Tag Archives: health librarians

Journal Club – Computerized versus hand-scored health literacy tools: a comparison of Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) and Flesch-Kincaid in printed patient education materials

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Meeting Date: January 27, 2021

Presenter: Brianna Howell-Spooner

Article: Grabeel KL, Russomanno J, Oelschlegel S, Tester E, Heidel RE. Computerized versus hand-scored health literacy tools: a comparison of Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) and Flesch-Kincaid in printed patient education materials. J Med Libr Assoc. 2018 Jan;106(1):38-45. doi: 10.5195/jmla.2018.262. Epub 2018 Jan 2. PMID: 29339932; PMCID: PMC5764592.

Questions:

1) Had anyone heard of the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook and Flesch-Kincaid measurements before? What do you know about them?

  • Never heard of them.
  • Yes, SMOG
  • Yes, Flesch-Kincaid

2) Are these measurements comparable? Is either a good choice for comparison of consumer health materials?

  • Not comparable
  • Hand scoring is more manipulable,
  • “Hand-scoring patient education materials allows evaluators to work directly with the text, alerting them to multisyllabic words and long sentences”
  • Flesch-Kincaid could be done by hand but it would be too much work
  • Electronic is more feasible because it’s built into the word processors, but the hand-scored one is more accurate if done correctly
  • The graphic layout can throw off the mathematics
  • Period and decimal would be read the same, electronic -1 CHI

3) Are these reading level measurements sensitive enough for health/medical materials?  

  • SMOG seems like a blunt instrument, based on =>3-syllable words, certain medical condition’s names are much longer
    • Greater chance for a higher grade level
  • What was Flesch-Kincaid first developed for? Was it for literacy grading in actuality or just a theoretical model? This will affect its measurement capabilities

4) Is it worth the extra time to run a hand scoring literacy measure?

  • Context, if a practitioner is meeting with someone they know has the literacy level, no problems
  • Practitioners need to be aware, levels stated could be wrong or could be area dependent (university reading level, but in Law)
  • The materials which a patient can pick up independently of communication with a medical practitioner are where you want to see the proper scoring for literacy levels
    • No chance for the practitioner to check understanding
  • Really need to know your audience
  • New disease, you’re going to want to make sure that the information is at the lowest common denominator for literacy to the widest audience
  • Dangerous to assume level, need to be careful
  • The fault of the health practitioner, not explaining the whole context,
    • Health practitioner need to learn how to teach health information
    • Don’t have the skills, to talk to the patient to give them the right/correct/contextual information

5) 81.8% (9/11)of the custom-designed (by the health authority) patient education materials scored above 6th grade reading level in the Flesch-Kincaid assessment, and 100% scored above the 6th grade reading level using SMOG, it is important that literacy assessments of patient education materials are conducted. How could the library help in hospital and during the education of healthcare providers?

  • Used to sit on the committee (CEAC) for giving input on the information itself (not grade level)
  • Could work on this again now that we’ve amalgamated?
  • NS health authority does include health materials for patients

6) Patient and Family Resource Centres offer patient education materials that are usually provided to them by other publishers, either internal to the hospital or from trusted sources. Should periodic assessments of these materials be done by the librarians? How do/can we, as librarians, get others to adhere to the 6th grade level?

  • Agreement which instrument to use? Do we average them?
    • F-K is easier but is it the most accurate?
  • Committees don’t like using external, like to personalize them to SK patient in front of them
    • Are they looking at our resources at the library for patient education?
  • Some of our resources at the library are customizable
  • What grade level do we tell them to adhere to?
  • Does the MLA, ALA even have a grade reading level cut off for literacy? Health literacy?

Thoughts? Opinions? Snacks?

