Scite. Scite Inc., 334 Leonard St., Brooklyn, NY 11211; https://scite.ai/; tiered pricing model with free, basic ($7.99/month), premium ($19.99/month or $100/year), premium+ ($59.99/month), and enterprise plans.

LYRASIS Learning. LYRASIS, 1438 West Peachtree Street, NW, Suite 150, Atlanta, GA 30309; 800.999.8558; https://www.lyrasis.org/Leadership/Pages/LYRASIS-Learning.aspx; individual class pricing available for members and nonmembers, contact for member pricing.

In the swirl of current events including a pandemic and new chapters in the awareness of race and gender, it is the professional responsibility of librarians and archivists to create durable records for future scholars, so they can understand our present.

The electronic information and technology accessibility project is a strategic overhauling of the digital instructional materials of the Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) to comply with the accessibility standards established in a 2020 University of Pittsburgh policy. Though these technologies have existed for quite some time, library instructors were not skilled in the actual creation and design of documents, web content, and presentations with accessibility in mind. Over the past year and a half, a team within HSLS developed detailed guidance and education on universal design and creating an inclusive online learning environment. These guidelines were developed in accordance with Section 508 and the WCAG2.1, with a focus on an improved experience for the D/deaf community and those with visual impairments. We initially made accessibility improvements to online subject guides, in-person presentations, and digitally shared class materials. The COVID-19 pandemic and complete shift to virtual instruction then necessitated the evaluation of platforms used in remote learning (such as Zoom and Panopto), where accessibility best practices needed to be incorporated. This article highlights going beyond in-program accessibility checkers and describes how library technology experts and content creators worked together to bridge the gap of accessibility in the information we share.

OBJECTIVES: To identify the engagement of health sciences librarians (HSLs) in open science (OS) through the delivery of library services, support, and programs for researchers. METHODS: We performed a scoping review guided by Arksey and O'Malley's framework and Joanna Briggs' Manual for Scoping Reviews. Our search methods consisted of searching five bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, LISTA, and Web of Science Core Collection), reference harvesting, and targeted website and journal searching. To determine study eligibility, we applied predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria and reached consensus when there was disagreement. We extracted data in duplicate and performed qualitative analysis to map key themes. RESULTS: We included fifty-four studies. Research methods included descriptive or narrative approaches (76%); surveys, questionnaires, and interviews (15%); or mixed methods (9%). We labeled studies with one or more of FOSTER's six OS themes: open access (54%), open data (43%), open science (24%), open education (6%), open source (6%), and citizen science (6%). Key drivers in OS were scientific integrity and transparency, openness as a guiding principle in research, and funder mandates making research publicly accessible. CONCLUSIONS: HSLs play key roles in advancing OS worldwide. Formal studies are needed to assess the impact of HSLs' engagement in OS. HSLs should promote adoption of OS within their research communities and develop strategic plans aligned with institutional partners. HSLs can promote OS by adopting more rigorous and transparent research practices of their own. Future research should examine HSLs' engagement in OS through social justice and equity perspectives.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to determine if search request forms, which are used when a patron's request for information cannot be fulfilled at the time of contact with the library team, can be used to identify gaps in consumer health library collections. CASE PRESENTATION: Search request forms were collected from 2013 to 2020 and analyzed independently by two reviewers. Search request forms were included if they were complete and contained a record of how the request was fulfilled. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize patron characteristics. Search request forms were iteratively coded to identify themes in the data and determine if resources provided to patrons could be found within the library collection. The study team subsequently reviewed search request forms to determine reasons for identified gaps. Two hundred and forty-nine search request forms were analyzed. Six main content themes were identified: 1) understanding the cancer diagnosis, 2) cancer treatments, 3) understanding disease prognosis, 4) support during and after treatment, 5) natural health products and therapeutic effects in oncology, and 6) research literature. The majority of patrons were patients (53%). Over half (60%) of the submitted search request forms reflected collection gaps, and many (16%) contained queries for information about rare cancer diagnoses. The main reason that queries could not be satisfied was that there was limited consumer health information on the requested topics (53%). CONCLUSIONS: Search request forms are a useful resource for assessing gaps in consumer health library collections.

