The Value Proposition - research, marketing, advocacy

Back in July I headed over to Adelaide the the Health Libraries Australia PD Day. It was great for a couple of reasons. Firstly I helped to organise the event with the HLA Executive. That meant I got to physically meet people who I had only ever spoken to via teleconference. we had a face to face meeting the day before so that was nice. Secondly, I got to spend a night in a big hotel by myself! Haven't been to any library events interstate in over 4 years! Thirdly, I got to learn lots, meet new people and speak to vendors. Here are my notes from the day:

Andrew McDougall - SGS Economics (disclaimer is that I am helping to coordinate the survey he talked about)

He started with lots of talk about the public libraries survey he did and how info was gathered etc. Then when onto the HLI/ALIA Life and Death one from last year. He then tried to explain about opportunity costs etc. and how these are derived (got a bit lost in there).

Then he spoke about the current survey. 300 health libraries in Australia of which 48 responded (which is 16%). Of those 48 only 27 could have cost benefit analysis applied (9%). He is still working out ratios but at the minute it looks like 2:1. For every $1 you spend you get $2 back etc. He thinks this may creep closer to $3. We are just looking at getting some more answers from last year’s survey and there was an issue with states (WA, SA and QLD) and using the same IP address so this is being explored to pull further numbers out. Another interesting fact was that 25-30% of potential users use health libraries (we definitely need to do something on marketing, I know we aren’t that good here.)

He also said about the limitations of the survey (hard to qualitatively find answers/expensive; long survey due to multiple stakeholders wanting input).

Finally he spoke about the case studies which will tie everything in together. The template is still being worked on as it had to expand to include more info. 

Ruth Sladek - Search skills of Librarians

This was really interesting as years ago I participated in the research so was great to hear the findings.  

Medline not sufficient eg. need to search grey literature

 Oceanic ancestry group (MESH) not intuitive or specific

90% of searches underpinning Cochrane contain errors

Large overestimation of librarians' search skills - only found 53.2% of relevant literature

BUT their gold standard would be different from what others' gold standards are.

Ask yourself:

How well do I search?

When does it matter?

How do I know how well I search?

How do I improve my searching?

Who should assess my competency?

If hard for health librarians what about end users?

Lowitja Filter launched for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. (Search filters on intranet?)

PubMed has Medline and non-Medline components. Filters through PubMed free. Medline not.

Cheryl Hamill - One tribe - many tribes? 

Collaborative report with Melanie Kammermann; Lindsay Harris and Kathleen Gray 

Take a BYTE out of medical misinformation (MLA Poster - LIW 2014?)

Keep calm and ask a Librarian (LIW 2014)

Librarian lego figure

Position descriptions in Health Sciences Libraries (MLA Book, Dockit #16)

What we do? Evaluate; acquire; organise; retrieve; teach; support; deliver; enable discovery

Many intangibles in libraries - not all about stats

Certified Health Informatician Australasia - we are aiming for self regulation 

Narelle Hampe & Suzanne Lewis - ePortfolios to enhance PD

Record; Store; Facilitate; Reflection

Training needs analysis and pre-implementation survey

Evaluate platform - used Pebble Pad as hosted externally; web based; if staff leave they can maintain subscription individually at $45 per year

Sarah Hayman, CareSearch

Getting information of the internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant (LIW 2014)

Flinders filters:

Heart failure

Lung cancer

Residential aged care

Dementia

Primary health care

Contraception (not yet released)

Bereavement (under development)

Other filters:

SIGN Scottish Intercollegiate Guidleines Network

InterTASC

PubMed Clinical Queries

McMaster University Health

"evidence-based" search =  known effectiveness

removes individual search builder

limitations - one database and quality of that database

no such thing as a perfect search

Megan Neumann - Single click results

Lib Guides - tabs: Books; Jnls; Databases; Lit searches

Lit searches are pre defined "dumb down searches" as a quick product for clinicians

Sue McKerracher - Advocacy

We say "special" libraries.

They say "industry" libraries

Turn survey into infographic

Quote dollar for dollar on everything

Protecting the users - not our jobs

Health library standards?

