Bibliographic retrieval in dentistry--MEDLINE and the Dentists' Silverplatter: Part 2.
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The transformation of the Library at the Medical Faculty of Novi Sad into a modern information center necessitated the introduction of an up-to-date technology and enforced the use of the latest information sources among which MEDLINE medical database is the most famous one. In the studied period, January 1993-current, 200 searches have been performed on the basis of which the following parameters were analyzed: institution, occupation, and degree of the user, purpose and accuracy of the order, relevant period, number and format of the references, assessment of the search quality and the quality of the library staff services. The analysis proved the initial belief that MEDLINE is a remarkably valuable data base necessary for medical libraries.
A vast array of information useful to the scientific community is readily available on the internet. Currently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) offers user access to several large databases, some of which are pertinent to nurses interested in research, health policy formation, and identifying funded research projects. One such database, the Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP), provides information on research grants funded by the NIH from 1972 to the present. Retrieval of scientific information for each project in CRISP is made available by project title, grant number, abstract, principal investigator, eight-digit CRISP Thesaurus terms, and key words. This article introduces the reader to CRISP and provides a set of succinct strategies for conducting comprehensive searches in the database.
The goal of an information-literacy program is to develop student skills in locating, evaluating, and applying information for use in critical thinking and problem solving. This paper describes a multidimensional evaluation process for determining nursing students' growth in cognitive and affective domains. Results indicate improvement in student skills as a result of a nursing information-literacy program. Multidimensional evaluation produces a well-rounded picture of student progress based on formal measurement as well as informal feedback. Developing new educational programs can be a time-consuming challenge. It is important, when expending so much effort, to ensure that the goals of the new program are achieved and benefits to students demonstrated. A multidimensional approach to evaluation can help to accomplish those ends. In 1988, The University of Northern Colorado School of Nursing began working with a librarian to integrate an information-literacy component, entitled Pathways to Information Literacy, into the curriculum. This article describes the program and discusses how a multidimensional evaluation process was used to assess program effectiveness. The evaluation process not only helped to measure the effectiveness of the program but also allowed the instructors to use several different approaches to evaluation.
Future physicians must learn to cope with continuing changes in access to medical information. New instructional techniques, such as problem-based learning, emphasize the importance of research skills to medical students. To investigate the feasibility of establishing library instruction as a required part of the East Tennessee State University College of Medicine curriculum for undergraduates, the university's medical library surveyed 123 medical school libraries to determine the level of instruction offered by other academic medical libraries. The survey asked whether formal instruction was offered or required, and which courses were taught at each level of undergraduate training. Analysis of the fifty-five responses revealed that 75% offered formal library instruction, and that 49% of these respondents (36% of the total sample) required all students to take such courses. The courses offered most often were library tours, online catalog instruction, and MEDLINE-on-CD-ROM classes. Overall, thirty-three different course titles were offered by responding libraries. The majority of classes involved second- and third-year students. The survey responses reveal the prevalence of required library instruction in medical school curricula, and a broad-scale commitment to the development of lifelong learning skills among future health professionals.
The University of Illinois Library of the Health Sciences at Rockford (LHS-Rockford) long has honored a commitment to serving the health information needs of the greater Rockford community. Utilization data collected over the past five years indicate that approximately 50% of reference transactions involve persons not affiliated with the university. In early 1994, LHS-Rockford submitted a proposal to the Northern Illinois Library System (NILS), a multitype system spanning twelve counties in northwestern Illinois, asking to serve as a resource library for improving medical and health information services provided by the 138 NILS member libraries. The NILS funded this pilot project as part of an effort to implement a new strategic plan, which encouraged member libraries to form networks to provide reference back-up service. LHS-Rockford acquired InfoTrac's Health Reference Center, a consumer health information database, and set up a dedicated workstation near the information and circulation desk. Referral guidelines were established and the project was promoted among NILS member libraries. Activities were documented in order to track project success in terms of referrals and outcomes. The demonstration project was very successful, and it proves public consumers seeking health information can benefit greatly from this type of cooperative arrangement.
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This study compared in-house Grateful Med database use and searching success rates for four-month periods at four sites of the Library of the Health Sciences of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Data were collected from Grateful Med workstation uselogs and analyzed. Database use patterns and searching success rates were fairly consistent across the four sites. Though MEDLINE was available in other formats and use in these other formats remained high, 65.48% of all Grateful Med searching was done by using MEDLINE, and an additional 21.34% was done by using the MEDLINE Backfiles. In-house use patterns were similar to the overall use pattern for the University of Illinois, with the exception of MEDLINE Backfiles. Overall, 54.30% of searches were successful.
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Shortly after the establishment of Hong Kong's Hospital Authority (HA) in 1990, ten library service networks supported by the Library Information Systems (HALIS) were established to pool resources. A survey was undertaken to investigate the information-seeking behavior of health professionals working in thirty-seven public hospitals, examine their information needs, assess user satisfaction with and the impact of library services (including HALIS), and examine why hospital libraries sometimes fail to meet user needs. The findings revealed disparate use patterns among different groups of health professionals and confirmed that medical staff were most satisfied with the library collections and services. The nurses and hospital executives were found to be underserved. They needed information not only for work-related reasons but also to support self-study and development. The new HALIS service was neither well known nor widely used, especially among nurses. The findings provided valuable measures of performance for comparing different hospitals and assessing changes over time. Survey results also highlighted areas in which improvements are needed, such as collection enhancement, promotion and user training, and assessment of the impact of library service on patient care. Subsequent developments in these directions have led to increased awareness and use of library services and confirmed the direction of strategic plans for growth.
Three MEDLINE-on-CD-ROM interfaces are compared: SPIRS (version 3.11) and WinSPIRS (version 1.0) from SilverPlatter and OVID (version 3.0, DOS and Windows interfaces) from CD Plus Technologies. Though the database is the same, there are substantial differences among the interfaces in the way these data are presented and can be searched. These different approaches are discussed, and a detailed comparative table is included. It is obvious that all three interfaces are quite good yet none of them is perfect; each has desirable and unfortunate features. Together, they offer an enormous range of possibilities. Users would benefit if most of the better features (e.g., easy menu, free-text retrieval, pre-exploded thesaurus terms) were implemented in future versions of these interfaces and if system operators were given greater latitude to determine the system defaults appropriate to their specific situations and customers.
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A popular PC magazine recently conducted a survey asking readers whether a paperless office or Santa Claus was more believable. Santa Claus won. Health care professionals would make that same choice. They come from an educational process that teaches, if it is not on paper, it never happened. However, the necessity for fast and easy access to medical documents, particularly in managed care networks, is causing the paperless office to rush forward at breakneck speed.
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