Addressing underutilization of consumer health information resource centers: a formative study

Problem: Four consumer health information centers in Richmond, Virginia, provide one-on-one assistance in accessing health information. Because they may not be fully utilized at present, an exploratory marketing study of factors affecting usage of the centers was conducted.Method: Observers counted center passers-by and tracked their paths. Also, brief intercept interviews were conducted with people who had just used a center, people nearby who could have used one but did not, and people on the street. Finally, in-depth individual interviews were conducted with key informants.Results: There was a high degree of satisfaction with the centers among users. Nonusers universally endorsed the center concept. However, most passers-by did not even glance at the centers, and intercept interviewees suggested better signage and promoting the resource centers through various media channels. Key informants added suggestions about interpersonal strategies (e.g., physician referrals) for center usage promotion but cautioned that a large increase in traffic could not be accommodated without increasing staff size or shifting from a model of individualized service.Conclusions: Triangulating findings from multiple data collection methods can provide useful guidance for efforts to promote center utilization. At minimum, steps should be taken to make the largest centers more noticeable. Because center utilization is not only associated with consumer satisfaction with hospitals, but may also foster health literacy, both hospital-based and community-based usage promotion strategies may be warranted. All such promotional strategies should be audience-tested before they are adopted.

Highlights

• Both users and nonusers of consumer health information centers said they would think more highly of a hospital with a center and would refer friends or family members to such a center.
• Study participants classified as nonusers of the centers were unaware of the centers or found them hard to locate.
• Suggestions for increasing center traffic ranged from improving signage to promoting routine referrals from hospital staff.
• An alternative to increasing center traffic is delivering information to places where consumers are located.

Implications

• Those responsible for making funding decisions about health information centers should be made aware that hospitals with health information centers are perceived more positively.
• The potential trade-off between intensive, personalized customer service and serving large numbers of consumers must be considered carefully.

     

The impact of institutional ethics on academic health sciences library leadership: a survey of academic health sciences library directors

Ethical behavior in libraries goes beyond service to users. Academic health sciences library directors may need to adhere to the ethical guidelines and rules of their institutions. Does the unique environment of an academic health center imply different ethical considerations? Do the ethical policies of institutions affect these library leaders? Do their personal ethical considerations have an impact as well? In December 2013, a survey regarding the impact of institutional ethics was sent to the director members of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries. The objective was to determine the impact of institutional ethics on these leaders, whether through personal conviction or institutional imperative.     

Creating the future: IAIMS planning premises at the University of Washington.

In September 1990, the University of Washington (UW) received a Phase I IAIMS Planning Grant from the National Library of Medicine and embarked upon a planning process involving the entire health sciences center. As a result of our relatively late entry into IAIMS planning, we have been able to learn from the experiences of other health sciences centers and to leverage our existing institutional efforts. Consequently, our progress has been rapid, and in a little over a year, we drafted a long-range plan and embarked on several related research and development projects. The hallmarks of our planning process include careful study of both the UW institutional environment and the experiences of other IAIMS institutions throughout the United States; broad, interdisciplinary participation of faculty, librarians, and administrators; an intensive educational process; a focus on people rather than technology; and, above all, leveraging of existing institutional and research projects that support our vision for the future.     

Learning to Lead: Challenges and Resources for The New Public Library Director

Library directors are part of the infrastructure of information management, but how well do they manage their institutional knowledge for succession planning? Our study looked at strategies to ease managerial transitions between libraries, focusing on knowledge management, communities of practice, and mentorship. Our survey found that succession planning was dictated by local practice and size of library. The results of this paper inform knowledge of succession planning and reveal existing gaps between informal transfer of knowledge and structured knowledge management (KM), as well as librarians' resourcefulness. Library directors use KM strategies, mentoring, and involvement with communities of practice to foster innovation.     

学术图书馆发展的趋向分析与思考

从信息环境的网络化、用户需求的知识化、馆藏资源的同质化等方面分析了学术图书馆面临的环境巨变。通过调研国内外学术图书馆发展现状,阐述了目前学术图书馆发展的主要特征,如馆藏资源向纯数字化发展,信息服务向嵌入式知识化发展,信息组织向关联化、语义化和集成化发展,原生信息资源纳入机构知识资产管理范畴,数字图书馆员在科学数据监管中应运而生,SoLoMo成为创建下一代移动图书馆服务的理念。指出学术图书馆的发展趋向是成为以用户为中心的知识服务中心,应构建用户驱动型的知识服务范式、构建全能型的知识管理范式、构建智慧型的图书馆物理场所。同时也指出,为适应未来发展的需要,学术图书馆要倍加重视科技人员的信息需求、以用户为中心的业务布局、信息技术的应用、馆际间的协作共享和馆员素质能力的提升。     

Reporting Practices of Institutional Repositories: Analysis of Responses from Two Surveys

This article describes the results of two surveys, which gathered data about the reporting practices for institutional repositories (IR). The surveys were completed by library directors and IR managers, and questions were asked about strategic importance, content scope, and the methods and mechanisms libraries utilize to evaluate and report on IR use and impact. Data from the surveys helped inform the research of the project team and led to the development of the web service called the Repository Analytics & Metrics Portal.     

