School Library Media Research Articles

Media Centers and Special Education

For special educators, a collaborative relationship with the school's library media specialist provides a unique opportunity to level the educational playing field for students with disabilities. When appropriately equipped and managed, the library can empower students to work independently and productively. The library is also potentially a source of educational information about disabilities for students, teachers, and families that can enrich and normalize their experiences. However, little has been published concerning the relationship between special education and libraries or describing best practices in this area. This special topical issue of Intervention in School and Clinic provides an overview of the existing literature, along with concrete strategies for developing, equipping, and operating collaborative library-based programs for students with mild to moderate learning and behavior problems. This article discusses the various roles the media center may play in the lives of students with disabilities, describes the ways in which teachers and library media specialists can collaborate to meet the needs of students with disabilities, and provides an overview of access to library resources from both physical and technological perspectives.

Creating and Sustaining Problem-Based Partnerships among Graduate, Undergraduate, and K-12 Learners: Opportunities and Challenges

This article outlines a K-12 college learning partnership that has evolved over the past two years at the University at Albany, SUNY. Two faculty members with the School of Information Science & Policy (SISP) Joette Stefl-Mabry and Jennifer Goodall Powers, with administrative support of their Associate Dean, Carol Doll, have integrated problem-based learning (PBL) into graduate and undergraduate curricula to establish partnerships with local K-12 school districts. Dynamic PBL environments link K-12 schools, School Library Media (SLM) graduate students, and undergraduate students majoring in information science to develop content, delivery, and assessment methods for K-12 curricula while at the same time strengthening graduate and undergraduate curricula by incorporating real-world challenges into coursework. Through this partnership, K-12 schools benefit from research-based best practices in educational technology and information science graduate and undergraduate students experience real career situations within educational environments. Over the course of a semester, SLM graduate students wrestle with theory and practice in K-12 curriculum, as undergraduate students develop Web pages based on research theory summarized by their graduate student partners. Stefl-Mabry and Powers collaboratively create and/or adapt instructional methods to meet the educational requirements of graduate and undergraduate curriculum as it relates to the specific needs and abilities of their students and the learning needs of K-12 environments. PBL enhances learning and provides new instructional models for SLM graduate students to emulate as educators when they are employed in K-12 communities.

Sponsor a student

In Sri Lanka, where I went to medical school, as in other developing countries, there are many medical students who are bright but whose parents cannot afford to pay for their university education. The education system in Sri Lanka has been free since Sri Lankan independence from British rule in 1948. Despite this, students from poorer families face difficulties. A large number of these students are from rural areas. The living expenses are high in the cities and the medical textbooks expensive. Medical school libraries are usually small with only a few copies of each textbook available, limited to overnight borrowing. During my medical school days, we studied from notes we took down during …

大学医学図書館員による正規授業での利用者教育の現状

The use of electronic information has been increasing in medical science. Medical students need to know how to get the information that they want. Medical librarians are specialists on medical information and must be able to help medical students find what they need. Consequently, medical school librarians should provide user education opportunities, including topics on information literacy in regular classes. Questionnaires were mailed to 80 medical school libraries. 72 libraries (90%) responded. In 45 of these libraries (62%), librarians are presently teaching user education in regular classes and in 8 of them (11%), librarians were teaching before. The major reason why the librarians had started to teach such classes was because of requests from teachers. In 17 of 53 libraries (32%), the librarians felt that teaching regular classes was very hard work because it takes much time to prepare for teaching. Most librarians are teaching medical literature retrieval. The results of the survey seem to show that most medical librarians wrestle with teaching user education in regular classes. Whether librarians continue to teach such topics in regular classes depends on the opinions of teachers and it is an important issue in future.

FAQs and Tips About Electronic Journals on Library Web Sites

Frequently asked questions or FAQs, tip sheets, or question-and-answer guides are often used in library Web sites to transfer information of interest to library users. In an effort to create a new FAQ section on a medical school library Web page, a review of over 100 medical school library Web sites was conducted to assess what types of information were being distributed about electronic journals, in particular, and services and issues related to electronic resources, in general. It was surprising that many sites had no type of FAQ section on any topic, while others gave extensive information on the broad aspects of acquiring, managing, and using electronic journals. This discussion will summarize the various types of information that are available on medical school library Web sites, and will highlight quality examples of each of the aspects that have been outlined.