Patient care & journey - use these words

Accreditation

Weaving in qualitative narrative

individual patient stories (doctor searches child + battery; librarian searches child + foreign object)

 

 

 

Health Libraries Inc. Conference

Last Friday I headed down to Melbourne for the annual HLI Conference.  As always it was fabulous to catch up with other health library colleagues, to chat to vendors and to head out for a yummy dinner afterwards. There were a few tweets under #HLIConf2012. Here are my notes from the day:

Ilana Jackson - Western Health

Health education strategy
Lit search survey
Dashboard - feedback, lit searches
Marketing - Scholar, Up-to-Date, Discovery services
If you block a tool the user wants they will go elsewhere

Michele Gaca - Heart Foundation

Be visible, involved, relevant
KNOWN - build reputation on timely and quality solutions
Constantly sell your message
Expertise - we can find it, and find it quicker
Quotes from customers

Mary Peterson - SA Health Library Network

Support from clinicians
Go to clinical meetings
High level profile
resources are worth 50cents per hit (etc.)
Cost of individual purchase compared with centralised

Stephen Due - Barwon Health

Empowerment has to include facing up to challenges and problems
Acknowledge you need more - have a prepared plan so you hit the ground running when funds are available
Competition - other libraries (especially academic), CHC, publishers
Need strong web based presence
CLIENT SURVEY
E-books, current deficiency. need critical mass to work. ebrary (proquest, 1000 books), clinical key (800 books)

Ann Ritchie - on marketing

Position. Position. Position.
Perceptions of values.
Communication values.

Sue McKerracher - Re: HLI Survey

IMPACT - what users do with the info you source for them
Quality report to the Board (during May's LIW)
Dollar values - 40 gratis ILL's = 40 x $16.50
Average all hits out. eg. St V is $3 per article. Pay per view is $12-$50.
Insync surveys (about $3000)
Email signature. Words that align with BHS vision

UB Technology Park Breakfast : Ballarat Cancer Research Centre

Back in August I headed out (early) to UB Technology Park to hear George Kannourakis speak about the current research happenings at the Ballarat Cancer Research Centre.

It was great to go for a few reasons. Firstly I got to meet George face-to-face. This was nice because I am on our HREC at work and we review all of the Ballarat Cancer Centre documents. So putting a face to a name was great. Secondly I got to hear about this magnificent resource in the heart of Ballarat. So inspiring. The history of the Centre is amazing and the current work is potentially life changing.  Just a fabulous talk :)

CHC in Melbourne

Back in August I headed down to the new Royal Children's Hospital for a meeting with other librarian's about the Clinician's Helath Channel. It was lovely to catch up with folk as I rarely get down for events.

The best thing to come out of the meeting (apart from seeing the new hospital and the meerkats) was that Ebsco got another year's extension on the CHC contract so in the interim nothing will change. I don't mind chnage but at the minute I seem to have enough to cope with already!

The Information Professional: Do we have a culture of learning?

Last Wednesday night (The 26th of September), I headed down to Melbourne for the State Library of Victoria's next talk in the Outside the Box series. Here are my notes (far too much effort to properly transcibe!):

Damian Lodge, CSU Lecturer, and Board member of ALIA

• discussed his PHD (in Universities)
• leadership, technology, staff motivation, staff development
• supporting staff, funding them and giving them work time to write conference papers etc.

Many Manning, from SLAV

• they have selected topics for groups to pick from and help get speakers (this could be good for regional groups of ALIA)
• gain PD from formal and non-formal activities, like reading journals
• schools pressed for $
• mainly offered PD to librarians and teacher librarians but have now moved to assistants, LT's, audio technician's etc.
• credibility - putting yourself out there, giving a presentation

Craig Anderson, Director of RMIT Libraries

• going to different events (or sector events) to broaden your view
• first aid, OH&S, fire safety (standard training)
• open program (whole uni - 100 sessions), things like IT, excel etc.
• on site training (databases, ILMS)
• external training (conferences, other events)
• full time staff development trainer
• doing the learning 23 things
• who's responsible? management or staff?

We also discussed the ALIA PD scheme.

• selling the scheme to both employers and employees
• making it compulsory? but if so numbers would drop
• major problem. they are aiming for 10% involvement

Comments (from the crowd!)

• people don't know what they don't know!
• the need to discuss change and informing others by having 'strategic conversations'.
• some people just go to work for the $ - they aren't interested in PD
• regional PD - the distance!
• you need to upskill for internal promotion, or an external job
• I would take 3 years of a star, than 10 years of a dud!

It was a really interesting talk, however we discussed that people were preaching to the converted!! All those interested in PD were there already! How do you get the others interested?