Embedded academic librarians

Is the future of educating health professionals, even doctors in advanced fields, intricately linked to the future of librarians in academics? Before this week’s course, I would not have thought that a librarian would be a very active role in the life learning educational practice of post-graduate medical students on their way to becoming world-class neurosurgeons, however, this week’s focus on the more active role in which a librarian can take in a university’s educational program has given me reasons to re-think the role of librarian in the academic setting.

As an undergraduate at Slippery Rock University, the library was a rather under-utilized resource for myself and many other students. It did serve as a hub for social interaction and one place on campus for liberal arts majors to refill on caffeine, however, the actual intellectual resources were not very well advertised or made explicitly known.  I did have a tendency to roam the stacks, usually on full out zombie-mode, mindlessly pursuing some brain-food in the philosophy sections, but I seldom appreciated the opportunity to gain a more thorough understanding of information literacy that the library provided.

In terms of outreach programs at the university, there was only one class on advanced research in which research habits were even discussed to any great detail. Sadly, this class was an upper-level class and was typically taken as part of the last semester course load.  Reflecting on the lessons from this module, I would strongly recommend that class be made mandatory for all freshmen.  This was the only class in which a librarian from the Slippery Rock University Library would actually address students. However, rather than giving a more individual approach to how librarians can teach better search strategies, and how those strategies can have an enormous impact on research outcomes, the librarian instead addressed the class at large, giving a brief history of information literacy in the time of computers. It was a nice attempt at getting students to think about searching strategies and database technology in research, but it did not offer practical solutions or a chance for students to gain any personal understanding of the advantageous and limits of these technologies.

Meanwhile, the Australian School of Advanced Medicine (ASAM) has recently spent a great deal of effort to address the issue of information literacy in post-graduate medical study.  ASAM offers a cutting edge program in terms of evidence based medicine that is truly based on actual patient care and outcomes.  An essay examining the role of the librarian in the program of ASAM describes ASAM’s goal as being one designed to effectively practice evidence-based medicine and to create lifelong learners by demonstrating effective independent research, based on clinical practice, that is conducted in a team based environment (Simons, Morgan, & Davidson, 2012, pp. 291).

Access to evidence-based literature is considered an absolute key to competency goals in the curriculum at ASAM, as described by the authors “gaining access to, and making use of, this literature is where information literacy becomes an important skill for learners to master” (2012, pp. 291).  After it was discovered that many of the scholars at ASAM lacked the necessary information literacy skills to show competence in this area of evidence based learning, it became a priority to incorporate librarians in developing an efficient model to improve scholar awareness and mastery of medical databases and searching the required literature.

Initial steps taken to educate scholars on information literacy included, journal meetings conducted in small groups with experts present, short personalized training sessions with librarians, and a variety of different tools on the library web site that served as tutorials for using different databases (pp. 292).  When these steps were found to be insufficient addressing specific concerns that the school had, ASAM took the steps to involve librarians more closely in the educational process.   Neurosurgeons began to set up evidence based surgery meetings with groups of scholars and advanced scholars that aimed at the scholars delivering presentations where they would discuss patient history, relevant pathology, and a literature search that must lead to a clinical conclusion based on available evidence (pp. 292-3).  University librarians were utilized in order to create performance elements in which to evaluate the development of search strategies from the start of the process to the end, including ways in which the scholar used the available functionality of the databases in order to refine the search strategy, and the effectiveness of using MeSH terminology in conjunction with keywords specific to the patient (pp. 292).

In addition to helping to develop the competency criteria for this part of scholarship, the scholar would also be required to meet with the librarian throughout the process in order to develop an understanding of information literacy.  This process was repeated until the scholar showed full competency in information literacy that “went beyond merely performing the steps” (pp. 293; 295).

