For 18 months, the informationist is serving as a member of the research team on the grant, “Promoting Breast Cancer Screening in Non-Adherent Women” (R01 CA-132935, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health), working to develop data management tools, providing an in-depth literature review and report on the issues facing researchers and internet technology professionals when building and implementing research tools, assisting with a systematic review on the effectiveness of telephone intervention protocols for preventive screenings, and instructing the members of the team in advanced searching techniques and bibliographic management.

This role serves as a new model of embedded librarianship for the LSL. It also provides opportunities for new services from the Library in the role of data and information management. Further, the acceptance of an informationist into a well-funded research team demonstrates a level of commitment by researchers to receiving research support from the Library that it has not experienced to date. This brief paper describes the study and the accomplishments to date.

For 18 months (Sept 2012 - Jan 2014), Sally Gore is serving as a member of the research team on the grant, “Promoting Breast Cancer Screening in Non-Adherent Women” (R01 CA-132935, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health). Devoting a quarter of her scheduled work time to the project, Gore is developing data management tools (a data dictionary and data request form), providing an in-depth literature review and report on the issues facing researchers and internet technology professionals when building and implementing research tools, assisting with a systematic review on the effectiveness of telephone intervention protocols for preventive screenings, and instructing the members of the team in advanced searching techniques and bibliographic management.

This role serves as a new model of embedded librarianship for the LSL. It also provides opportunities for new services from the Library in the role of data and information management. Further, the acceptance of an informationist into a well-funded research team demonstrates a level of commitment by researchers to receiving research support from the Library that it has not experienced to date. This poster graphically displays both new and existing services provided by the informationist, as well as other opportunities that have grown since the original supplemental award was received.

Methods: The Library launched its institutional repository in 2006 and developed a mature collection of peer-reviewed articles, posters, and conference proceedings. Beginning in 2009, the Library sought to expand the use of the repository and partnered with two academic departments, Neurology and Psychiatry, to publish electronic journals. In spring 2011 the Library began to explore the idea of publishing its own peer-reviewed, open access electronic journal. Planning and implementation considerations included: choosing a unique and appropriate name; infrastructure and hosting options; organizational and governance structure; roles and responsibilities; journal structure and content; aims and scope; editorial, peer review and other policies and procedures; and dissemination. Simultaneously the Library undertook the publishing of its first electronic book, where issues of presentation, page turning, photo placement, and indexing became significant.

Results: The inaugural issue of the Journal of eScience Librarianship was published on February 15, 2012 via the journal management platform of the Library’s institutional repository, eScholarship@UMMS. JESLIB has been assigned ISSN 2161-3974. The medical school joined CrossRef so that article metadata could be deposited into their system and each article assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). Additional issues have been published, readership statistics and patterns are positive, and JESLIB is now indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. In fall 2012, the Library published its first eBook, “A History of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, which was authored by the medical school’s head of the Office of Medical History and Archives.

Conclusions: Academic medical libraries can successfully publish as well as host online journals and books. Utilizing the institutional repository for publishing purposes offers a number of advantages. The repository provides a tested infrastructure for ingesting and sharing of documents. The repository administrator possesses strong in-house expertise, experience with embargoes, metadata, preservation and dissemination, and most importantly, has built strong relationships and trust with faculty and researchers. The open access platform leads to wider dissemination and maximum impact, backed up by reliable usage statistics. Helpful planning guides and other resources are available to assist libraries and academic groups in publishing open access peer-reviewed materials. Lessons learned include: utilize professional copy editing services; locking papers for revisions speeds up workflows.

Methods: In 2009, the Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School, hosted its first e-Science Symposium for librarians in New England. The event marked the beginning of an ongoing initiative to prepare librarians to take active roles in an emerging trend in research that will impact the futures of academic, research and medical libraries. Based upon feedback from attendees at the Symposium, other events were developed to address the needs expressed. These include single-day professional development workshops that provide a combined lecture and hands-on work in relevant topics; 3-day science boot camps that bring researchers and librarians together to learn about both the basics of scientific disciplines, as well as how the science is applied in today's world; a web-based portal that provides a collection of resources for librarians to improve their knowledge of e-Science issues such as data management or developing metadata, plus primers on scientific disciplines; and a recently launched eJournal, The Journal of eScience Librarianship, that aims to bring together the theory and practice of librarianship in the area of e-Science.