Giving voice to the accused: Serial and the critical potential of true crime

The first season of Serial, to date the most popular podcast in the medium’s decade-long history, told the story of the conviction of 18-year-old Adnan Syed in 2000 for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. At the center of Serial, producer Sarah Koenig presented Syed’s voice, his take on the prosecution’s evidence, and his own contemporaneous experience. This essay examines the way Serial used Syed’s voice to challenge institutional truth claims from within the textual space of crime journalism. “Criminal biography,” as a genre affordance of true crime, offers a textual means to interrogate modes of truth production and representation.     

情报融合中心:美国情报共享实践及启示

[目的/意义] 情报融合是提高情报机构的能力、作业绩效的重要途径,美国的情报融合中心实践为我国的情报融合提供了新的建设性视角,对于我国情报融合实践具有重要的参考价值。[方法/过程] 主要通过相关机构的官方网站及期刊文献对美国情报融合中心的概念、作用、历史、现状等方面进行梳理,并阐述情报融合中心运作流程、建设标准和绩效评估的机制。在对美国情报融合中心取得的成绩和存在的问题深入分析后,对我国建立情报融合中心的必要性和可行性进行论证。[结果/结论] 借鉴美国情报融合中心实践,结合我国面临的安全威胁实际,构建我国国家情报融合中心,以应对国家安全挑战,如"三股势力"、公共安全、突发事件、自然灾害等。     

CALIS地区中心职能定位分析

对中国高等教育文献保障系统（CALIS）地区中心的工作目标、机构职能进行了分析和讨论,提出了该系统地区中心应具备的五项基本职能。     

Arabic literature: Uniterm indexing system for storage and retrieval

As centers of research and study in colleges and universities, Chinese academic libraries are heavily used and play a significant role in higher education. However, the level of administration can affect service to patrons and have an impact on their development. In this paper, the characteristics of administration in Chinese academic libraries are examined from both a historical perspective and current practice. The problems arising from the centralization of authority and administrative structure are also examined. Some possible suggestions are made of ways to improve library services in areas such as the quality of leadership, the creation of new positions, the increased responsibility of assistant directors, the re-organization of work distribution, the establishment of reference services, the development of faculty and staff participation in committee work, the importance of a library liaison program and the importance of designing a strategic plan for the library.     

Reforming administration in Chinese academic libraries. A key to success

As centers of research and study in colleges and universities, Chinese academic libraries are heavily used and play a significant role in higher education. However, the level of administration can affect service to patrons and have an impact on their development. In this paper, the characteristics of administration in Chinese academic libraries are examined from both a historical perspective and current practice. The problems arising from the centralization of authority and administrative structure are also examined. Some possible suggestions are made of ways to improve library services in areas such as the quality of leadership, the creation of new positions, the increased responsibility of assistant directors, the re-organization of work distribution, the establishment of reference services, the development of faculty and staff participation in committee work, the importance of a library liaison program and the importance of designing a strategic plan for the library.     

Becoming a university library director

Given that a large number of university library directorships have become available in recent years, and that this trend will probably continue for the foreseeable future, it is likely that not everyone who applies for these positions and is invited for an interview knows how to prepare for the experience, or how to read organizational and institutional climates. Based on interviews with 10 first-time and seasoned directors, this study reviews the process from the perspective of those who have recently accepted a directorship.     

Refining a theory of cross-cultural adaptation: an exploration of a new methodological approach to institutional completeness

The current study explored a whole-network approach to measure the impact of institutional completeness at an individual-level with regards to [Kim, Y. (2001). Becoming intercultural: An integrative theory of communication and cross-cultural adaptation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.] a theoretical model of cross-cultural adaptation. A new construct of ‘ethnic entrainment’ was proposed as a way to bridge the different levels of theoretical constructs in the model. The analytical challenge of verifying the influence of institutional completeness (a group-level construct in the model) on individuals’ communication patterns was partially overcome in this study by measuring the degree of one's structural embeddedness in various ethnic community networks (i.e. information, emotional support, and tangible help exchange networks). A community member survey (N?=?172) was utilized to construct social networks of a Korean immigrant community. The research tested hypotheses generated from Kim's theorems on the relationships between ethnic group strength and host/ethnic interpersonal/mass communication. Three out of five hypotheses were supported through hierarchical regression analyses.     

