Report from the Medical Library Association’s InSight Initiative Summit 2: Meeting the Evolving Information Needs of Library Stakeholders

Authors

  • Katherine G. Akers Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the Medical Library Association, and Biomedical Research and Data Specialist, Shiffman Medical Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4578-6575

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2019.669

Keywords:

Access to Information, Libraries, Publishers, Information Seeking, Social Media, Smartphones, Medical Library Association

Abstract

At the Medical Library Association’s InSight Initiative Summit 2, held September 27–28, 2018, academic and hospital librarians joined with publishing industry partners to develop a deeper shared understanding of technology- and social interaction–driven changes in how health sciences researchers and clinicians discover and consume information in their fields. Through a mixture of keynote talks, a panel discussion with health care professionals, and small-group problem-solving exercises, the summit program invited participants to collaboratively develop strategies for helping users recognize the value of curated or peer-reviewed content obtained through institutional access channels. Themes of the summit included the existence of different user modes of information discovery and access, user reliance on professional societies and Twitter as information sources, the extent to which smartphones are used to find medical information, the importance of inducing disorienting dilemmas in library users that cause them to recognize librarians as true partners in information seeking and research, the dangers of depending on non-curated information, and the need for publishers and librarians to work together to ease barriers to access and enrich the user experience.

References

Akers KG. Report from the Medical Library Association’s InSight Initiative Summit 1: engaging users in a disruptive era. J Med Libr Assoc. 2018 Oct;106(4):554–72. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2018.561.

Gardner T, Inger S. How readers discover content in scholarly publications [Internet]. Renew Publishing Consultants; Aug 2018 [cited 19 Jan 2019]. <http://renewpublishingconsultants.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/How-Readers-Discover-Content-in-Scholarly-Publications.pdf>.

Wray CM, Auerbach AD, Arora VM. The adoption of an online journal club to improve research dissemination and social media engagement among hospitalists. J Hosp Med. 2018 Nov;13(11):764–9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12788/jhm.2987.

Brian R, Orlov N, Werner D, Martin SK, Arora VM, Alkureishi M. Evaluating the impact of clinical librarians on clinical questions during inpatient rounds. J Med Libr Assoc. 2018 Apr;106(2):175–83. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2018.254.

Funderburg L. Born too soon. Life. 2000;May.

Offit PA. Bad advice: or why celebrities, politicians, and activists aren’t your best source of health information. Columbia University Press: New York, NY; 2018.

Anderson K. Focusing on value—102 things journal publishers do (2018 update). Scholarly Kitchen [Internet]. 6 Feb 2018 [cited 19 Jan 2019]. <https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/02/06/focusing-value-102-things-journal-publishers-2018-update/>.

Ketterman E, Pidgeon S. Guest post: MLA InSight—how to buy whisky. Scholarly Kitchen [Internet]. 9 Jan 2019 [cited 19 Jan 2019]. <https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/01/09/guest-post-mla-insight-how-to-buy-whisky/>.

Downloads

Published

2019-04-15

Issue

Section

Special Paper