  • What roll do we as librarians might play with CHI resources?
  • New learning
  • One member is going to forward information to instructors for a course she’s helping with
  • Applicable to Sask, demographically
  • Yes! Maybe academic librarians can somehow embed this into the curriculum of nursing and medical students. Teach them how to identify the appropriate resources and reading level and to speak at that level with their future patients. They should be trained on that from the beginning

SHLA Statement on Racism

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The Saskatchewan Health Libraries Association stands in solidarity with Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) and specifically Black and Indigenous communities in Canada, the United States and all over the world who are experiencing racism, police brutality, and the effects of colonialism.  

Continue reading SHLA Statement on Racism→

Journal Club – Global Responses of Health Science Librarians to the COVID‐19 (Corona virus) Pandemic: A Desktop Analysis

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Meeting Date: November, 5, 2020

Presenter: Mary Chipanshi

Article:  Yuvaraj, M. (2020). Global responses of health science librarians to the COVID‐19 (Corona virus) pandemic: A desktop analysis. Health Information and Libraries Journal, Health information and libraries journal, 2020-07-09. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/hir.12321

Questions:

1) Are the study objectives relevant?

  • Yes, it’s relevant to know how libraries are responding to crisis to see where our services can be improved. In order to build studies around what’s working and what isn’t you have to know what people are doing first.
  • We had to think about expanding our services, finding ways to do document deliveries
  • All services were focused on COVID, requests in other areas dropped
  • Article was very relevant
  • Priorities changed to COVID, regular programming wasn’t as much of a priority
  • Collaboration among other public health libraries
  • After March everybody scrambled, it became a different normal

Does the study add anything new?

  • It helps identify launching off points for research on library services: what’s working/not working, what can be added, is this a service that can be adapted?

Was the desktop analysis approach the best method for this study?

  • For the purposes of finding out what people are doing without having to create a survey, yes.
  • This is pandemic and you’re trying to pull resources for a novel virus trying to get as much information as possible to people who need it for known clients and unknown clients
  • Trying to make things as accessible as possible
  • It would very difficult to reach professionals with a more traditional research method
  • Wish we knew more about what “desktop method means”
    • Add maybe a second level of review, have a peer review the table
  • Had to look up what desktop research was
  • Seems more like a research method for an undergraduate research paper
  • Flesh it out and tell us their research or search methods
  • Methodology section could use a lot of work, especially in clarifying what the method it used is, its purpose, etc.
  • International library associations were included (what were the criteria used?)
  • Confusion over association and website inclusion, they are very different, serve different people

Does the author acknowledge limitations in the article? If not do you see any limitations?

  • Language would be a barrier/limitation to assessing the efforts of library organizations/associations
    • Noticed that they only looked at associations that for sure have English as their main language/only language which is interesting considering where the author is from has over 20 languages
  • UK is represented, US is represented, Australia is represented
    • Where is Africa?
    • Where is India? (where author is from)
  • Library associations in Africa
    • Didn’t find anything that was COVID for them when I looked it up, they were drawing from other places
  • Author should’ve looked in more places, added limitations so that we aren’t asking these questions

Is the development of posters a good idea? Has your library developed any posters?

  • I put up the one that our organization distributed at the beginning about safety protocols (e.g. 2 meters apart, covering sneezes) but we’ve been closed since then
  • Posters are handled by communications department, library wouldn’t make the poster
  • Were told library services are going to take a backseat, but the library was still a guiding hand for searches
  • Librarian helped the communications team
  • Needs to be a central message
  • Most librarians have been home since March
  • Universal masking posters, symptom monitoring, around the library but not produced by it

How have you been providing resources to your users?

  • Mostly online, some book pickup
  • Blocked access to public computers for safety
  • At first, nobody could have access to the materials, started getting students complaining about lack of access to the library collection of textbooks
    • The text books can’t be digitized and could not provide them online
  • Started curbside pickup, within Canada but couldn’t send them out of country
  • Made book lockers available for pickup
  • Online access to books that you have in your collection, some of their books are available through the hi-T trust,
    • One problem, can’t hand out print copy when it’s in the online trust
  • Print collection was a problem, the librarians aren’t physically there to check out the books
    • Trying to find things freely available online
    • Most users want articles, not physical books
    • For ILL requests, they are faxed to the user
    • If you work in the building, user can go pick it up
  • No one is allowed to go into the stacks

Has your library developed any resources or have you linked to any COVID-19 resources for your users?