If this concept of embedded librarians can be utilized to educate post-graduate advanced medical students, then there is no reason to believe that it could not be utilized in any other area of academics.  The article on embedded librarians in Capella University also makes a strong argument for the advantages of having a more integrated and involved librarian in the academic setting.  In their research, Erika Bennett and Jennie Simning (2010), found that an increased presence of a librarian early on in the student’s undergraduate work actually increases the number of reference questions received by the library (2010, pp 445-6).  Not only did they find that calls and e-mails to the reference desk were on the rise, but also the quality of questions asked were shown to be more sophisticated as students were able to complete the simpler parts of research independently and then involved a librarian when complexity arose in their research (pp. 449-50).

These studies show how librarians can be made as an integral part of the academic setting.  The initial introduction to the library as a whole, in addition to a more personal introduction to the librarians, are important steps in getting a student comfortable with approaching the reference desk in the first place.  In addition, closer, more individualized instruction can result in students mastering the tools of information literacy that are required to become lifelong learners in a complicated electronic environment, regardless of the complexity and specialization of their discipline.  The reality is that even an advanced medical student, specializing in neurology, is entering a field in which the kind of research being conducted is in many ways far removed from what they learning as a practicing doctor.  In other words, using electronic databases is not something that comes naturally to anyone and a librarian is someone who is well trained to offer lessons in this area.

Bennett, E., & Simning, J. (2010). Embedded librarians and reference traffic:  A quantitative analysis. Journal of Library Administration, 50. pp. 443-457. doi 10.1080/01930826.2010.491437

Simmons, R. M., Morgan, K. M., & Davidson, S. A. (2012). Time to rethink the role of the library in educating doctors: Driving information literacy in the clinical environment. Journal of the Medical Library Association. Oct 2012; 100(4): 291-296 doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.100.4.011
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484954/

The American Journal of Semiotics

The American Journal of Semiotics was established in 1981 as the official journal of the Semiotic Society of America (Wikipedia, The American Journal of Semiotics).  The journal publishes essays, as well as reviews of works, dealing with semiotics.  It is an international journal, and is published quarterly.  The journal’s editorial board consists of professors from mostly American universities, including Purdue, Pennsylvania State University, Indiana University, and the University of California-Berkeley.

The journal considers itself multidisciplinary, as is evident in the nature of the field itself. Its goal is to explore the nature of communication and meaning.  Defined on the back of the title page of the journal, semiotics is the study of “signs and sign systems in order to describe, analyze, and interpret the full range of communication and culture experienced as discourse codes.” The discipline explores culture experienced as different codes of discourse, this may include works of consumer goods, art, events, and social norms, as well as texts.  The field of semiotics allows a student or researcher in anthropology to explore these different events and objects as cultural codes that work to communicating explicit and implicit messages and are part of cultural experience.

Articles in The American Journal of Semiotics range from topics on phenomenology, rhetoric, and visual art analyses, as well as articles written on theorists such as Lacan, Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, and Foucault.

The American Journal of Semiotics is available both online, through the Kent State Library, and in print at the Kent Main library up until 2000.

Website: http://semioticsocietyofamerica.org/the-american-journal-of-semiotics/

The surprising(?) fun of anthropology

This week's subject of study is anthropology, and as has been the case with most of our subject so far, what stood out to me was the surprising diversity of the field.  I had previously been guilty of believing that anthropology was only the study of old, mostly prehistoric, cultures--mostly I had thought of archaeology being the profession, or area of study, for an anthropologist.  As it turns out, as discussed by Jason Paling in his introductory video-lecture here, anthropology is hardly limited to any particular time or place, but is rather far more broad and inclusive.

This better understanding of anthropology as a field of study begins to open up many avenues for research, many of which seek to examine some of the more odd and fun aspects of both our own, and others', culture.  The blog Savage Minds caught my attention this week, as this blog applies the study of anthropology to some rather interesting and fun aspects of the culture around us. The blog describes its mission as being a blog dedicated to accessible, well-written and relevant discussions on sociocultural anthropology. The blog is authoritative enough for anyone interested in the field, as the contributors range from graduate students to professors.  Among the topics covered recently are, The semiotics of bubble tea, the mystification of the economy, and a description of media archaeology, as well as a few entries on the issue of describing what it is that anthropologists do.  I found the article on bubble tea to be particularly entertaining, and insightful into trends of modernism, post-modernism, and individualism that can be identified in even a simple commodified beverage.