Exploring Twitter use and services of academic innovation centers

This study examined the Twitter streams and websites of 36 university innovation centers and identified 14 service categories the centers offered. Exploring the present Twitter use practices of innovation centers and the services the centers provide can inform the design and planning of service offerings at new innovation centers and support training for center staff in the use of this social media platform. In addition, existing innovation centers can benchmark their service offerings against those services. Furthermore, mapping the services the innovation centers offer to the activities in an innovation workflow model can help center managers optimize the information architecture of their websites and resource guides. In this way, students can easily be informed about the help and resources available for each activity or phase of the innovation process. A comparison of the tweet categories identified in the present study with those of academic libraries assembled in a previous study revealed significant overlap, but some differences as well. In contrast to the Twitter accounts of academic libraries, the Twitter accounts of innovation centers did not tweet about their information services even if they offered them. Innovation centers also did not use Twitter to provide Q&A services to their users. Furthermore, innovation centers tweeted not only about the technological resources they provided, but also about the human resources they recruited to serve as student mentors and advisors. Finally, technology use was more mediated in innovation centers than in libraries, and some centers offered their users fee-based assistance from professionals with their 3D design and printing tasks.     

新一代机构知识库的关键技术和发展趋势研究

[目的/意义] 通过调研国内外新一代机构知识库的研究现状和服务需求，分析关键技术和功能特点，提出发展趋势，为建设新一代机构知识库发展提供建议。[方法/过程] 通过文献研究对机构知识库技术和功能发展趋势进行总结，并根据相关研究成果，分析新一代机构知识库的11个关键技术、标准和协议。最后通过研究和实践经验提出新一代机构知识库在框架、功能、服务目标等方面的发展趋势。[结果/结论] 新一代机构知识库发展趋势包括：从机构学术仓储到机构信息基础设施；从自存档到自动提交；从独立平台到与科研管理系统融合与发展；从学术成果管理平台到学术资源服务中心；从学术成果数据检索到大数据语义研究支持；从成果存档到新型学术交流社区；从应用计量指标到建立全新学术评价体系。     

Expanding rural primary care training by employing information technologies: the need for participation by medical reference librarians

The use of rural sites to train badly needed primary care providers requires access to sophisticated medical information not traditionally available outside of academic health centers. Medical reference librarians can play a key role in the development of primary care training sites in rural settings. Electronic information technologies, with proactive support from medical reference librarians, can provide current and detailed information without concern for distance from the health science center library. This paper discusses recent developments in technology, describes current challenges to the application of this technology in rural settings, and provides policy recommendations for medical reference librarians to enhance rural primary care training.     

“双一流”高校图书馆知识产权素养教育现状及优化策略

研究"双一流"高校国家知识产权信息服务中心开展的知识产权素养教育现状对了解当前我国高校图书馆知识产权信息服务实践具有典型代表意义。文章利用文献研究、网络调查等方法,结合开设栏目现状,从知识产权素养教育内容、教育形式两方面广泛调研26家"双一流"高校国家知识产权信息服务中心开展的知识产权素养教育现状,总结现有经验及存在问题,最后对我国知识产权素养教育的未来发展提出优化参考建议。     

科学数据中心数据与知识集成

文章回顾了国际上大型科学数据中心知识集成的现状,认为越来越多的科学数据中心认识到数据中心需要 集成更多的知识,以提高科学数据的可用性以及满足长时期数据存储的要求。传统的元数据结构在应对知识集成时面临 诸多挑战。中国西部环境与生态科学数据中心（西部数据中心）形成了从数据收集、规范化整理、数据集成挖掘到数据 服务的完整体系,集成了一批西部环境和生态研究的关键数据,在数据中心层次上集成多元知识作了有益的开拓性的工 作。文章还介绍了西部数据中心知识的表达形式,描述了以元数据为核心,数据文档和科学文献为补充的知识组织形 式,并介绍了西部数据中心开展的集成数据检索导航、模型数据集和在线模型服务等知识挖掘手段。     

The Use of Fictional Stories in Science Exhibits: The Emperor Who Only Believed His Own Eyes

The authors explore how fictional narratives (stories) can be used as a learning tool in the context of informal science environments and specifically science centers. They base their argument on an analysis of the theoretical, structural and epistemological properties of stories and how those can serve to establish a story as a cognitive tool. They offer an example of an application of these properties to a story‐based learning design called “The Emperor who only Believed his own Eyes” in the context of a large, public science center, and specifically an exhibition about “senses”. This paper focuses on the idea of a “hack,” a museum sanctioned strategy for exploring the potential and implications of narrative‐based design as a way to reinterpret science exhibits in a way that can engage young users in content exploration and offer recommendations for future research.