  • When COVID started, pulled together a resource page, links to resources, live search. Synopses of articles, links to publishers that are making article open access for COVID articles
  • Quicklinks to other national/provincial public health websites and other international public health sites: CDC, WHO
    • Dashboards (Johns Hopkins), vaccine tracker
    • Librarians email each other to update the page
  • Thinking of making a lib guide but we don’t have the time
  • Huge amount of collaboration and peer review for searches and search strategies

Do you think that in the process of expanding the librarian’s role in response to the COVID-19 crisis the users are lost?

  • Lost patient/family users, they couldn’t safely access our in-person resources and we don’t have a lot of online resources for the public
  • Requests were way down, thought “was it something we did?”
    • After the first wave, there was an increase in the use in preparation for the second wave
  • Not at the usual level, but maybe it’s coming back

Have libraries acquired new users?

  • Our library has definitely acquired new users, but they are people who could have used our services before so there is a question of “why weren’t they?” and “how can we make sure they continue to use our services after the pandemic ends?”
  • Gained student users, they don’t have to be physically in Canada anymore to be a student but they can still access or request access to our resources
  • Reaching out to potential users
  • Reviewing regular programs and taking care of COVID at the same time
  • Wondering if word of mouth for the library was passed around in online communications

Are there any other comments/additions that you would like to share from the article?

  • Very much like the desktop method for inexpensive research
  • Another inexpensive method, document analysis, basing your research on documents you were able to pull from the resource you use

Journal Club: “How do I do that?” a literature review of research data management skill gaps of Canadian health sciences information professionals

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Meeting Date: January 27, 2020

Presenter: Kaetlyn Phillips

Article: Fuhr, J. (2019). “How do I do that?” a literature review of research data management skill gaps of Canadian health sciences information professionals. Journal of Canadian Health Libraries Association, 40, 51-69. 10.29173/jchla29371.

Questions:

1) Are you familiar with research data management (RDM)? Have you been asked to start or participate in RDM programs? Do you feel there is a gap in your knowledge?

  • There is absolutely a gap in my knowledge of this topic
  • Only heard the term before, didn’t know everything it pertained to, did want to know about it so the article was a good choice
  • Heard of some of some of the concepts before but wasn’t sure what they meant in context of library work
  • What role do we play, in terms of offering these services for our patrons
  • Knowledge gaps are overwhelming, once you get comfortable with the jargon the process becomes easier as does identifying missing skills
  • Not just us in the libraries, many professions have this problem

2) Do you agree with the list of skills provided in Table 1? Should skills be added? Which ones? Why?

  • Security knowledge or confidentiality and the limitations of de-identified data
  • Seems like a lot to put on a single person
  • When I looked at the skills listed in the article and thought about what it is I do, I felt overwhelmed. I think having an expert is better than pushing it on librarians without training
  • It’s a lot of put on librarian’s without training, needs to be a collaborative process, consulting with a librarian who is a RDM librarian
  • The list of skills looked like a job description, you would need someone to do this full time not just tacked onto existing responsibilities of the existing librarians. Academic institutions are creating Research Data Management positions, so the future of RDM in health sciences could be collaborative as opposed to one librarian doing many roles

3) In your opinion, what role will RDM play into Healthcare’s Evidence based practice?

  • Better organized and available data can make for better studies because more participants’ information can be included for analysis, IF the data uses the same metadata or architecture or even standardized terminology
  • Making metadata available is a definite weakness, making a user’s guide is super helpful so you can understand what you’re looking at
  • Only a couple of people have heard of the data centers in Saskatchewan which are targeting health researchers (e.g. for rare diseases)

4) The article has many suggestions for implementing RDA training. What kind of training would work best for health sciences librarians?

