Current Research

Compiled by Trish Chatterley

Glusker A. Implementing the transition from full- to self-service table of contents alerts: a case study. *J Hosp Librariansh*. 2013 Jan;13(1):1–10. doi: 10.1080/153232 69.2013.743200.

Health care professionals are committed to maintaining current awareness of developments in their field, and providing electronic Table of Contents (TOC) alerts is a way that medical libraries can create goodwill and market additional services. However, with a small staff and the amount of time required by a hands-on approach to providing TOC alerts, library capacity can be severely challenged. This article outlines one library's process of transitioning its TOC alerts service from mediated to self-service, outlining a Lean problem-solving and information-gathering approach, investigating alternative options, and the eventual method of and reactions to implementing the change.

Jannot AS, Agoritsas T, Gayet-Ageron A, Perneger TV. Citation bias favoring statistically significant studies was present in medical research. *J Clin Epidemiol*. 2013 Mar;66(3):296–301. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2012.09.015.

**Objective:** Statistically significant studies may be cited more than negative studies on the same topic. We aimed to assess here whether such citation bias is present across the medical literature. **Study Design and Setting:** We conducted a cohort study of the association between statistical significance and citations. We selected all therapeutic intervention studies included in meta-analyses published between January and March 2010 in the Cochrane database, and retrieved citation counts of all individual studies using ISI Web of Knowledge. The association between the statistical significance of each study and the number of citations it received between 2008 and 2010 was assessed in mixed Poisson models. **Results:** We identified 89 research questions addressed in 458 eligible articles. Significant studies were cited twice as often as nonsignificant studies (multiplicative effect of significance: 2.14, 95% confidence interval: 1.38–3.33). This association was partly because of the higher impact factor of journals where significant studies are published (adjusted multiplicative effect of significance: 1.14, 95% confidence interval: 0.87–1.51). **Conclusion:** A citation bias favoring significant results occurs in medical research. As a consequence, treatments may seem more effective to the readers of medical literature than they really are.

Lorenzetti DL, Rutherford G. Information professionals' participation in interdisciplinary research: a preliminary study of factors affecting successful collaborations. *Health Info Libr J*. 2012 Dec;29(4):274–84. doi: 10.1111/hir.12003.

**Objectives:** This pilot study explores the conditions that support or hinder information professionals' participation in interdisciplinary research teams. **Methods:** We undertook a preliminary grounded theory study investigating factors that impact on information professionals' participation in interdisciplinary research. Four biomedical information professionals working in academic universities and teaching hospitals in Canada participated in semi-structured interviews. Grounded theory methods guided the data collection and analysis. **Results:** Participants identified the conditions that support or hinder research participation as belonging to four distinct overlapping domains: client-level factors including preconceptions and researcher resistance; individual-level factors such as research readiness; opportunities that are most often made not found; and organisational supports. **Conclusions:** Creating willingness, building preparedness, and capitalising on opportunity appear crucial to successful participation in interdisciplinary research. Further exploration of the importance of educational, collegial and organisational supports may reveal additional data to support the development of a grounded theory regarding the facilitation of information professionals' engagement in inter-disciplinary research.

Staiger J. How e-books are used: a literature review of the e-book studies conducted from 2006 to 2011. *Ref User Serv Q*. 2012 June;51(4):355–65.

This literature review synthesizes the findings of some two dozen studies of e-book usage by members of academic communities. The studies included in the review were conducted between 2006 and 2011 mostly at colleges and universities in the Anglophone world. The studies yielded different results as to the issue of awareness of e-books among members of the academic community, but otherwise the rate of agreement between the studies was high. Most of them found that academic users typically search e-books for discrete bits of information, a behavior summed up by the formula "use rather than read." They also show that such use of e-books is typical across disciplines, but that members of the humanities and
social-sciences were on the whole less satisfied with e-books than their counterparts in the hard-sciences and business. The two main advantages of e-books cited by library patrons surveyed by the studies were searchability and around-the clock availability. The most frequently cited disadvantages were difficulty of navigation and loss of ability to perform customary research practices such as perusing and shelf-browsing because of e-books' lack of physicality. The latter part of the review develops some implications of the "use rather than read" formula and considers the impact the widespread adoption of handheld e-readers would have on academic libraries. In its concluding section, the review presents the studies' chief recommendations for academic libraries with regard to e-books, and offers suggestions for further investigation into their use by members of the academic community.

Waddell DC, Barnes M, Khan-Kernahan S. Tapping into the Power of Twitter: A Look at Its Potential in Canadian Health Libraries. *Partnersh: Can J Libr Info Pract Res.* 2012;7(2).

In health libraries, it is becoming increasingly important to recognize and understand user interactions and expectations. Research suggests that more and more patients will begin to rely on online resources to receive health information. In response, many health organizations have turned to social media and micro-blogging services to try and meet those needs. The ease of posting and sharing information on Twitter makes it an essential tool for health libraries to use to reach their users. However, libraries that lack systematic metrics for measuring success can find themselves pouring precious resources into social media upkeep without knowing if they are promoting their strategic vision. This paper first uses a literature review to summarize the best practices among Twitter researchers. The authors then measure the success of these practices among several health libraries using simple metrics for evaluation. By advocating accountable Twitter use, the authors hope to promote a goal-oriented social media strategy that ensures health libraries are maximizing their efficiency. Administrators and libraries can engage communities through active Twitter use by going well beyond just promoting their services. Through better Twitter use, libraries can show users that they listen to other

organizations in the community, hear and respond to the questions and concerns of individual users, and send people links to information that go beyond the reach of their own website. Administrators can subsequently report accurate metrics to demonstrate what is working well and which strategies have not been successful. It is then possible to make immediate changes to maximize the impact that social media can have on that organization's strategic goals. The objective of this paper is to provide every reader with the ability to head into a meeting about social media and confidently develop a strategy that will plan for success, with the metrics to prove it.

Weber NM, Palmer CL, Chao TC. Current trends and future directions in data curation research and education. *J Web Librariansh*. 2012 Dec;6(4):305-20. doi: 10.1080/19322909.2012.730358.

Digital research data have introduced a new set of collection, preservation, and service demands into the tradition of digital librarianship. Consequently, the role of an information professional has evolved to include the activities of data curation. This new field more specifically addresses the needs of stewarding and preserving digital research data. In this article, the authors offer an overview of data curation research and education in the field of library and information science, focusing specifically on the current state of professional practice, trends in education and workforce development, and future directions for both basic and applied research. Drawing on the proceedings from two data curation summits held in late 2010, the authors highlight and build on the major insights and recommendations that emerged from discussions among more than 50 leading experts from government agencies, data centers, the field of library and information science, and the publishing industry. Specifically, they note the importance of developing interoperable standards for describing datasets, the need for curators to participate in data privacy and ownership policy development, the demand for a workforce to support discipline-specific data practices, and the varied approaches for professional education that will be required by a data-driven research agenda in both the sciences and humanities. The authors conclude with an overview of future directions for research and workforce development in data curation.