Apart from blogs, my research using the Anthropology Plus database this week pulled up an article about studying folklore as a means for tracking changes in attitudes and values among different cultures. The article, entitled Folklore research and the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Series, written by Christine Goldberg for The Journal of American Folklore, reveals the intersection of  archaeology with mythology, literature and a culture's memory.  The article prompts discussion on exploring the role of folklore in different cultures and the way that different attitudes and beliefs are contained and transported over time in these tales.  This brings up further questions as to how these resources could be used for various different research projects involving cultures past and present.

A quick look at the sub-Reddit for anthropology, reveals many other interesting current discussions in the field.  Forum discussions include ways in which modern technology (specifically, lasers) are being implemented in archaeology, Amazon warrior names inscribed in Greek vases, and views from a Siberian hermit on why civilization is frightening.

If at all anything, all of this reveals that a reference librarian in anthropology will have their work cut our for them, but also that they will always be encountering something new.  Anthropology is a field that engages the imagination in opening up creative ways of viewing our culture along with others, and how to further investigate popular phenomenon in a larger historic and sociological context.




Paling, J. (2013) Lecture 1 - Introduction to Anthropology [video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuwcqBOOEdE

An Economic Analysis of Democracy - Evaluation

Written by professor of American economics, Randall G. Holcombe in 1985, An Economic Analysis of Democracy gives students of economics and politics a view of the relationship between American democracy and the economy.  Professor Holcombe uses different theoretical models in order to analyze the current workings of a voter model system influenced by special interests in order to come up with insights in to forming an effective model for economic decision making based on majority rule.

The book is relatively recent enough to offer students a foundation of fairly recent economic theories that have been influential in the past several decades, as well as allowing for a student to reflect on how Holcombe’s theory might be revised in order to reflect more contemporary views and conditions. Most of all, this work would form a good grounding as to point the student in a direction for generating new ideas as to the inner connectivity of democratic principles and economic theory and policy making.

Including the index, the book is 270 pages and includes a ten page bibliography that offers readers further reading into the theories discussed in the book.  At the time of writing the book, Randall G. Holcombe had been teaching economics at Auburn University for almost ten years, in addition to having been a faculty member at Texas A&M University. He has been widely published in economic journals and has written around five other books on American economics.

An Economic Analysis of Democracy is part of the Political and Social Economy series out of Southern Illinois University Press. Other books in the series include:

• ·         Economic Thought and Social Change by J. Ron Stanfield
• ·         Origins of Economic Thought and Justice by Joseph J. Spengler
• ·         The Political Economy of the Urban Ghetto by Daniel R. Fusfeld and Timothy Bates
• ·         Toward a Social Economy by Howard R. B. Owen

Economics librarian - where to begin?

Economics is something of a brave new frontier for this aspiring librarian. I would say that I would feel very uncomfortable being a reference librarian in economics as it is something that I have never really thought about too much and involves a lot subjects that I am not particularly fond of.  How this problem could be bridged for me is probably much the same as any student who would be new to this subject. The resources for becoming familiar with economics are not profoundly different from any other subject area.  This was somewhat confirmed in the literature this week. 

In the article "Information Overload," Pauline Melgoza, et al. (2002) discuss the various information habits of social science and economic students attending Texas A&M University. Their interest was in figuring out the preferences of different kinds of library users in order to update their collections to reflect these preferences. It should probably not come as a great surprise that users were interested in accessibility, convenience, ease of use, and accuracy as key considerations, along with speed of retrieval (pp. 34).  From that, it should also come as little surprise that free Internet services reigned supreme as a tool for information resources and retrieval (pp. 35), this is, after all, the age of Google.  Unlike our historian group that we reviewed last week, the economists seem to have more trust in electronic journals, although, much like almost any other group, the study shows that users prefer print books to e-books (pp. 35-6).