  • Asynchronous but organized, lower stakes less stress, not overwhelming people with all of the possible information
  • Ties back to context, it would depend on the librarian’s skill set, we shouldn’t play down the knowledge and skill set we bring as librarian’s
  • Peer-to-peer but also, given the skill sets mentioned in the article we might already have similar skills that can be applied
  • Quite a few classes in MLIS are only offered once a year so you often miss out if you only want to do your MLIS within the usual timeline (one year)
  • We could advocate of continuing education in our associations
  • There’s a lot of courses on data management and analysis that are for using the data and not for organizing it after the fact or while gathering it
  • There’s lots out there but finding it, finding good quality and getting credit for it is difficult
  • RDM courses that are self-paced and open are needed. Even if iSchools and MLIS programs include courses on RDM, it’s possible that those courses won’t be enough to fill the knowledge gap. Peer to peer professional development would also be beneficial.

5) The author “foresees a trickle-down effect of research data services in health sciences and specialized libraries, regardless of affiliation with a post-secondary institution” (Fuhr, 2019, p.57). Based on your experience and knowledge, do you agree or disagree with the statement?

  • Only if we speak up, scientists have a tendency to silo their data because of how research and promotion is rewarded (the originality of the research and the groundbreaking is rewarded over reproducibility; despite reproducibility being the backbone of science)
  • We’d have to take initiative to get them involved with us
  • We have a relationship with our research department, but it’s a bit of a black box, there’s other services we focus on so it’s also a capacity issue for us even just getting people on board
  • It’s not on our radar
  • Will the grant application process, the necessity of having an RDM process in your application, will that change the playfield?
  • Research has never been the main driver of hospitals
  • The concept of a trickle-down effect seems implausible, or would take a long time to occur.  Within health science organizations, research is often a separate branch outside of the library, so libraries would need to promote the service over being “forced” into it. Within academic health science institutions, RDM is falling under the library’s roles and duties, so consulting with a librarian could be encouraged.

Any other questions? Comments?

Journal Club: Measuring impostor phenomenon among health sciences librarians

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Meeting Date: September 26, 2019

Presenter: Brianna Howell-Spooner

Citation: Barr-Walker J, Bass MB, Werner DA, et al. Measuring impostor phenomenon among health sciences librarians. J Med Libr Assoc. 2019;107(3):323-32.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6579590/

Article Abstract: Objective: Impostor phenomenon, also known as impostor syndrome, is the inability to internalize accomplishments while experiencing the fear of being exposed as a fraud. Previous work has examined impostor phenomenon among academic college and research librarians, but health sciences librarians, who are often asked to be experts in medical subject areas with minimal training or education in these areas, have not yet been studied. The aim of this study was to measure impostor phenomenon among health sciences librarians.
Methods: A survey of 2,125 eligible Medical Library Association (MLA) members was taken from October to December 2017. The online survey featuring the Harvey Impostor Phenomenon scale, a validated measure of impostor phenomenon, was administered, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine relationships between impostor phenomenon scores and demographic variables.
Results: A total of 703 participants completed the survey (33% response rate), and 14.5% of participants scored >=42 on the Harvey scale, indicating possible impostor feelings. Gender, race, and library setting showed no associations, but having an educational background in the health sciences was associated with lower impostor scores. Age and years of experience were inversely correlated with impostor phenomenon, with younger and newer librarians demonstrating higher scores.
Conclusions: One out of seven health sciences librarians in this study experienced impostor phenomenon, similar to previous findings for academic librarians. Librarians, managers, and MLA can work to recognize and address this issue by raising awareness, using early prevention methods, and supporting librarians who are younger and/or new to the profession.

Questions

1. As a health librarian, how did this article make you feel?

–  feel a little bit better that other librarians feel the same way

– interesting topic, first time heard of it, able to relate to a lot of the feelings from the beginning of career

– Not sure, a lot of the issue that came up in the scale appear in any job, it a reality but it’s also part of the process; for me I had similar feelings in other library jobs, in those jobs I felt like the information I was giving wasn’t something I made happen, but people didn’t notice

– The anxiety is normal, only really a problem if maybe it existed after the first

– Could be a problem in workplaces that feed those anxieties-

2. Were you surprised by the results?

– a little bit surprised that the results were so comparable to the study on academic librarians

– depending on the setting a lot of librarian’s have advanced degrees in the area they are working

– is this the same for academic health librarians, not everyone, seen it happen at academic libraries where the subjects weren’t the ones they studied but they are liaising with departments they don’t have a background in.