Increasing diverse author representation within medical librarianship scholarship among BIPOC information professionals is an important endeavor that requires closer examination. This commentary looks to examine the ways in which the profession can support Latinx librarians and library workers in fully participating within the scholarly pipeline by exploring our unique and authentic voices, structural barriers, hesitation and fears, Whiteness in the profession and knowledge production, bias in the peer review process, lack of resources and support, and finally, a call to action.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to investigate knowledge sharing practices among health sciences librarians in African countries. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey design was employed. The study population consisted of African health sciences librarians that attended the 16th Biennial Conference of the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa on October 14-18, 2019, at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Data were collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: The types of knowledge most commonly shared by respondents were information on conferences, workshops, and seminars as well as information on new trends and technologies in librarianship. The main avenue of knowledge sharing was face-to-face interaction. Unwillingness to share knowledge and a lack of awareness about current trends and issues were the top identified challenges to knowledge sharing. CONCLUSION: These survey results establish the existence of a low level of knowledge sharing among health science librarians in Africa and suggest that concerted efforts should be made to overcome barriers to knowledge sharing within and across African countries.

In this profile, Kristine M. Alpi, AHIP, FMLA, Medical Library Association (MLA) president, 2021-2022, is described as committed to public health, professional development, and the growth and evolution of MLA. She teaches and speaks on the shared health impact from interactions among animals, humans, and the environment, and she mentors graduate students and fellows in librarianship and informatics. Alpi earned her PhD in educational research and policy analysis in 2018 and directs the Oregon Health & Science University Library.

This project describes the creation of a single searchable resource during the pandemic, called the COVID-19 Best Evidence Front Door, with a primary goal of providing direct access to high-quality meta-analyses, literature syntheses, and clinical guidelines from a variety of trusted sources. The Front Door makes relevant evidence findable and accessible with a single search to aggregated evidence-based resources, optimizing time, discovery, and improved access to quality scientific evidence while reducing the burden of frontline health care providers and other knowledge-seekers in needing to separately identify, locate, and explore multiple websites.

As part of a larger project to understand the publishing choices of UVA Health authors and support open access publishing, a team from the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library analyzed an open data set from Europe PMC, which includes metadata from PubMed records. We used the Europe PMC REST API to search for articles published in 2017-2020 with "University of Virginia" in the author affiliation field. Subsequently, we parsed the JSON metadata in Python and used Streamlit to create a data visualization from our public GitHub repository. At present, this shows the relative proportions of open access versus subscription-only articles published by UVA Health authors. Although subscription services like Web of Science, Scopus, and Dimensions allow users to do similar analyses, we believe this is a novel approach to doing this type of bibliometric research with open data and open source tools.

BACKGROUND: In 2017, an academic health sciences library in Utah developed a multimedia studio for students, faculty, and academic staff. Educational projects needing video, audio, and lecture capture could utilize a one-button studio for recording video sessions, microphones for audio, and various screen capture software for lectures. Since the pandemic, this service has seen rapid growth due to academic lectures going exclusively online. In response, the library launched a dedicated podcasting suite to accommodate the increase in students and faculty needing to record lectures or podcasts for others in the medical profession. DESCRIPTION: This article will outline the process of creating the podcasting suite and provide equipment rosters and methods other libraries may consider for establishing their own studio. Administrating duties of the studio will also be included, such as handling reservations and user assessment. An instructional guide for users is also included to assist patrons in accomplishing their podcast creations. CONCLUSION: Podcasts created in the space range from topics about teaching strategies in medicine to diagnoses and treatments of skin disorders. A podcasting suite is another way libraries can provide valuable services for asynchronous learning and student projects. Students, staff, and faculty have appreciated the ease of the service and the support behind it. A feedback loop was developed to further improve the space to meet the needs of users.