In other words, in terms of being a reference guide to economics students, it seems that our general resources are not incredibly different from guiding students in any other discipline.  This is part of what makes being a librarian interesting is that, in theory, when you understand the lay of the land you should be able to help patrons orient themselves to library services and resources despite your own knowledge on the particular subject. Although, in order to truly excel in the field and be of a valuable service to your patrons, the sooner you begin to understand the literature of the discipline, the better.

One of the positive aspects about economics as a subject is that it is a subject with a rather broad appeal, since it is so elementary in other political science majors, as well as having a large impact on ever day life for everyone, academics or not.  In this regard, there are more mainstream, or popular, resources out there that discuss economics.  This can be in the form of popular periodicals, like the Wall Street Journal, or it can be in the form of television shows on news channels, or in the form of pod casts, such as econtalk.org that we explored this week.  These resources are great because they are highly accessible to anyone who has an interest in the material existence of contemporary culture and an examination of the political, historic, and economic factors that make it possible.  There is a large range of topics within economics, so that there is likely to be something that appeals to just about everyone. There is little ability for any topic to escape the gravity of the economy.

The Libguide that stood out to me the most this week was the one put together by UNT, available at http://unt.v1.libguides.com/content.php?pid=348363.  This Libguide is very user-friendly, and even offers PowerPoint presentations on using the library and electronic resources provided by the library. The Libguide offers a list of free Internet sites that serve as convenient places to begin research on economic topics, as well as a top 10 databases list.  The Libguide also offers different lists with recommended resources based on accomplishing different tasks, such as places to go to look up company profiles, costs of living, and government information.

Melgoza, P., Mennel, P. A., Gyeszly, S. D., (2002). "Information Overload." Collection Building. Volume 21 (1), 2002. Pages 32-42. DOI 10.1108/01604950210414716

Encyclopedia of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars

The Encyclopedia of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History, is a three volume set that covers the French Revolution and the rise and rule of Napoleon from 1792 to 1815.  This encyclopedia was published by ABC-CLIO, a publisher that focuses on history reference works for academic audiences, in 2006.  The encyclopedia is intended for students and general readers, and serves as a good resource for anyone looking for an extraordinarily broad resource on the French Revolution, or on continental Europe during this time period. This resource would serve as a great starting point for any student or reader who is only just getting familiar with this time period and needs a very broad and general overview.  It will not go into a great deal of detail, however, it will show very loosely how different events and persons are connected, and serve as a guide to the general layout of the French Revolution and its aftermath.

The description offered by a bookseller (http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-French-Revolutionary-Napoleonic-Wars/dp/1851096469) boasts that the encyclopedia contains insights from international experts, and so, offers readers diverse perspectives from authoritative sources.  The reviewer goes on to claim that the encyclopedia offers insight into the "full continent-wide impact of France's revolution from aristocracy, to democracy, to military autocracy."  Given the scope of the subjects covered in this three volume set (1,213 pages), a reader should remain a bit skeptical as to the depth in which these issues are treated.

This reference work features 900 entries, which are alphabetically arranged, a number of maps documenting the expansions and contractions of the Napoleonic empire, as well as battles, a chronology of important dates, a glossary of military and naval terminology, a collection of a few brief essays, and a small collection of primary resources.  The entries are on battles, commanders, weaponry, treatises, and other key figures and events.  Each of the entries contains see also references to guide the reader to related events, battles, commanders, and related issues, as well as a small bibliography, or list of further readings (typically about five sources per entry). The dates of resources cited appear to mostly be recent publications, with a majority of them being published since the 1970s and many in the 2000s, however, they do extend back as far as the 1800s as well.  The average entry length appeared to be around two columns (about a page and half), although some entries run for a couple pages.