3. Even though this was an American based study, do you think it applies to Canadian health librarians?

– Yes

– Not much difference

4. Do you think there might be other factors affecting imposter syndrome in health science or hospital librarians than the ones hypothesized by the authors (hypothesized factors: less educational background and work experience in the health sciences and yet expected to be subject experts).

– I hypothesize that health librarians who were interested in science in their earlier education or have always had a personal interest in science, but did not pursue a university degree in the topic might have an ambivalent score on imposter syndrome scale.

– Would they feel that they didn’t belong because they don’t have the paper to back them up, were they discouraged earlier in their education by others who didn’t think they could hack the hard sciences, or did they find a different interest in their undergrad but never lost interest in the topic on a personal level?

– Mental health issue, some of the participants could be more prone to self-esteem or feeling that they are not up to the work

– Type of workplace; if the workplace isn’t supportive, that might contribute, if it’s open to collaboration that might help alleviate feelings of needing to go it alone

– The type of work that we do is very challenging to parse the searches; (other agreement)

– Some of the terms are difficult to parse

– More collaboration makes it feels less burdensome, in workplaces that are competitive, that vulnerability might be turned back on you

– New concepts and new ways to work can be destabilizing, feedback and support helps

– If someone doesn’t deal well with stress and anxiety, can compound it

– Mentorship: difference between academic and special?

– Special: asking is expected

– Academic: how many colleagues are working with the same material/subject?

5. Did anybody download the supplementary materials and score themselves on the survey instrument? Did you feel that it reflected what you perceived?

–  difficult to score yourself without throwing it off

– some of questions depend on where you are in your career, changes the answers

– always learning, so some of the questions didn’t reflect some life philosophies

– in the moment feelings will affect the outcome

6. In relation to the supplementary materials, the authors were trying to match the study to a previous one so the questions they could ask were limited. Assuming that limitation was removed, are there questions you would have liked to ask if you were researching this topic?

– experience that participants had before their position in the health sciences library, were they in a similar environment, what tools do they have, did they ever have to learn new things on the go?

– “how many years in health science” versus “how many years in library work do you have”?

– more qualitative questions; did they NEED the job because of economic constraints or did they seek it out? What is their history with health care or even science?

– different types of academic libraries, what were the types?

7. Are there any weaknesses that you would want to address in follow-up studies?

– Interesting to see a more global scale

– Compare American versus Canadian context

– Could they have gotten around the MLA selection bias; convenient but limiting

– Listserv

– Social media

– Reach out individually

– more representation, demographically,

– they did list their limitations

Other thoughts?

– Enjoyed the article, new topic, more possibilities for studies, good starting point

– Fairly good job getting started

– Coping strategies? That might’ve been something they could’ve added, we’ve all gone through this, what could employees/employers do to make this an easier thing?

– Try to remind myself that I might not be a content expert but I am an expert in searching for the things,

– Clinical staff don’t realize that we don’t have the background, if we point that out they do help us with figuring out terminology and thought process

– There’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ search strategy, you learn how to put it together day by day

– Don’t be afraid of new things; acknowledge that you’re starting at square one and take it one step at a time.

– Remind yourself that people want you to succeed

– It’s a growth process

– Has anyone had to help someone with imposter syndrome? What would you do to help?

– Had an employee who wanted to quit because he didn’t think he was learning things fast enough

– Explained the reasons why he was hired, I believe that you have the skills, not expecting you to become a super librarian overnight, it’s okay to ask when you don’t know, you won’t get in trouble, what is it that you’re struggling with, what are your needs?