OBJECTIVE: Locating systematic reviews is essential for clinicians and researchers when creating or updating reviews and for decision-making in health care. This study aimed to develop a search filter for retrieving systematic reviews that improves upon the performance of the PubMed systematic review search filter. METHODS: Search terms were identified from abstracts of reviews published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the titles of articles indexed as systematic reviews in PubMed. Both the precision of the candidate terms and the number of systematic reviews retrieved from PubMed were evaluated after excluding the subset of articles retrieved by the PubMed systematic review filter. Terms that achieved a precision greater than 70% and relevant publication types indexed with MeSH terms were included in the filter search strategy. RESULTS: The search strategy used in our filter added specific terms not included in PubMed's systematic review filter and achieved a 61.3% increase in the number of retrieved articles that are potential systematic reviews. Moreover, it achieved an average precision that is likely greater than 80%. CONCLUSIONS: The developed search filter will enable users to identify more systematic reviews from PubMed than the PubMed systematic review filter with high precision.

BACKGROUND: Every step in the systematic review process has challenges, ranging from resistance by review teams to adherence to standard methodology to low-energy commitment to full participation. These challenges can derail the project and result in significant delays, duplication of work, and failure to complete the review. Communication during the systematic review process is key to ensuring it runs smoothly and is identified as a core competency for librarians involved in systematic reviews. CASE PRESENTATION: This case report presents effective communication approaches that our librarians employ to address challenges encountered while working with systematic review teams. The communication strategies we describe engage teams through information, questions, and action items and lead to productive collaborations with publishable systematic reviews. CONCLUSIONS: Effective communication with review teams keeps systematic review projects moving forward. The techniques covered in this case study strive to minimize misunderstandings, educate collaborators, and, in our experience, have led to multiple successful collaborations and publications. Librarians working in the systematic review space will recognize these challenges and can adapt these techniques to their own environments.

OBJECTIVES: Academic health sciences librarians sought to evaluate the efficacy and future of the Health Information Specialists Program, a five-year consumer health information outreach collaboration with public libraries across the state. METHODS: Five focus groups were held with participants from all five years of the program. Thirty-four participants from the program attended. Facilitators used structured interview guides consisting of eleven questions regarding the impact of the collaboration on participants' abilities to connect themselves or others to health information; the usefulness of materials or knowledge gained and its applications; any consumer health outreach projects that arose from the program; and suggestions for future topics, formats, or modifications. Data was hand-coded and analyzed using the framework analysis methodology for qualitative research. RESULTS: Participants reported feeling improved confidence and comfort in providing health information services to their patrons. Numerous instances of knowledge transfer-in their personal lives, with their colleagues, and for their patrons-were described. Participants reported improved abilities to both find and evaluate consumer health information, and many adapted class materials for their own programming or teaching. Suggestions were provided for future class topics as well as a program website. CONCLUSION: Based on data from the five focus groups, the Health Information Specialists Program has positively impacted participants in a number of ways. Primary among these were self-reported improvement in both health information retrieval skills and the ability to evaluate the reliability of health information online, as well as in the confidence to help patrons with their health information needs.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to determine how many abstracts presented at the 2012 and 2014 Medical Library Association (MLA) annual conferences were later published as full-text journal articles and which features of the abstract and first author influence the likelihood of future publication. To do so, we replicated a previous study on MLA conference abstracts presented in 2002 and 2003. The secondary objective was to compare the publication rates between the prior and current study. METHODS: Presentations and posters delivered at the 2012 and 2014 MLA meetings were coded to identify factors associated with publication. Postconference publication of abstracts as journal articles was determined using a literature search and survey sent to first authors. Chi-squared tests were used to assess differences in the publication rate, and logistic regression was used to assess the influence of abstract factors on publication. RESULTS: The combined publication rate for the 2012 and 2014 meetings was 21.8% (137/628 abstracts), which is a statistically significant decrease compared to the previously reported rate for 2002 and 2003 (27.6%, 122/442 abstracts). The odds that an abstract would later be published as a journal article increased if the abstract was multi-institutional or if it was research, specifically surveys or mixed methods research. CONCLUSIONS: The lower publication rate of MLA conference abstracts may be due to an increased number of program or nonresearch abstracts that were accepted or a more competitive peer review process for journals. MLA could increase the publication rate by encouraging and enabling multi-institutional research projects among its members.