A Study of Consumer Health Links on Medical School Library Home Pages

This article studies the status of consumer health information on medical school library home pages in the United States. Examined are terminology, format, and selection of consumer health resources. A top ten list is compiled and compared to lists of the Medical Library Association and Google.com.

データベース 日本医科大学図書館におけるＤｉａｌｏｇＷｅｂの提供状況

DialogWeb is an information retrieval system that enables more than 500 databases on the Internet to be referenced. DialogWeb was first introduced at the Nippon Medical School Library in 1999 and continues to be used today. The user selects from a menu that classifies the databases and is taken to a reference screen. The search engine has several search modes that enable two or more databases to be crossreferenced. The user is provided with a manual that has been created by the library based on the available features. When the use of DialogWeb was analyzed in fiscal 2003, the author name reference mode for two or more databases, fulltext, and SCI, etc. were found to be well used. Databases on the themes of cultural sciences or general technology were also used by general education students. The validity of DialogWeb as a reference tool was also confirmed.

The Maine Electronic Document Delivery Project

The article discusses an Ariel(r) document delivery project with seven Maine hospital libraries, the University of Massachusetts Medical School Library (UMass), and the New England Regional office of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Funding was awarded to six network members to purchase equipment or Ariel(r) software. UMass served as a document provider. During the test, libraries received documents from UMass via Ariel(r) or via the Web as a PDF document. This form of document delivery was faster than standard service with better quality of delivered articles. The column describes the project and outlines possible future steps.

The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries Annual Statistics: an exploratory twenty-five-year trend analysis.

This paper presents an exploratory trend analysis of the statistics published over the past twenty-four editions of the Annual Statistics of Medical School Libraries in the United States and Canada. The analysis focuses on the small subset of nineteen consistently collected data variables (out of 656 variables collected during the history of the survey) to provide a general picture of the growth and changing dimensions of services and resources provided by academic health sciences libraries over those two and one-half decades. The paper also analyzes survey response patterns for U.S. and Canadian medical school libraries, as well as osteopathic medical school libraries surveyed since 1987. The trends show steady, but not dramatic, increases in annual means for total volumes collected, expenditures for staff, collections and other operating costs, personnel numbers and salaries, interlibrary lending and borrowing, reference questions, and service hours. However, when controlled for inflation, most categories of expenditure have just managed to stay level. The exceptions have been expenditures for staff development and travel and for collections, which have both outpaced inflation. The fill rate for interlibrary lending requests has remained steady at about 75%, but the mean ratio of items lent to items borrowed has decreased by nearly 50%.

Chat Reference Service in Medical Libraries

An increasing number of medical school libraries offer chat service to provide immediate, high quality information at the time and point of need to students, faculty, staff, and health care professionals. Part 2 of Chat Reference Service in Medical Libraries presents a snapshot of the current trends in chat reference service in medical school libraries. In late 2002, 25 (21%) medical school libraries provided chat reference. Trends in chat reference services in medical school libraries were compiled from an exploration of medical school library Web sites and informal correspondence from medical school library personnel. Many medical libraries are actively investigating and planning new chat reference services, while others have decided not to pursue chat reference at this time. Anecdotal comments from medical school library staff provide insights into chat reference service.

The Impact of CD-ROM in the University of Ghana Medical School Library

Reports on a study of the impact of CD-ROM on access to health information in the Ghana Medical School Library by faculty members, students, residents or medical officers and other health personnel. In particular, it assessed the impact of CD-ROM use on faculty research output and clinical practice of doctors. The results indicate a generally low level of CD-ROM use among respondents. Only 21 percent were found to use the service. Faculty members accounted for 47 percent of CD-ROM users, and the study showed that the use of CD-ROM has had a great effect on faculty research outputs. However, clinicians have been able to make only limited use of the service in support of clinical practice. In general, the CD-ROM service has had a positive impact due to its comprehensiveness and effectiveness in bibliographic identification and the useful abstracts it provides. Includes recommendations for the improvement of the service.

