Journal of the Medical Library Association

Looking back, looking forward

2023-02-13T12:19:00-05:00

The second half of 2022 was a time of much change at the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA). We hope to lead this journal with transparency, and in this spirit, we wanted to give you an overview of what we have done since we were appointed as coeditors in chief (co-EICs) in June 2022.

122nd Annual Meeting, Medical Library Association, Inc., New Orleans, LA, May 3-6, 2022

2023-02-08T19:34:01-05:00

The Medical Library Association (MLA) held its 122nd annual meeting May 3-6, 2022, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The meeting was entitled “MLA ’22: Reconnect. Renew. Reflect” and utilized a hybrid model with some events in person, and some virtually.

Thank you to the Journal of the Medical Library Association reviewers in 2021 and 2022

2023-02-02T15:44:34-05:00

We sincerely thank the 214 peer reviewers in 2021 and the 171 peer reviewers in 2022 who helped evaluate and improve the quality of work published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA).

Errata for Issue 110 (3)

2022-12-21T11:30:21-05:00

“Rigor and reproducibility instruction in academic medical libraries,” 2022;110(3):281-93. The PDF and metadata as published contained an incorrect author last name. The correct author name is Tisha Mentnech.

“Determining COVID-19’s impact on an academic medical library’s literature search service,”2022;110(3):316-22. The PDF as published contained an incorrect author last name. The correct author name is David Petersen.

“In Memoriam: Virginia M. Bowden,” 2022;110(3):381-82. The article was published with incorrect HTML title and author affiliation information. The correct affiliation for Janna C. Lawrence is Director.

Virtual Services in the Health Sciences Library: A Handbook

2022-10-10T11:14:36-04:00

Health sciences libraries serving universities and medical facilities have long used technology to provide library services, but COVID-19 presented libraries with unique challenges. Libraries shut their doors and adapted to conducting reference, instruction, and outreach, remotely. For some libraries described in Virtual Services in the Health Sciences Library: a Handbook, those services had been done in the library; for others, the library had considered adding virtual services. For those libraries that have not made the jump, this text presents strategies to which all health sciences libraries would find a useful reference. Given its practical strategies and engaging text, this reviewer finds Virtual Services in the Health Sciences Library: a Handbook to be an inspiring and a highly recommended reference for health sciences libraries.

2022 Janet Doe Lecture, health science libraries in the emerging digital information era: charting the course

2022-09-29T18:48:06-04:00

The great challenge medical library professionals are facing is how we evolve and respond to the emerging digital era. If we successfully understand and adapt to the emerging digital information environment, medical librarians/Health Information Professionals (HIPs) can play an even greater role in the advance in the health care of our nation and its residents. The opportunities and challenges are at the level we successfully responded to in the late 1960’s and the 1970’s under the leadership of the National Library of Medicine with its MEDLARS/Medline programs and Medical Library Assistance Act which enabled medical libraries to enter what I have referred to as The Golden Age of Medical Libraries. In this presentation, I focused on the transition of the health related print Knowledge-Based Information base to the emerging digital health related ecosystem. I review how this transition is being driven by evolving information technology. The development of “data driven health care” built on this emerging information ecosystem is being led by the National Library of Medicine’s 2017-2027 Strategic plan and the Medical Library Association’s programs in support of developing medical librarian/HIP’s training, skills, and services to support their users access and use of this rapidly expanding health information ecosystem. I then present a brief description of the digital health information ecosystem that is just starting to emerge and the emerging new roles and services HIPs and their libraries are developing to support effective institutional access and use.

Shannon D. Jones, MLS, MEd, AHIP, FMLA, Medical Library Association President, 2022-2023

2022-09-29T12:01:15-04:00

In this profile, Shannon D. Jones, MLS, MEd, AHIP, FMLA, Medical Library Association President, 2022-2023, is described as someone who “takes chances on people, valuing those others might not see as valuable" -MJ Tooey. Jones embraces lifelong learning, and it shows up in her collegiate journey; she has been a student of leadership, a leader of institutions, especially within the Medical Library Association (MLA); and a leader in librarianship. She is a trailblazer, the second African American MLA president, and a champion of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Jones has been Director of Libraries & Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) for the past seven years and is also Director of Region 2 of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, National Library of Medicine.

