IAIMS and the library at the University of Utah

The formal creation of an Integrated Academic Information Management System (IAIMS) at the University of Utah began in the fall of 1983. The keystone of the IAIMS effort is the HELP hospital information system. IAIMS at the University of Utah is a broad-based program extending across the Health Sciences Center and beyond to health professionals throughout the inter-mountain area. This paper describes the background that led to IAIMS, the IAIMS planning process, and the library's participation in this effort.     

Introducing computer literacy skills for physicians

Computers are integral to medical practice, education, and research. While medical students learn computer skills during their training, many practicing physicians do not have the same computer experience. To familiarize this group with the exciting developments in medical informatics, the Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library and Department of Computer Medicine at the George Washington University Medical Center organized a workshop "Introducing Your Office Computer!" for attending physicians. The workshop featured a short lecture/video presentation on computer applications in medicine followed by a "computer fair" of five computer applications. Eleven physicians attended the workshop. Feedback was very positive; many called later to request more detailed instructions on using the programs demonstrated. It was a valuable experience for the staff, and new bridges were built between departments and clients.     

Impact of DOCLINE on interlibrary loan service at the National Library of Medicine

In March 1985, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) began implementation of DOCLINE, its automated interlibrary loan request routing and referral system. By the end of fiscal year (FY) 1987, over 1,400 biomedical libraries in all seven regions of the Regional Medical Library network were using the system. This report summarizes the findings of an analysis of the interlibrary loan (ILL) requests received in FY 1987, comparing the results with a similar analysis done in FY 1984 to describe any changes in the requests or service which might be attributable to DOCLINE implementation. DOCLINE has had a substantial impact upon ILL loan service at NLM. An increase in the number of ILL requests (35% over FY 1984) can be attributed to the speed and ease with which requests may be routed to NLM through DOCLINE. Requests which cannot be filled by local or regional libraries are automatically routed by the system to NLM as the library of last resort. NLM's fill rate for serial requests has declined, however, from 78% filled in FY 1984 to 67% filled in FY 1987. Some of the decline results from the 11,000 requests that NLM did not fill because the borrowing libraries were not willing to pay the NLM charge for filling the loans.     

A research impact indicator for institutions

This paper introduces a new impact indicator for the research effort of a university, ⁿh₃. The number of documents or the number of citations obtained by an institution are used frequently in international ranking of institutions. However, these are very dependent on the size and this is inducing mergers with the apparent sole goal of improving the research ranking. The alternative is to use the ratio of the two measures, the mean citation rate, that is size independent but it has been shown to fluctuate along the time as a consequence of its dependence on a very small number of documents with an extremely good citation performance. In the last few years, the popularity of the Hirsch index as an indicator of the research performance of individual researchers led to its application to journals and institutions. However, the original aim of this h index of giving a mixed measure of the number of documents published and their impact as measured by the citations collected along the time is totally undesirable for institutions as the overall size may be considered irrelevant for the impact evaluation of research. Furthermore, the h index when applied to institutions tends to retain a very small number of documents making all other research production irrelevant for this indicator. The ⁿh₃ index proposed here is designed to measure solely the impact of research in a way that is independent of the size of the institution and is made relatively stable by making a 20-year estimate of the citations of the documents produced in a single year.     

Adolescents and Movie Ratings: Is Psychological Reactance a Theoretical Explanation for the Forbidden Fruit Effect?

Adolescents were recruited to participate in an experiment to assess whether psychological reactance can provide a theoretical explanation for the forbidden fruit effect in the context of movie rating restrictions. In addition to examining if movie ratings served as antecedents to freedom threat perceptions, we investigated the role authoritarian parents had on freedom threat perception and reactance arousal. Results indicated that a movie with an NC-17 rating was perceived as a stronger freedom threat than R and PG-13 rated movies. Interestingly, adolescents who perceived their parents to be authoritarian were less likely to view movie ratings as a freedom threat. As expected, freedom threat perceptions were positively associated with psychological reactance. Reactance, in turn, was positively associated with both first and third person attitudes. The results are discussed with an emphasis on the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.     

Public Library Services for Veterans: Selected Brief Case Studies

Public libraries across the country design and deliver programs for military veterans and their families, often collaborating with other organizations and agencies. The examples were assembled from both general and specialized interviews with librarians, and literature and Internet searches, with summaries of programs assembled and written by multiple researchers. The specific limitations on the listing in this article are clearly outlined in the first section. Overall, however, the article provides a good introductory overview of what’s going on in veteran’s programs and services in America’s public libraries in over seventy libraries in forty states. We hope this list of what public libraries have organized or are doing will supply other public librarians with ideas on how to provide new services or enhance their existing ones.     

An Experimental Test of Medical Disclosure and Consent Documentation: Assessing Patient Comprehension,Self-Efficacy,and Uncertainty

Effectively conveying risks and hazards in medical disclosure and informed consent documentation is a crucial type of communication. However, existing protocols typically do not meet the needs of patients or practitioners. In the present study, we advance a reconceptualization of obtaining written informed consent by analyzing it as a process of uncertainty management rather than a matter of document readability and recall. Results of this randomized trial indicated that patients who reviewed a simplified consent document reported greater comprehension of medico-legal terminology and lower uncertainty about the document, although they did not evince greater self-efficacy. Health literacy was a significant moderator of the relationship between consent form version and comprehension.