World Library and Information Congress: 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly
In Helsinki, Finland from 11-17 August 2012
Health and Biosciences Libraries Section Standing Committee
Call for papers
“Using Assessment to Drive Change: Demonstrating the Value of Health Information”
Colleagues from around the world are invited to submit an abstract for consideration for the Open Session sponsored by the Health and Biosciences Libraries (HBL) section.
“I hope librarians are not waiting for people to create a strategy for them. My observation is that professions need to create their own strategy and see if they can sell it. I think librarians need to tell me what it is that only they can do that adds value, and make sure that I can really understand it. ” Nigel Crisp, Chief Executive of the National Health Service (UK) until 2006 and now a member of the House of Lords in the UK Parliament where he speaks on health and development.
Aim and Scope of the Session:
How do librarians measure the impact of what they do? What have we learned about evaluation and assessing impact from business and from other part of the public service and academia? Health libraries are a core part of the infrastructure underpinning clinical practice, teaching, research and delivery of healthcare around the world. Too often they are seen as support services which, while making a valuable contribution to the development of the knowledge base in health, are particularly vulnerable in difficult economic times. As Nigel Crisp makes clear. nobody else can demonstrate the value of what we do. Meeting his challenge will require a rigorously scientific approach to assessment, a detailed knowledge of the expectations of policy makers and management and the communication skills to demonstrate that we can meet them.
Evaluation is where science and policy meet. This session will teach us about scientific approaches to assessing the delivery of health information and how the findings of this assessment support planning and demonstrate how essential our work is to the goal of better health outcomes for all.
Papers may cover some of the following topics:
· Measuring the impact of health libraries: what models should we be using?
· What should we be assessing? We all gather data on usage but what does it actually demonstrate?
· Science is not all about numbers: how have libraries used qualitative methods to measure impact and demonstrate value?
· Why should policy makers/funders/management care? How aware are we of the needs of management and the issues that currently concern them?
· We know what we do is valuable but how do we get it across? Communicating the findings of research and evaluation needs to be tailored to the audience receiving the message.
It is anticipated that presentations be 20 minutes with time for questions at the end of the session.
Important dates:
Friday February 17th 2012: Deadline for submission of abstract
Friday March 16th 2012: Notification of acceptance/rejection
Friday May 4th 2011: Deadline for submission of text
Submission Guidelines
The proposals must be submitted in an electronic format and must contain:
Title of paper
Summary of paper (250 - 350 words maximum)
Speakers name, address, telephone and fax numbers, professional affiliation, email address and biographical note (40 words)
The final paper should preferably be presented as a paper (that may be published on the IFLA website and as an option in the IFLA Journal). If the final presentation will be in the format of a power point, a substantial abstract will be required, including references such as URLs and bibliographies
Submissions should be sent by email to: bgalvin@hrb.ie before Friday February 17th 2012
Brian Galvin. Chair, IFLA Health and Biosciences Libraries Section.
Proposals will be reviewed by a sub-committee of members of HBS Standing Committees.
Please note
All expenses, including registration for the conference, travel, accommodation etc., are the responsibility of the authors/presenters. No financial support can be provided by IFLA, but a special invitation can be issued to authors/presenters if that is required.
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Brian Galvin
Chair / IFLA Health and Biosciences Libraries Section Standing Committee
National Documentation Centre on Drug Use
Health Research Board
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