Evidence-based librarianship: searching for the needed EBL evidence

This paper discusses the challenges of finding evidence needed to implement Evidence-Based Librarianship (EBL). Focusing first on database coverage for three health sciences librarianship journals, the article examines the information contents of different databases. Strategies are needed to search for relevant evidence in the library literature via these databases, and the problems associated with searching the grey literature of librarianship. Database coverage, plausible search strategies, and the grey literature of library science all pose challenges to finding the needed research evidence for practicing EBL. Health sciences librarians need to ensure that systems are designed that can track and provide access to needed research evidence to support Evidence-Based Librarianship (EBL).     

Circuit librarianship: a twentieth anniversary appraisal

The twentieth anniversary of circuit librarianship is a fitting occasion to reflect on its history and success. The tradition of circuit riders is traced and the hallmarks and achievements of circuit librarian programs are described. Providing information services to remote health professionals has been a longstanding concern of medical librarianship, and it is presently a major focus of the National Library of Medicine. It is suggested that widespread adoption of circuit librarianship would not only satisfy the information needs of unserved health professionals but could enhance the image of the profession given the centrality of the librarian, not the library, in this model.     

Inferential statistics and librarianship

This study examines the extent to which inferential statistics were used in research articles published between 2001 and 2005 in professional journals that academic and public librarians are most likely to read. It also explores the kinds of inferential statistics most commonly used, and whether academic and public librarians authored research articles using inferential statistics. Compared with the findings of studies conducted in the 1970s and the 1980s, there is an increase in the use of inferential statistics in articles appearing in professional journals read by academic and public librarians. These results suggest that educators who believe that learning about inferential statistics should become an important component of every librarian's education may be correct, especially because the evolving nature of librarianship has placed new emphasis on performance measures, outcomes assessment, and evidence-based decision making, which often rely on sophisticated analyses of quantitative data.