INTRODUCTION: Consumers commonly use the Internet for immediate drug information. In 2014, Google introduced the snippet block to programmatically search available websites to answer a question entered into the search engine without the need for the user to enter any websites. This study compared the accuracy and completeness of drug information found in Google snippet blocks to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) medication guides. METHODS: Ten outpatient drugs were selected from the 2018 Clinical Drugstats Database Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Six questions in the medication guide for each drug were entered into the Google search engine to find the snippet block. The accuracy and completeness of drug information in the Google snippet block were quantified by two different pharmacists using a scoring system of 1 (less than 25% accurate/complete information) to 5 (100% accurate/complete information). Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the scores. RESULTS: For five out of the six questions, the information in the Google snippets had less than 50% accuracy and completeness compared to the medication guides. The average accuracy and completeness scores of the Google snippets were highest for "What are the ingredients of [the drug]?" with scores of 3.38 (51-75%) and 3.00 (51-75%), respectively. The question on "How to take [drug]?" had the lowest score with averages of 1.00 (<25%) for both accuracy and completeness. CONCLUSION: Google snippets provide inaccurate and incomplete drug information when compared to FDA-approved drug medication guides. This aspect may cause patient harm; therefore, it is imperative for health care and health information professionals to provide reliable drug resources to patients and consumers if written information may be needed.

OBJECTIVES: Within many institutions, there are debates over whether medical librarians should be classified as faculty or professional staff, a distinction that may have considerable effect on the perception of librarians within their local institutions. This study is a pilot exploration of how faculty status may affect the professional experiences of academic medical librarians within their local institutions. METHODS: Surveys were sent to 209 medical librarians listed as having some instructional function at Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accredited medical institutions in the United States. Survey responses were captured using Qualtrics survey tool and analyzed for frequencies and associations using SPSS version 27. RESULTS: Sixty-four medical librarians at academic medical institutions completed the survey developed for this study. Of the respondents, 60.9% indicated that librarians at their institution have faculty status, while 71.9% believe that librarians at their institution should have faculty status. Ninety percent of librarians with faculty status reported that they are expected to generate scholarly materials, compared to 28% of those without faculty status. CONCLUSIONS: Many medical libraries offer faculty status to librarians. While many medical librarians are active in instruction, research, and other activities normally associated with faculty status, it is not clear if faculty status impacts how librarians are perceived by other health care workers within their institutions.

Erratum in J Med Libr Assoc. 2022 Apr 1;110(2):E32.

Health sciences librarianship has historically benefited from avoiding critical conversations around the role of race in the profession, reflected through a select few number of articles on the topic. The purpose of this study was to add to this body of literature and apply a critical librarianship framework on the early scholarly record of health sciences librarianship and the legacy of integration within the Medical Library Association (MLA). Three Southern medical works and the integration views of Mary Louise Marshall, the longest-serving president of MLA from 1941 to 1946, were thematically and textually analyzed to redress the profession's long-standing legacy with Whiteness and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) representation. In reframing the historic past of MLA both through Marshall's works and her views, the goal is to acknowledge ways in which the profession has impeded progress and present steps to remedy appropriate outreach for the future.

