Library services for persons with disabilities: twentieth anniversary update

In recognition of the twentieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), this survey updates the progress and reflects on the status of academic health sciences library services for people with disabilities since the Nelson study in 1996. The results of this survey extend beyond academic libraries to hospital libraries and include areas where all libraries can improve disability access. Based on a 24% response rate, libraries have addressed accessibility of technology in cost-effective and relatively easy ways. Libraries are reactively rather than proactively making changes to services for persons with disabilities.     

Clinical medical librarianship: a review of the literature

The history and evolution of clinical medical librarianship are analyzed and traditional and modified approaches, including LATCH, are reviewed. Cost and evaluation methods are outlined, indicating benefits and disadvantages of clinical medical librarian (CML) programs. The future of CMLs is explored.     

Research in librarianship in Thailand: a bibliographical survey

The quantity of information distributed today on the Internet, especially through the World Wide Web, is rising much more quickly than the quantity of information available through other mass media. Just as we do not like or believe everything we read in the newspapers, see on TV, or hear on the radio, we cannot like or believe everything on the Internet. Consequently, it is necessary to critically assess the quality of websites and to determine the extent to which they meet our needs and requirements. This paper is an attempt to analyze information evaluation concept and process-based on some quality management concepts, rools and methods in order to propose some basic criteria to evaluate website quality and to select suitable websites.     

Research engagement in health librarianship: Outcomes of a focus group

It is widely recognised that there is a lack of research engagement in librarianship. Anecdotal and editorial based observations express concerns regarding this situation but there is a lack of research exploring it. The research which does exist has been conducted at a generic level with little relevance to specific disciplines of librarianship therefore weakening its impact and applicability at discipline level. To date, there have been no studies that examine issues of research engagement exclusively within the context of UK health librarianship. This study reports on the findings of a focus group conducted as part of a larger study which attempted to redress this current gap in the evidence base. The focus group aimed specifically to gain consensus on the top five key barriers and top five key priorities for research engagement in the UK health librarianship. The main findings suggest that barriers to research engagement are mainly contextualised within research addressing key matters for the profession of health librarianship, whilst priorities are mainly contextualised within the role health librarians have in supporting the research of the health professionals to whom they provide library services. Outcomes of the focus group provide early empirical evidence to confirm that whilst there is considerable goodwill towards research and the development of the evidence base in health librarianship, there are existing challenges between working for the interests of both the library service user and development of the evidence base in healthcare, and the evidence based progression of the health librarianship profession.     

Developing evidence-based librarianship: practical steps for implementation

Evidence-based librarianship (EBL) is a relatively new concept for librarians. This paper lays out a practical framework for the implementation of EBL. A new way of thinking about research in librarianship is introduced using the well-built question process and the assignment of librarian research questions to one of six domains specific to librarianship. As a profession, librarianship tends to reflect more qualitative, social sciences/humanities in its research methods and study types which tend to be less rigorous and more prone to bias. Randomised controlled trials (RCT) do not have to be placed at the top of an evidence 'hierarchy' for librarianship. Instead, a more encompassing model reflecting librarianship as a whole and the kind of research likely to be done by librarians is proposed. 'Evidence' from a number of disciplines including health sciences, business and education can be utilized by librarians and applied to their practice. However, access to and availability of librarianship literature needs to be further studied. While using other disciplines (e.g. EBHC) as a model for EBL has been explored in the literature, the authors develop models unique to librarianship. While research has always been a minor focus in the profession, moving research into practice is becoming more important and librarians need to consider the issues surrounding research in order to move EBL forward.