Journal Club: Critical librarianship in health sciences libraries: An introduction

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Meeting Date: July 24, 2019

Presenter: Michelle Dalidowicz

Citation: Barr-Walker J, Sharifi C. Critical librarianship in health sciences libraries: an introduction. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA. 2019;107(2):258-64. DOI: 10.5195/jmla.2019.620
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6466494/

Article Abstract:

The Medical Library Association recently announced its commitment to diversity and inclusion. While this is a positive start, critical librarianship takes the crucial concepts of diversity and inclusion one step further by advocating for social justice action and the dismantling of oppressive institutional structures, including white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. Critical librarianship takes many forms, but, at its root, is focused on interrogating and disrupting inequitable systems, including changing racist cataloging rules, creating student-driven information literacy instruction, supporting inclusive and ethical publishing models, and rejecting the notion of libraries as neutral spaces. This article presents examples of the application of critical practice in libraries as well as ideas for applying critical librarianship to the health sciences.

Critical Appraisal:

Questions:

1) Critical Librarianship is usually defined as applying the principles of social justice to our work as librarians. Is there anything that you would add to that definition?

– critical theory is really the basis

– more than just saying ‘social justice’ has to state actual ‘anti-‘ statements

– but when do you stop naming anti- stances

– are there certain ones that are more insidious, that just can’t be not stated

– power differentials, important piece of these discussions

2) In undergrad or in post grad, did you ever receive instruction on critical studies? Do you feel comfortable engaging with it as part of your work?

– English undergrad covered critical theory, inclusion and anti-inclusion; it comes up a lot

– sociology covers it; milder conversations but the same stuff

– race relations in Canada were covered in a gender studies course

– Not as much convo in the gender studies on critical theory

– nothing in MLIS; hope that changes

– MLIS talked about homelessness

– MLIS only exposure was in cataloguing, used examples that showed how things weren’t reflective of anti-oppressive critical librarianship; but it wasn’t presented as critical librarianship

– history, topics came up as we talked about American history and immigration but it wasn’t critical theory

– pop music course brought in critical theory

– want to say “yes” am comfortable engaging, being outspoken about social justice

– barriers include politeness, people might not say anything but they will be silently judging you for speaking out about it [critical theory/social justice]

– it’s more insidious [oppressive systems], unless you’re an oppressed group or have studied critical theory/social justice theories you’re unlikely to recognize the problems with the systems that are in place.

– Needs more critical mass from society, people don’t know how to respond and they don’t ‘see’ the offense

– in terms of our practice, I use examples of contentious terms and how much the ‘outdated’ words are used versus more appropriate terms.

– it’s becoming easier to talk about privilege; but not everyone understands it

– the fights and the backlash might cause people to refrain from getting involved out of fear or wanting to avoid discomfort

3) What would critical medical librarianship look like and what might it encompass (e.g. social justice, health disparities)?

– health disparities is one we get often asked about

– it becomes apparent in the searching you do, indigenous, rural ect. We as librarians get an idea of ‘where the money goes’, the lack of research when oppressed population is combined with ‘x’ health condition

– more patient advocate role; the librarian as a patient advocate (paper from the states)

– how do we engage with patients? Consumer guides, who’s looking at what we’re making?

4) Do you feel like you are already using critical librarianship in your health library practice?

– not enough

– article was a good reminder of what we can control: what we find, reference interview questions, instruction that touches on access (the privilege of being able to access paywall journals, the services we provide),

– selection of articles, how can we build that into library instruction, throwing in a critical article

– often patrons are looking for ‘support’ for their question, but what if the opposite is better care? Do you want all the evidence or only what supports your opinion?

– is publication bias a social justice issue? Possibly, it’s definitely a bias

– articles that we don’t include because we don’t ‘trust’ the source or the population is ‘not the same’

5) Different areas of library work and how they can be affected by critical librarianship were touched upon in the article. Were there areas which you felt could be more readily changed in your library practice than others and how would you like to be able to do so?

