discussed. Judged by their acceptance and educational value, computers are successful health sciences learning resources at the University of Minnesota.

Consumer health information: libraries as partners

The need for consumer health information delivery is becoming more evident to librarians. The results of a user survey at a large medical center library and a metropolitan public library confirm that the general public is making demands for health information at both types of libraries. Issues facing librarians are discussed; roles are suggested for public libraries, for academic health sciences libraries, and for hospital libraries. The importance of library involvement in the delivery of consumer health information is emphasized. Librarians are urged to define a role for themselves and to work hard at identifying the library profession to all others involved in the delivery of consumer health information.