Assessing Academic Library Performance: A Handbook

2022-07-19T11:11:52-04:00

Standards of practice for hospital libraries and librarians, 2022: Medical Library Association Hospital Libraries Caucus Standards Task Force

2022-06-28T18:49:10-04:00

The Hospital Library Caucus of the Medical Library Association (MLA) follows the practice established in 1953 of developing quality indicators and best practices in the newly developing and fast-changing world of hospital libraries. As these libraries increased in number and prominence, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAHO) included in 1978 a hospital library standard developed in collaboration with MLA. Subsequent changes in JCAHO, then The Joint Commission (TJC) knowledge management criteria as well as technological changes in the curation and delivery of evidence-based resources influenced standards changes over the years. The 2022 standards mark the most recent edition, replacing the 2007 standards.

History of medicine in medical education: new Italian pathways

2022-06-23T06:46:38-04:00

Objective: There is little doubt that there are currently obstacles in measuring the impact of the history of medicine within medical training. Consequently, there is a clear need to support a vision that can historicize Euro-Western medicine, leading to a greater understanding of how the medical world is a distinct form of reality for those who are about to immerse themselves in the study of medicine.

Methods: History teaches that changes in medicine are due to the processes inherent to the interaction among individuals, institutions, and society rather than individual facts or individual authors.

Results: Therefore, we cannot ignore the fact that the expertise and know-how developed during medical training are the final product of relationships and memories that have a historical life that is based social, economic, and political aspects.

Conclusion: Moreover, these relationships and memories have undergone dynamic processes of selection and attribution of meaning, as well as individual and collective sharing, which have also been confronted with archetypes that are still able to influence clinical approaches and medical therapy today.

In Memorium: Virginia M. Bowden

2022-06-15T16:13:48-04:00

Clinical reporting for personalized cancer genomics requires extensive access to subscription-only literature

2022-10-17T15:33:48-04:00

Objective: Medical care for cancer is increasingly directed by genomic laboratory testing for alterations in the tumor genome that are significant for diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. Uniquely in medicine, providers must search the biomedical literature for each patient to determine the clinical significance of these alterations. Access to published scientific literature is frequently subject to high fees, with access limited to institutional subscriptions. We sought to investigate the degree to which the scientific literature is accessible to clinical cancer genomics providers, and the potential role of university and hospital system libraries in information access for cancer care.

Methods: We identified 265 journals that were accessed during the interpretation and reporting of clinical test results from 1,842 cancer patients at the University Health Network (Toronto, Canada). We determined the degree of open access for this set of clinically important literature, and for any journals not available through open access we surveyed subscription access at seven academic hospital systems and at their affiliated universities.

Results: This study found that nearly half (116/265) of journals have open access mandates that make articles freely available within one year of release. For the remaining subscription access journals, universities provided a uniformly high level of access, but access available through hospital system collections varied widely.

Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of different modes of access to the use of the scientific literature in clinical practice and points to challenges that must be overcome as genomic medicine grows in scale and complexity.

Early innovations in maritime telemedical services: the KDKF Radio Medico Station

2022-06-03T13:10:55-04:00

“MAN PUT HIS TONGUE AGAINST REFRIGERATOR PIPE AND GOT IT FROZEN; HAVE THAWED IT OUT AND IT IS NOW BLISTERED AND SWOLLEN BUT NOT PAINFUL. ARRIVING HONOLULU FRIDAY; HOW CAN I HELP HIM MEANWHILE?” Thus read a message relayed via radiogram across the ocean to the physician stationed at the Seamen’s Church Institute’s (SCI) KDKF radio station, established by the Institute in 1920 on top of its thirteen-story seafarer services center at the southern tip of Manhattan. Though radio was in its infancy, radio telegraphy had already proven its revolutionary power, featuring prominently in far more serious maritime emergencies such as the sinking of Titanic. SCI’s KDKF radio station aimed to address a less dramatic but no less important problem in blue water navigation: access to medical care.

Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin

2022-06-02T20:33:54-04:00

Finding Your Seat at the Table: Roles for Librarians on Institutional Regulatory Boards and Committees

2022-05-25T17:01:28-04:00

Domains of professional practice: analysis of publications in the Journal of the Medical Library Association from 2010 to 2019

2022-05-23T16:59:48-04:00

The Medical Library Association (MLA) has defined 7 domain hubs aligning to different areas of information professional practice. To assess the extent to which content in the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) is reflective of these domains, we analyzed the magnitude of JMLA articles aligning to each domain hub over the last 10 years. Bibliographic records for 453 articles published in JMLA from 2010 to 2019 were downloaded from Web of Science and screened using Covidence software. Thirteen articles were excluded during the title and abstract review because they failed to meet the inclusion criteria, resulting in articles included in this review. The title and abstract of each article were screened by two reviewers, each of whom assigned the article up to two tags corresponding to MLA domain hubs (i.e., information services, information management, education, professionalism and leadership, innovation and research practice, clinical support, and health equity & global health). These results inform the MLA community about our strengths in health information professional practice as reflected by articles published in JMLA.

Unsolicited solicitations: identifying characteristics of unsolicited emails from potentially predatory journals and the role of librarians

2022-05-16T12:49:29-04:00

Email solicitations for manuscript submissions are a common tactic employed by predatory journals to attract potential victims. Both new and established researchers alike have fallen prey to this tactic, justifying the need for librarians to provide further education and support in this area.

This commentary provides a succinct overview of predatory journals; briefly describes the problem of predatory journal email solicitations; explains the role librarians can play in their identification; and lists some red flags and tactics librarians can tell researchers to look out for, as informed by the literature and the author's analysis of 60 unsolicited journal emails she received in her own institutional inbox.

Shaping the past: how donors influenced Becker Library’s rare book collections

2022-05-13T16:21:13-04:00

Rare book collections do not form in a vacuum; they are shaped by the individuals who assemble and curate them. This is certainly the case with the rare book holdings of Becker Medical Library at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. This paper examines some of the most significant donors to Becker’s rare book collections in order to explore how these collections are a reflection of the interests and priorities of the physicians who assembled them, and also raises the issue of how the makeup of these collections create a Western-focused narrative regarding the history of medicine.

Erratum to “How accurate are gender detection tools in predicting the gender for Chinese names? A study with 20,000 given names in Pinyin format,” 2021;110(2):205–11.

2022-04-27T17:44:22-04:00

The PDF version of this article reflected an older version of the article with an incorrect URL for reference 17, while the HTML version was correct. The PDF has been updated to the correct version.

Searching for evidence in public health emergencies: a white paper of best practices

2022-08-22T16:31:46-04:00

Objectives: Information professionals have supported medical providers, administrators and decision-makers, and guideline creators in the COVID-19 response. Searching COVID-19 literature presented new challenges, including the volume and heterogeneity of literature and the proliferation of new information sources, and exposed existing issues in metadata and publishing. An expert panel developed best practices, including recommendations, elaborations, and examples, for searching during public health emergencies.

Methods: Project directors and advisors developed core elements from experience and literature. Experts, identified by affiliation with evidence synthesis groups, COVID-19 search experience, and nomination, responded to an online survey to reach consensus on core elements. Expert participants provided written responses to guiding questions. A synthesis of responses provided the foundation for focus group discussions. A writing group then drafted the best practices into a statement. Experts reviewed the statement prior to dissemination.

Results: Twelve information professionals contributed to best practice recommendations on six elements: core resources, search strategies, publication types, transparency and reproducibility, collaboration, and conducting research. Underlying principles across recommendations include timeliness, openness, balance, preparedness, and responsiveness.

Conclusions: The authors and experts anticipate the recommendations for searching for evidence during public health emergencies will help information specialists, librarians, evidence synthesis groups, researchers, and decision-makers respond to future public health emergencies, including but not limited to disease outbreaks. The recommendations complement existing guidance by addressing concerns specific to emergency response. The statement is intended as a living document. Future revisions should solicit input from a broader community and reflect conclusions of meta-research on COVID-19 and health emergencies.