BACKGROUND: The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is home to one of the world's largest cohorts of faculty, students, researchers, and clinicians who rely on seamless and immediate access to digital biomedical and health resources. This group is served by the TMC Library, with a collection that includes over 380,000 ebooks and 59,000 ejournals. In 2018, the TMC Library implemented OpenAthens, a federated authentication system to replace a locally hosted instance of EZproxy. CASE PRESENTATION: The TMC Library is unique in its multi-institutional user population, which presents distinct challenges in adopting a single sign-on authentication system. Our project involved OpenAthens technical support, information technology teams from six academic institutions, and over thirty publishers. Implementation included the creation of an OpenAthens parent account, an active user directory, a resource catalog, and installation of our OpenAthens credentials at each publisher site. Because the TMC Library serves multiple institutions, OpenAthens built a custom login page and a portal to support both single sign-on and a generic username and password option. This case report discusses the reasons why OpenAthens was chosen, the preparation methods for implementation, the various challenges encountered and resolved, and recommendations for other health sciences libraries considering this system. CONCLUSIONS: The OpenAthens system provides important benefits: granular usage reports, single sign-on access, and data to negotiate reduced pricing for online resources. With prior knowledge and preparation, health sciences libraries can successfully implement OpenAthens with customizations tailored to their specific resources and user population.

BACKGROUND: The proliferation of systematic reviews has impacted library operations and activities as librarians support, collaborate, and perform more tasks in the systematic review process. This case report describes a toolkit that librarians with extensive experience in supporting multiple review teams use to manage time, resources, and expectations in the systematic review process. CASE PRESENTATION: The toolkit is a compilation of documents that we use to effectively communicate with and help review teams understand and navigate each stage of the systematic review process. Elements included in the toolkit and discussed in this case report are intake forms, communication templates and memoranda, a process flow diagram, library guides on tools for retrieval and data appraisal, and established standards for guidance during the write-up stage. We describe the use of the toolkit for both education and project management, with a focus on its use in helping manage team time, resources, and expectations. DISCUSSION: The systematic review toolkit helps librarians connect systematic review steps and tasks to actionable items. The content facilitates and supports discussion and learning by both librarians and team members. This toolkit helps librarians share important information and resources for each stage of the process.

OBJECTIVE: We previously developed draft MEDLINE and Embase (Ovid) geographic search filters for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries to assess their feasibility for finding evidence about the countries. Here, we describe the validation of these search filters. METHODS: We identified OECD country references from thirty National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines to generate gold standard sets for MEDLINE (n=2,065) and Embase (n=2,023). We validated the filters by calculating their recall against these sets. We then applied the filters to existing search strategies for three OECD-focused NICE guideline reviews (NG103 on flu vaccination, NG140 on abortion care, and NG146 on workplace health) to calculate the filters' impact on the number needed to read (NNR) of the searches. RESULTS: The filters both achieved 99.95% recall against the gold standard sets. Both filters achieved 100% recall for the three NICE guideline reviews. The MEDLINE filter reduced NNR from 256 to 232 for the NG103 review, from 38 to 27 for the NG140 review, and from 631 to 591 for the NG146 review. The Embase filter reduced NNR from 373 to 341 for the NG103 review, from 101 to 76 for the NG140 review, and from 989 to 925 for the NG146 review. CONCLUSION: The NICE OECD countries' search filters are the first validated filters for the countries. They can save time for research topics about OECD countries by finding the majority of evidence about OECD countries while reducing search result volumes in comparison to no filter use.