The primary sources featured in the third volume could be an interesting value to students, although most of them are probably available on the Internet or other databases. These documents include:

• William Pitt's speech to the House of Commons, Feb 1793
• Treaty of Amiens
• First Treaty of Paris, May 30, 1814
• Second Treaty of Paris, Nov. 20, 1815
• Declaration of the Powers against Napoleon March 13, 1815

The encyclopedia includes a short biography of the editor, Gregory Fremont-Barnes.  Fremont-Barnes received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in modern history, he spent eight years lecturing on American and European history in Japan, and he has published a number of books on American and European history, as well as editing a five volume history of the American Revolutionary War.

Historian Information Sources

 In their article, Historians and Their Information Sources, Margaret Stieg Dalton and Laurie Charnigo (2004), found that historians are seldom overwhelmed by information overload.  This is surprising considering the abundance of electronic journals and databases with a proliferation of resources on an over-abundance of topics. Part of this reason might be the greater specialization seen in many academic fields that have left some historians feeling as though their particular field is under-represented in the available databases. Another problem that occurs is that particular libraries and universities do not have access to all available databases, and as a result, some historians are denied access to potentially useful resources (pp. 414-5).

Interesting, as well, is that the historians maintain a distrust toward e-journals in general and remain fixed on the use of printed sources as a more trustworthy information source (pp. 414).  Perceived problems with e-journals and databases included (pp. 412-4):

• Sources not having the needed information
• Sources not covering the dates needed
• Sources not offering full text
• Sources not having a worldly view, being mostly Anglo-oriented
• Inadequate indexing terminology
• Problems with sources in non-English languages and translations

 The historians surveyed expressed an opinion that e-journals were often more useful to undergraduate students, as opposed to true scholarship (pp. 414).

Early on in the article, the authors characterize history as being a kind of sense-making of a heap of facts (pp. 400), and as such, the historian is characterized as being interested in primary sources and historical objects, as well as being highly interdisciplinary.  With a high interest and focus on wading through these heaps of facts from a multifaceted world of knowledge and information, it is a shame that electronic resources are being under-appreciated in this discipline (at least, as this article shows); electronic databases have the potential of uniting disciplines almost seamlessly through the use of Knowledge Organization Systems, and ideally, should result in less travel expenses and leg work on the part of the scholar. Instead, the resources are viewed (perhaps rightfully so) as containing research that is not as rigorous or valuable as their physical counterparts, and historians are still waiting to see a greater maturation of e-resources.

Dalton, S. M., (2004). Historians and Their Information Sources. In College & Research Libraries.
Vol. 65. No. 5. pp. 400-425. http://crl.acrl.org/content/65/5/400.full.pdf+html

Royal Society 
The website royalsociety.org offers a unique perspective on the history of science from an interdisciplinary perspective.  I was most interested in the different research projects that the Royal Society is currently involved in. Among the projects are:

• Constructing scientific communities
  This is a look at how scientific communities entered into the popular cultures of the 19th and 21st centuries.  This project is interesting because of the rising interest that seems to be had in promoting STEM curriculums, television programs based on scientific discovery, the popularity of science fiction as entertainment, and the growing interest in Maker Spaces, with their focus on technology.
• Publishing the Philosophical Transactions: the social, cultural, and economic history of a learned journal 1665-2015
  As the title of the research project indicates, this project aims to illuminate researchers on the socio-economic historical development of very old, circulating scientific journal. This project really highlights the interdisciplinary nature of history.
• Origins of science as a visual pursuit
  Another project that widens the scope of historical study. This project examines the effect of art and artists on natural philosophers of the 17th century, and how their relationship effected the development of both the arts and the sciences.

Lib Guides
The lib guide that stood out the most to me, was the lib guide published by David C. Murray at Temple University, last updated 2014 (http://temple.v1.libguides.com/content.php?pid=1264&sid=5395).  This lib guide offers suggestions for print and electronic resources down both the left and right navigation areas that include resources that are of a high interest to history students. Each of the sections that are offered by this lib guide are very nicely divided and easy to follow. The section on databases is divided into three tiers, with the top tier offering the most comprehensive collections of articles.  Finally, Murray has separated primary and secondary resources along with definitions of each and guides on how to find each type of resources.