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

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.

Report from the Medical Library Association’s InSight Initiative Summit 3: Bridge Building: What Bridges to Build and How

“…Doody explained that the most valuable component of Summit 2 was a panel of health care professionals with impressive biographies who spoke about how, where, and on what devices they discover, access, and consume information in their fields [1] and who returned to MLA '19 to give the John P. McGovern Award Lecture. Due to the insights gleaned from that panel, Summit 3 activities commenced with another user panel consisting of clinical and basic science faculty members from leading Chicago-area institutions.…”

“…Some publishers in the audience talked about how they must consider where quality counts the most, agreeing that copyediting individual articles does not add as much value as larger efforts to guard against scientific fraud or enhance discoverability and access. Doody asked the panel members two questions: (1) what is one thing you want librarians to leave with that is "bridgeable," and ( 2) what does a better ecosystem look like twelve months from now? Heffner replied that he wanted librarians to know that "we are very simple-you know what we want.…”

What we can learn from elite academic staff publication portfolios: a social network analysis

“…Based on this research, it is recommended that higher education institution executive committees build medium-term investment into their strategic and operational plans for time, resources and facilitation of academic staff development in relation to writing for publication. Acknowledging the role of the university library in assisting academics with their publishing endeavours (Akers, 2019), targeted investment in library services to support professional academic writing should be represented as part of these organisational plans. Within the context of gender differences evident in General Nursing portfolios, it is recommended that strategic and operational plans particularly focus on the continuing professional development of female academics.…”

“…Libraries have long supported writing within higher education, with initiatives ranging from writing centres located in library services in the early noughties (Rader, 2001) to contemporary narratives of libraries assisting staff in identifying journals that authors may wish to publish in, editing manuscripts and creating bibliographies (Akers, 2019). At this juncture it is important to distinguish between academic writing and professional academic writing .…”