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11 - Health libraries
- from PART 2 - EBLIP IN ACTION
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- By Jonathan D. Eldredge, Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico., Joanne Gard Marshall, MLS MHSc PhD spent 16 years as a medical librarian before becoming a faculty member at the University of Toronto in 1987., Alison Brettle, Reader in Evidence Based Practice and Director of Post Graduate Research in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work Research at the University of Salford, UK., Heather N. Holmes, MLIS AHIP is the Associate Director of Libraries with a faculty appointment of Associate Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, Lotta Haglund, MLIS is Head of Library and Archive at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden since 2012, Rick Wallace, Professor and Associate Director at the Quillen College of Medicine Library at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee.
- Edited by Allison Brettle, Denise Koufogiannakis
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- Book:
- Being Evidence Based in Library and Information Practice
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 08 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 31 August 2016, pp 121-132
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
The historical evidence suggests that the health professions might never have developed EBP had it not been for the development of sophisticated research tools such as PubMed/MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library for identifying authoritative evidence (Eldredge, 2008a). By working with health professionals in using these tools, health librarians were pivotal figures in the development of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and the broader EBP movement. From supporting health professionals in EBP, health librarians have gone on to develop and use evidence within their professional practices – EBLIP. This chapter will provide a context for health librarian's work, describe EBLIP within the health library field and the state of the evidence base, and discuss the types of evidence used by health librarians. Two case studies show how EBLIP has been translated into practice and demonstrate how health librarians continue to push the boundaries of EBLIP. Finally, the future directions for research and EBLIP practice will be considered within a health library context.
The health library context
Health librarians often collaborate with other health professionals in a fast-paced environment that demands high levels of accountability for the accuracy of their work. Any mistakes can result in missed diagnoses, inappropriate treatments, incorrectly trained health professionals (Maggio et al., 2015) or misguided research projects. Many health librarians take years to establish credibility for their expert skills among other health professionals (Hannigan and Eldredge, 2014). With increasing frequency, health librarians work outside of physical libraries in roles as embedded colleagues, liaisons, clinical librarians, informaticists and informaticians; therefore, throughout this chapter the term health librarian will be used to describe all of these roles.
The context in which health librarians work is continuing to change (Funk, 2013). At one time, the majority of health librarians worked in hospital libraries. Now, in the USA many librarians work in centralized academic health-science centre libraries that co-ordinate access to electronic databases for their users, including health professionals and staff in affiliated hospitals. The National Library of Medicine in the USA coordinates outreach and other centralized functions. In the UK, health librarians work in hospitals, academic institutions and, increasingly, throughout other NHS organizations. Collections for NHS staff are centralized and health libraries are monitored and supported by a national Library and Knowledge Service.
On the roles of chord-wise flexibility in a flapping wing with hovering kinematics
- JEFF D. ELDREDGE, JONATHAN TOOMEY, ALBERT MEDINA
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- Journal:
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics / Volume 659 / 25 September 2010
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 24 June 2010, pp. 94-115
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- Article
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The aerodynamic performance of a flapping two-dimensional wing section with simplified chord-wise flexibility is studied computationally. Bending stiffness is modelled by a torsion spring connecting two or three rigid components. The leading portion of the wing is prescribed with kinematics that are characteristic of biological hovering, and the aft portion responds passively. Coupled simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations and the wing dynamics are conducted for a wide variety of spring stiffnesses and kinematic parameters. Performance is assessed by comparison of the mean lift, power consumption and lift per unit power, with those from an equivalent rigid wing, and two cases are explored in greater detail through force histories and vorticity snapshots. From the parametric survey, four notable mechanisms are identified through which flexible wings behave differently from rigid counterparts. Rigid wings consistently require more power than their flexible counterparts to generate the same kinematics, as passive deflection leads to smaller drag and torque penalties. Aerodynamic performance is degraded in very flexible wings undergoing large heaving excursions, caused by a premature detachment of the leading-edge vortex. However, a mildly flexible wing has consistently good performance over a wide range of phase differences between pitching and heaving – in contrast to the relative sensitivity of a rigid wing to this parameter – due to better accommodation of the shed leading-edge vortex into the wake during the return stroke, and less tendency to interact with previously shed trailing-edge vortices. Furthermore, a flexible wing permits lift generation even when the leading portion remains nearly vertical, as the wing passively deflects to create an effectively smaller angle of attack, similar to the passive pitching mechanism recently identified for rigid wings. It is found that an effective pitch angle can be defined that accounts for wing deflection to align the results with those of the equivalent rigid wing.
4 - How good is the evidence base?
- from Part 1 - The context for evidence-based information practice
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- By Jonathan Eldredge, Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine and Coordinator of Academic and Clinical Services in the Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center at the University of New Mexico
- Edited by Andrew Booth, Anne Brice
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- Book:
- Evidence-based Practice for Information Professionals
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 08 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 15 March 2004, pp 36-48
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Summary
Introduction
Identifying research evidence relevant to answering EBIP questions poses an initial challenge. How good is the evidence base? How well does it answer our EBIP questions? Once we have identified and obtained this research then we have to evaluate its relevance and quality, a second major challenge (Chapter 9).
This chapter identifies the types of research that may be used to answer important questions for our practice and outlines how an understanding of research types helps in matching an appropriate research type to a specific question. The chapter ends with an appraisal of the overall evidence base.
Identifying the evidence base
The evidence base for information practice is located within three main search domains: (1) the library and informatics literature; (2) the so-called ‘grey literature’ for our field; and, (3) the literatures outside our field with functional relevance to the question such as the literatures of the social, behavioural, education or management sciences.