Results: The Lamar Soutter Library's e-Science Initiative is currently in its fourth year of programming. Hundreds of librarians from New England, as well as other parts of the country, have taken advantage of the different events over the years. The symposium and professional development days have been replicated by attendees in their respective institutions and/or regions.

Conclusions: The need for librarians to gain new skills to remain relevant in their role(s) is ongoing, yet difficult to achieve once ensconced in a position and/or career. By providing different ways to grow professionally, the e-Science Initiative of the Lamar Soutter Library is leading a national trend in continuing education and improved awareness of e-Science Librarianship.

Purpose/objective: The purpose of the collaboration is to provide an archive to preserve and promote clinical and language experiences of UMMS students serving in developing countries.

Description: The Library is building a database of student trips that includes descriptions of sites and clinical experiences, photos, personal reflections, maps, and advice for future students. Library staff worked with Dr. Godkin to convert paper records into an electronic format and added metadata to enhance searching. Reports are organized by country and year, and are full-text searchable.

Conclusion: eScholarship@UMMS offers an efficient and convenient means of promoting student interest in international medical education. More than 50 student trip reports from almost 20 countries have been entered into the database. In just four months the site has already had an impact and generated increased student interest. By archiving these trip reports, eScholarship@UMMS ensures that the information will be available for future UMMS students.

Implications: eScholarship@UMMS supports the primary goals of the International Medical Education program: to develop linguistic, cultural and physical diagnosis skills and enable the students to better serve a rapidly expanding immigrant and refugee population in Massachusetts and the United States.

Presented at the UMass Global Health Symposium, Shrewsbury, MA, on May 3-4, 2007.

Methods: The University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Lamar Soutter Library through funding from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine has been a leader in educating librarians about eScience and its impact on librarianship. In spring 2011 the Library began to explore the idea of publishing a peer-reviewed, open access electronic journal about eScience and data management for librarians. Planning and implementation considerations included: choosing a unique and appropriate name; infrastructure and hosting options; organizational and governance structure; roles and responsibilities; journal structure and content; aims and scope; editorial, peer review and other policies and procedures; and dissemination.

Results: The inaugural issue of the Journal of eScience Librarianship (http://escholarship.umassmed.edu/jeslib/) was published on February 15, 2012 via the journal management platform of the Library's institutional repository, eScholarship@UMMS. JESLIB has been assigned ISSN 2161-3974. The medical school joined CrossRef so that article metadata could be deposited into their system and each article assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier).

Conclusion: Libraries can successfully publish as well as host online journals. Helpful planning guides and other resources are available to assist libraries and academic groups in publishing open access peer-reviewed journals. Lessons learned include: consider professional copy editing services to assist the Editorial Board; Editorial Team roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined but allow room for flexibility; and have a clear marketing communication and promotion strategy.

Brief Description: This project is funded through a subcontract with the National Network of Libraries of Medicine New England Region. It is based on a collaborative framework consisting of a project advisory board, an editorial board of content editors, and a web development technical team. This comprehensive portal, aimed at librarians, provides news, links to annotated e-Science resources, and a discussion forum. Members of the portal editorial board include science and medical subject librarians identifying and aggregating content on e-science news/events, tutorials, and current practice accessible through the portal. Editorial librarians are developing a virtual community using social tools to foster discussion and collaboration among New England librarians interested in e-Science. This poster describes the planning process and the roles of the editorial team, project coordinator, and portal design team.

Results/Outcome: The collaboration of biomedical and science subject and technology librarians is crucial to developing an e-Science portal that will provide the essential tools and knowledge for librarians to effectively engage in networked science.

Setting/Participants/Resources: The Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) formally established a Research and Scholarly Communication Services department in January 2009. The department is currently comprised of two librarians.

Brief Description: The Research and Scholarly Communication Services department is charged with overseeing four major areas: scholarly communication; integration of library services into the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) and the research community; the library’s eScience initiative; and the university’s institutional repository, eScholarship@UMMS. The department leveraged existing relationships with GSBS administration and faculty, created through work with eScholarship@UMMS and library services supporting the NIH Public Access Policy, to build credibility, make new contacts, and get feedback on proposed new services.