BACKGROUND: In a flipped, required first-year drug information course, students were taught the systematic approach to answering drug information questions, commonly utilized resources, and literature searching. As co-coordinator, a librarian taught three weeks of the course focused on mobile applications, development of literature searching skills, and practicing in PubMed. Course assignments were redesigned in 2019 based on assessment best practices and replaced weekly multiple-choice quizzes used in prior iterations of the course. CASE PRESENTATION: Following two weeks of literature searching instruction, students were assigned a drug information question that would serve as the impetus for the search they conducted. Students (n=66) had one week to practice and record a screencast video of their search in PubMed. Students narrated their video with an explanation of the actions being performed and were assessed using a twenty-point rubric created by the course coordinator and librarian. The librarian also created general feedback videos for each question by recording screencasts while performing the literature searches and clarifying troublesome aspects for students. The librarian spent about twenty-four hours grading and six hours writing scripts, recording, and editing feedback videos. CONCLUSION: Most students performed well on the assignment and few experienced technical difficulties. Instructors will use this assignment and feedback method in the future. Screencast videos proved an innovative way to assess student knowledge and to provide feedback on literature searching assignments. This method is transferrable to any medical education setting and could be used across all health professions to improve information literacy skills.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this project was to validate search filters for systematic reviews, intervention studies, and observational studies translated from Ovid MEDLINE and Embase syntax and used for searches in PubMed and Embase.com during the development of evidence summaries supporting first aid guidelines. We aimed to achieve a balance among recall, specificity, precision, and number needed to read (NNR). METHODS: Reference gold standards were constructed per study type derived from existing evidence summaries. Search filter performance was assessed through retrospective searches and measurement of relative recall, specificity, precision, and NNR when using the translated search filters. Where necessary, search filters were optimized. Adapted filters were validated in separate validation gold standards. RESULTS: Search filters for systematic reviews and observational studies reached recall of ≥85% in both PubMed and Embase. Corresponding specificities for systematic review filters were ≥96% in both databases, with a precision of 9.7% (NNR 10) in PubMed and 5.4% (NNR 19) in Embase. For observational study filters, specificity, precision, and NNR were 68%, 2%, and 51 in PubMed and 47%, 0.8%, and 123 in Embase, respectively. These filters were considered sufficiently effective. Search filters for intervention studies reached a recall of 85% and 83% in PubMed and Embase, respectively. Optimization led to recall of ≥95% with specificity, precision, and NNR of 49%, 1.3%, and 79 in PubMed and 56%, 0.74%, and 136 in Embase, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: We report validated filters to search for systematic reviews, observational studies, and intervention studies in guideline projects in PubMed and Embase.com.

BACKGROUND: Few electronic resources are available for new mothers with concerns about changes in their pelvic floor following childbirth. Patients may struggle when seeking authoritative information regarding pelvic floor conditions online given the sensitivity of the topic as well as the inadvertent connection to obscene or demeaning content found online. A health sciences librarian partnered with the Motherhood and Pelvic Health Study, an interdisciplinary research group, to provide expert searching skills for a particularly challenging health condition that patients struggle to find useful information on. CASE PRESENTATION: A custom rubric was developed to evaluate existing information products, which included criteria for cultural sensitivity, conflicts of interest, and other red flags. This evaluation process enabled the research team to identify top-tier evidence-based materials that were culturally congruent. This collaborative evaluation process led to the creation of a web-based toolkit resource for new mothers concerned about changes in their pelvic floor. The toolkit connects women to pertinent information on a national health organization's patient portal, supplemented by videos created by the team to serve as models of communication for women and health care providers. CONCLUSION: When developing a web-based resource, health sciences libraries can partner with research teams to find, evaluate, and disseminate information. Culturally congruent toolkits such as this one can improve access to health information and lead to improved health outcomes. To ensure that the information highlighted in toolkits is both culturally congruent and authoritative, research teams should form advisory committees and partner with relevant professional medical associations.

BACKGROUND: Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a telehealth initiative that aims to reduce disparities in delivery of health care by leveraging technology and local expertise to provide guidance on specialized subjects to health care providers across the world. In 2018, a new ECHO hub convened in Indianapolis with a focus on health care for individuals in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) populations. This ECHO iteration was one of the first of its kind and would soon be followed by a new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) ECHO as well. CASE PRESENTATION: In a novel approach, information professionals participated in the early planning stages of the formation of these ECHO teams, which enabled the provision of real-time medical evidence and resources at the point-of-need once the teams were launched. This case study demonstrates proof of concept for including health sciences librarians and/or information professionals in the ECHO as hub team members. In this case study, the authors describe and quantify the value added to the HIV and LGBTQ+ ECHO sessions by the medical librarians, as well as provide a template for how other telehealth initiatives can collaborate with their local health information professionals. CONCLUSIONS: Librarian involvement in Project ECHO over the past three years has been enthusiastically received. The librarians have contributed hundreds of resources to ECHO participants, helped build and curate resource repositories, and expanded the embedded librarian program to an additional two ECHO iterations. ECHO hub team members report high rates of satisfaction with the performance of embedded librarians and appreciate the provision of point-of-need evidence to ECHO participants.