Call for papers for Health Information and Libraries Journal, December 2007

Dear all,

please see the following FYI - Thanks Liz for pointing this out.

Susie

From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers
[mailto:LIS-MEDICAL@JISCMAIL.AC.UK]On Behalf Of Graham Walton
Sent: 15 January 2007 08:58
To: LIS-MEDICAL@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Call for papers on impact assessment of health library and
information services

WITH USUAL APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING

Call for papers for Health Information and Libraries Journal, December
2007.

In December 2007 the 'Health Information and Libraries Journal'
(http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/hir) will publish its annual themed
issue. In 2007 the title will be 'Assessing the impact of information
services in the health sector', and the issue will be edited by Rowena
Cullen, Associate Professor, Victoria University of Wellington, and Rachel
Esson, Medical Librarian, Wellington Medical School, in New Zealand..

HILJ is the official journal of the United Kingdom's Health Libraries
Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

Prospective authors across the world are asked to submit a 150-250 word
abstract of their proposed paper to Rowena Cullen
(Rowena.Cullen@vuw.ac.nz) by Friday 2 February 2007. Papers (which should
be from 1000-5000 words in length) should be grounded in research, link
research to practice, and be of value to health information specialists in
assessing the value and impact of their own services and programmes.
Papers with an evidence-based focus will be especially welcome. Case
studies that can demonstrate the impact of services will also be
considered.

Authors chosen for the special issue will be asked to submit manuscripts
by 1 May 2007 for peer review. Authors will receive comments from
reviewers in early June, and will be asked to submit the final version of
their paper by 31 July 2007.

Theme: Accountability is present in many aspects of public services and
private industry. There is pressure to justify to all stakeholders that
the resources needed for an activity are appropriately used and result in
quality outputs that impact in some way on health services. Health library
and information services across the world cannot escape from these
pressures where proof has to be provided that their activities make a
difference. Clinical decision making, learning outcomes, outcomes of
education programmes in information literacy and evidence-based decision-
making, and the economic benefits of services are all areas upon which
health library and information services impact. Impact measurement thus
has a strategic role as it provides an opportunity for the library or
information service to show to the wider organization its contribution and
value. The challenge is to identify, gather and report the information
which shows the scale and level of this impact.

Different approaches are available to measure the value and impact of
health library and information services. These include determining
information needs and uses, bench marking, performance measures and
metrics, cost-benefit analysis and outcomes measurement. In all these
there is a need to understand the steps involved in planning the
evaluation, how the results of the assessment are best organized and
presented, and the strengths and limitations of the chosen approach.

For the purpose of this issue, information services are considered to
include standard library services supporting teaching and healthcare,
instructional programmes, services offered to health administrators,
clinical librarian programmes, services offered on a variety of technology
platforms including web-based services, community health and patient
information services.

various announcements

Dear all,

The summaries of the discussions we had in the first session are now available at: http://www.ilit.org/file/file1.htm

Also do not hesitate to send me drafts of the first component for comments

Susie