Effectiveness of a question formulation rubric with second-year medical students: a randomized controlled trial

2022-11-01T11:39:41-04:00

Objective: The FAC (Focus, Amplify, Compose) rubric for assessing medical students’ question formulation skills normally accompanies our Evidence Based Practice (EBP) training. The combined training and assessment rubric have improved student scores significantly. How much does the rubric itself contribute to improved student scores? This study sought to measure student improvement using the rubric either with or without a linked 25-minute training session.

Methods: Randomized Controlled Trial. The authors tested the hypothesis that a 25-minute training session combined with use of a rubric would lead to higher scores than a brief explanation of this rubric alone. All 72 participating second-year medical students had a question formulation rubric briefly explained to them following a pre-test. Students in the intervention groups were taught how to formulate EBP questions for 25 minutes using the rubric followed with another 30 minutes of EBP search training. Students in the control group only received the 30 minutes of EBP search training in their small group labs. All 72 students took the post-test in which they formulated a question in response to a clinical vignette. Statistical analysis to test the hypothesis consisted of a two-sample paired t-test to measure between-group differences.

Discussion: The rubric itself unexpectedly contributed similarly to the Intervention groups students’ improvement, thereby saving scarce curricular time.

Erratum to “Performance of gender detection tools: a comparative study of name-to-gender inference services,” 2021;109(3):414–21 and “Using genderize.io to infer the gender of first names: how to improve the accuracy of the inference,” 2021;109(4):609–12.

2022-04-05T09:07:54-04:00

The reference for Gender API in both of these manuscripts linked to the wrong Gender API tool. The correct URL is <https://gender-api.com/en/>. The original articles have both been updated to reflect this change.

The National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC)

2022-03-17T19:56:03-04:00

The case of the disappearing librarians: analyzing documentation of librarians’ contributions to systematic reviews

2022-03-28T17:06:51-04:00

Objective: The study aimed to analyze the documented role of a librarian in published systematic reviews and meta-analyses whose registered protocols mentioned librarian involvement. The intention was to identify how, or if, librarians’ involvement was formally documented, how their contributions were described, and if there were any potential connections between this documentation and basic metrics of search reproducibility and quality.

Methods: Reviews whose PROSPERO protocols were registered in 2017 and 2018 and that also specifically mentioned a librarian were analyzed for documentation of the librarian’s involvement. Language describing the librarian and their involvement was gathered and coded, and additional information about the review, including search strategy details, was also collected.

Results: A total of 209 reviews were found and analyzed. Of these, 28% had a librarian co-author, 41% named a librarian in the acknowledgements section, and 78% mentioned the contribution of a librarian within the body of the review. However, mentions of a librarian within the review were often generic (“a librarian”) and in 31% of all reviews analyzed no librarian was specified by name. In 9% of the reviews, there was no reference to a librarian found at all.

Conclusions: Even among this set of reviews, where librarian involvement was specified at the protocol level, librarians’ contributions were often described with minimal, or even no, language in the final published review. Much room for improvement appears to remain in terms of how librarians’ work is documented.

Jot: guiding journal selection with suitability metrics

2022-03-03T07:13:51-05:00

Researchers grapple with a challenging and consequential decision each time they choose a journal for manuscript submission. There are several online tools that attempt to identify appropriate journals for a manuscript, but each of these tools has shortcomings in terms of the journal data they provide and the exploration functionality they offer—and not one of these tools is open source. Jot is a free and open-source web application that matches manuscripts in the fields of biomedicine and life sciences with suitable journals, based on a manuscript's title, abstract and (optionally) citations. Jot gathers a wealth of data on journal quality, impact, fit, and open access options that can be explored through a dashboard of linked, interactive visualizations. Visit Jot at https://jot.publichealth.yale.edu, or run your own Jot server using our open-source Python package 'journal_targeter', available from the Python Package Index (PyPI).