Results/Outcome: Though still relatively new, the department has found success in this new outreach. It has expanded its class instruction portfolio to include GSBS student orientations, author rights, and social networking tools. eScholarship@UMMS continues to grow at a rapid pace. The department developed and launched the library’s first LibGuide for the UMMS research community, resulting in much positive feedback.

Presented at the University of Massachusetts and New England Area Librarian e-Science Symposium, Shrewsbury, Mass., on April 7, 2010.

METHODOLOGY: Research articles were identified from the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association and Journal of the Medical Library Association (1991-2007). Using content analysis and bibliometric techniques, data were collected for each article on the (1) subject, (2) research method, (3) analytical technique used, (4) number of authors, (5) number of citations, (6) first author affiliation, and (7) funding source. The results were compared to a previous study, covering the period 1966 to 1990, to identify changes over time.

RESULTS: Of the 930 articles examined, 474 (51%) were identified as research articles. Survey (n = 174, 37.1%) was the most common methodology employed, quantitative descriptive statistics (n = 298, 63.5%) the most used analytical technique, and applied topics (n = 332, 70%) the most common type of subject studied. The majority of first authors were associated with an academic health sciences library (n = 264, 55.7%). Only 27.4% (n = 130) of studies identified a funding source.

CONCLUSION: This study's findings demonstrate that progress is being made in health sciences librarianship research. There is, however, room for improvement in terms of research methodologies used, proportion of applied versus theoretical research, and elimination of barriers to conducting research for practicing librarians.

Method: A content analysis of research articles published in Bulletin of the Medical Library Association and Journal of the Medical Library Association during the time span of 1991-2007 will be performed. For those articles that are classified as research, the subjects, research methodologies and analytical techniques employed will be identified, as well as bibliometric characteristics, institutional affiliation, and research funding source. The data will be analyzed using descriptive and quantitative inferential statistics to identify trends and/or gaps in the literature. The subject, research method, and analytical classification schema used throughout the study will be based on the work of Alexandra Dimitroff.

Results & Conclusion: Preliminary findings reflect articles published from 1991-1996 (n = 310). Forty six percent of the articles reviewed were defined as research. The most predominant research methodology employed was survey (47%) and the most prevalent techniques used to analyze findings were quantitative descriptive statistics (62%). Studies examining subjects related to library users accounted for the greatest number of published research articles (20%), followed in popularity by public services (15%), and materials and/or collection development (9%). Sixty five percent of articles were authored by individuals affiliated with an academic health sciences library. The majority of studies (65%) stated no funding source, while 17% reported government support for the research carried out. New areas of research observed to date include consumer health, outreach, and the internet; an emerging research method is focus groups. Additional data on the findings will be presented in May.

Presented at the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting on May 19, 2008, in Chicago, IL.

Method: In the summer of 2004, a core group of library staff gathered to prepare the application to host the ALA/NLM traveling exhibit, “Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America’s Women Physicians.” Once selected as a host site, the group reached out to a diverse mix of academic and administrative staff from across the Medical School, as well as members of the local community. This group became the formal steering committee to plan programming to accompany the exhibit, helping meet the educational and promotional goals set forth in the initial application. Some outreach events included movie nights at the public library, an essay contest for grade school students, a career day with Girl Scouts, a review of research in women’s health (WHI), etc. Promotional methods/vehicles included “save the date” postcards, flyers, posters, and coverage through area radio, television, and newspapers.

Results: Seventeen events were held in conjunction with the Library’s hosting of the exhibit. During the six-week period, approximately 60,000 individuals visited the Library, more than 750 specifically devoted to viewing the display. Two hundred people from the medical school community and the public at large attended the opening ceremony, 100 area Girl Scout members participated in multiple educational events, local middle and high school students took part in an essay contest, and more than 100 people attended book signings, film screenings, and a dramatic performance about Elizabeth Blackwell. Six groups provided financial support of the exhibit, totaling more than $7,000.

Conclusion: The exhibit encouraged new experiences for Library staff including collaboration, marketing and outreach to a wider audience. It introduced many first-time Library visitors to a valued local resource, helped develop relationships between medical school students and the public, and introduced a different and important historical perspective on medicine to all.

Presented at the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting on May 20, 2007, in Philadelphia, PA.