– cultural heritage, would be interesting to curate articles and materials for indigenous health or educational materials of indigenous methods of healing

– the search results, what we’re picking out, what we’re supporting; more inclusive questions in the reference interview

– involving patients in their care

5a) Were there areas of library work you think were missing that could be found in critical health librarianship?

6) Are there ways that we, as health librarians, make choices in our work that go against critical librarianship ideals?

7) What are ways that we can use critical librarianship in our health libraries right now to encourage social justice critical thinking and engagement in our patrons?

– using search examples in teaching; using social justice topics in our library search instruction to keep it in the fore front

(Note: We ran out of time so we skipped questions 5a and 6)

Chapter Update: Fall 2017 Meeting

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The fall SHLA gathering kicked off with a round table on current activities from each organization. This was followed by a continuing education session led by CADTH Liaison Officer Saskatchewan Kathleen Kulyk on the development and critical appraisal of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). CPGs play a vital role in health policy formation and care delivery; yet guideline implementation has suffered due to varied adherence to basic standards of development. The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research & Evaluation II (AGREE II) Instrument is a framework for ensuring guidelines are rigorously developed and reported and based on best available evidence. During the session, members had the opportunity to assess guidelines using AGREE II, and to discuss the strengths and shortcomings of the instrument and its applicability to the practice of library and information professionals.

The SHLA Fall Meeting included reports from the executive and information items by the web manager and Journal Club coordinator. A proposal to change the length and frequency of Journal Club was raised and tabled for discussion at the next Journal Club meeting. The day ended with a discussion about the upcoming SHLA Constitutional Review and a general call for members to participate on the committee.

Chapter Update: Fall 2016 Meeting

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During the morning portion of the session Brendalynn Ens (Director, Knowledge Mobilization and Liaison Program at Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health [CADTH]) lead 11 librarians and library technicians through the critical appraisal process of medical literature, including randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, and practice guidelines. Thousands of critical appraisal tools (CATs) are available, but all are based on three basic questions: “Can I believe the results?”; “What are the results?”; and “Will the results help me in my decision making?” CADTH has created a set of four (non-validated) CATs available for use (Registered Controlled Trials, Systematic Reviews, Clinical Practical Guidelines, and Qualitative Research), which they distributed to the attendees. Brendalynn spoke in depth specifically about bias in Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs), which includes five different types of bias associated with CPGs: financial, publication, conflict of interest, expert influence, and external commercial bias. She also shared her five-minute shortcut to critical appraisal of a CPG.

critical-appraisal

The afternoon portion of the meeting began with Valerie Moore, who provided the attendees with a tour of the new SHIRP website at their new URL: www.shirp.usask.ca

SHIRP’s new logo is featured on their website, along with a new “Quick Links” section, and the new LibGuides. In the last three months the website has seen 19255 visits, with the Pharmacist and Physician pages seeing the top hits. Drug databases are the most popular. There has been a lot of anecdotal positive feedback on the newly designed website.

shirp2

The afternoon continued with a pre-recorded video presentation from Catherine Boden entitled “Learning Needs Across the Continuum from Beginner to Expert: A Survey of Health Sciences Librarians Working in Canada and the U.S.” Catherine provided the group with some background on a project, which is a partnership between the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient-Orientated Research (SCPOR), to develop, deliver and evaluate a series of online modules aimed at building skills in literature/information searching, and reviewing and synthesizing methodologies to support evidence-based practice for healthcare professionals across the province; and, to coordinate and present workshops on systematic reviews and meta-analysis across the province, delivered by nationally recognized experts. As background piece to this project, Catherine undertook an assessment on the learning needs of librarians supporting systematic reviews using a questionnaire, which was distributed to health sciences librarian working in North America. The results of the questionnaire were shared, which included questions on demographics, systematic review experience, “design your own Continuing Education,” and facilitators and challenges.

The day ended with the SHLA general meeting, which included reports from the executive, and a discussion led by Susan Murphy based on questions from Catherine Boden about training around systematic reviews.