The library and informatics literature
Issues of index coverage
The first of these, the library and informatics literature, poses several unexpected challenges for the searcher. To illustrate from within the health sector, the major journals in our field include Health Information and Libraries Journal, Journal of the Medical Library Association and Medical Reference Services Quarterly. Less prominent journals include Bibliotheca Medica Canadiana; Hypothesis and Journal of Hospital Libraries. While PubMed is available to all searchers, commercial databases are likely to be too expensive for some professionals to access. The databases selected in any search for the contents of the major journals will yield different retrieval. Tables 4.1–4.3 illustrate uneven coverage amongst three databases. From Table 4.1 one notes that PubMed appeared to offer the most complete access, for the years 2001 or 2002, to the contents of Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA): (51 [2001] and 66 [2002] references compared to the Library Literature database's 32 and 42 respectively). For 1998, however, Library Literature provided access to 93 versus PubMed's 74 references to the same journal. Within the field, Library Literature is used extensively when searching for the evidence needed to make decisions. Yet, for the years 1998–2002, Library Literature did not index any contents for Health Information and Libraries Journal or its predecessor Health Libraries Review.
3 - Evidence-based information practice: a prehistory
- from Part 1 - The context for evidence-based information practice
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- By Jonathan Eldredge, Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine and Coordinator of Academic and Clinical Services in the Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center at the University of New Mexico
- Edited by Andrew Booth, Anne Brice
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- Book:
- Evidence-based Practice for Information Professionals
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 08 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 15 March 2004, pp 24-35
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
Although the contribution of evidence to information practice has only been recognized in recent years, librarianship has a long pedigree in practitioner-based research. The first known cohort study in health librarianship was reported in 1946 and other health librarians adapted the basic cohort design to answer important questions during the 1950s and early 1960s. The first randomized controlled trial (RCT) in health librarianship took place during the late 1970s. A small but identifiable stream of such studies continued during the early 1990s (see Box 3.1).
Thus, health librarians can point to use of research designs such as cohort studies or RCTs even before ‘evidence-based medicine’ was first reported.
This chapter charts the development of practitioner-led research as a fundamental platform for evidence-based librarianship (EBL) and the broader, evidence-based information practice (EBIP). It considers where EBIP has come from, examines major historical developments, and highlights a few individual contributions in our search for the early origins of EBIP.
In the beginning …
… was a question. Evidence-based information practice (EBIP) existed as a concept long before it became a label. A long time ago someone working in a library asked, ‘Is this really the best way to do this?’ Or, perhaps they wondered, ‘Why don't we try doing this a new way instead of the way we have always done it?’ Or, perhaps they asked, ‘Why don't more people use our library?’ What happened next probably depended upon how their manager (or some other person in authority) reacted to their questioning of conventional wisdom. The identity of that first librarian is lost to the obscurity of time.
Early EBIP antecedents
The roots of EBIP pre-date the modern international movement and may be traced in the histories of the profession and biographies of noted librarians, professional ‘ancestors’ who exhibited, at times, one or more of its defining characteristics. Surveying the past 5500 years, however, historian James Thompson (Thompson, 1977) makes the humbling observation that: ‘The development of libraries and librarianship has not been some kind of evolutionary process whereby these have grown better and better’.
20 - A future for evidence-based information practice?
- from Part 3 - Using the evidence base in practice
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- By Anne Brice, Head of Knowledge and Information Sciences, in the Public Health Resource Unit, Oxford, Andrew Booth, School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Ellen Crumley, Clinical Librarian with the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta, Canada, Denise Koufogiannakis, Collections Manager at the John W. Scott Health Sciences Library, University of Alberta, Canada, Jonathan Eldredge, Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine and Coordinator of Academic and Clinical Services in the Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center at the University of New Mexico
- Edited by Andrew Booth, Anne Brice
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- Book:
- Evidence-based Practice for Information Professionals
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 08 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 15 March 2004, pp 279-292
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- Chapter
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Summary
This concluding chapter, bringing together perspectives from evidence-based information practice in the UK, US and Canada, takes stock of achievements so far. It considers the main challenges facing the movement as it gathers momentum, and suggests some short and long-term priorities. After defining progress made, both nationally and internationally, it records personal aspirations for the evidencebased practice paradigm, linked to some ‘quick wins’ to be achieved if such a culture is to develop and grow.
The EBIP journey
The successful planning, delivery and experience of the first Evidence Based Librarianship Conference in Sheffield in September 2001 may be viewed, in retrospect, as a major landmark in the progress of the movement (Eldredge, 2001). It brought together individuals from the UK, Canada and the USA, already pioneers in EBL, with a shared awareness of the potential activities and goals required by a global initiative. In charting the unique contribution of each country, alongside complementary developments already underway, the conference presented an opportunity to test EBIP with a broader audience, and to identify practical steps to be planned and taken forward internationally. These included agreement on planning a second conference.
Since then the EBIP movement has moved forward on sometimes divergent and sometimes parallel tracks, culminating in a second International Conference held in Edmonton, Canada in June 2003. Several key themes have emerged as a potential focus for future strategies and actions.
Any movement seeking ‘critical mass’ must be active in awareness raising and dissemination. Initiatives to date include publishing, community building and teaching and learning activities.
Publishing
A plethora of conceptual literature has been published, bringing EBIP to the forefront of professional concerns and generating interest in its development. Leading articles have promoted EBIP in the major health libraries journals and, perhaps more significantly, in generalist library journals (Booth and Haines, 1998; Koufogiannakis and Crumley, 2002; Marshall, 2003).
After several years of hosting a quarterly ‘Research’ column the editorial team of Health Information and Libraries Journal (formerly Health Libraries Review) decided that the principles of research-based practice were beginning to be integrated within the main body of the journal to the extent that a separate column was no longer required.