Harvey Blank, 1918–2001

Harvey Blank, 1918–2001

日中両国の大学医学図書館ウェブページサービスの現状と発展方向

Objective: To clarify the actual status of Web page services available at medical school libraries in Japan and China and discuss the possibility of their future development.Methods: Questionnaire surveys of medical school libraries in Japan and China and of library users were conducted.Results: Questionnaires were returned by 129 libraries (111 of them offer Web page services) and 240 users. A high proportion (more than 80% in Japan and 60-80% in China) of the libraries offering Web page services carry out such basic services as access to OPAC, access to electronic journals, a link-site service, and provision of e-mail addresses for communication. However, fewer libraries offer a document delivery service connected with OPAC searches, annotation of link sites, and preparation of reference question forms.Discussion: Based on the opinions in user questionnaires and our access survey of selected Web sites (including several advanced sites in the USA), we propose some improvements in Web page services from the viewpoint of (a) use of the Web pages as an all-round guide to library services, (b) expansion of traditional library services on the Web, and (c) connecting traditional services with the services peculiar to the Web.

Postgraduate training in public health medicine: St George's Hospital Medical School Library public health information service.

This article examines the development of the St George's Hospital Medical School Library public health information service. Begun in 1997 as a pilot project to support Public Health Specialist Registrars in South Thames West, it is now an established part of postgraduate training in the region. An outline of the service is described, including the evolution of the post of Public Health Librarian. Issues influencing the development of the service, and the establishment of the Librarian as part of the public health network are discussed. This is a transferable model of public health information provision, which as a centralized resource makes best use of available funding. As a LIS model it is an effective and efficient way of maximizing resources, and delivering a service to a specialist user group that is spread across a wide geographical area.

The Role of the Principal in the Evaluation of the School's Library Media Specialist

As many library media specialists in the United States know, administrators' evaluation of their work seldom covers the many facets of work in today's school media center. Many factors combine to compromise the utility of the evaluation of library media specialists by the school administrator. Paramount among these factors are: (a) increased demands on the school principal as the instrument of accountability; (b) the tendency to use an evaluation model designed for teachers, not library media specialists; and (c) the dramatic changes that have occurred in the work of the library media specialist. This author analyzes briefly each of these influences and makes recommendations about altering the evaluation of the school's library media specialist to provide a more effective means of helping achieve information literacy, one of the 21st century's goals in the education of American children.

Haematology at a Glance

Textbooks get you honours. I am convinced that the vast majority of students can pass even final medical exams without any recourse to books. They certainly don't need reference to those weighty tomes that seem only ever to be found on dusty shelves in medical school libraries. Perhaps the odd vade mecum such as the Oxford Handbook of Medicine and the British National Formulary are almost essential to a good student, but people pass exams without them. The …

Jenner's cowskin

On a wall in a quiet corner of the medical school library of St George's Hospital, London, hangs a massive glass case, only a few inches in depth. A life-size bronze statue of John Hunter (a fine likeness) stands diminutively to one side. The case protects the hide of “Blossom”, the Gloucester cow that provided Edward Jenner the opportunity for his first experimental attempt at using cowpox (instead of human smallpox) in inoculation.

Intraoperative, Laparoscopic, and Endoluminal Ultrasound

This is an interesting and potentially useful book. It clearly occupies a niche, but it is not unique. There are other recent texts on interventional ultrasound, and ultrasound in surgery, with similar content. As the title suggests, the current text covers a broad range of topics in the use of ultrasound in surgery. There are two chapters that may be of value to neurosurgeons (brain and spinal canal), as well as chapters dealing with urologic topics including ultrasound of the genitourinary system, and endoluminal ultrasound of the prostate. Three chapters deal with intraoperative ultrasound of the gastrointestinal tract (liver, pancreas, and biliary system). Two other chapters discuss laparoscopic ultrasound and endoluminal ultrasound of the gastrointestinal tract. In addition, there are brief chapters on the use of ultrasound in thoracic surgery and surgery of the breast. In keeping with the text’s broad scope, there is also a chapter on intraoperative vascular ultrasound. This breadth of coverage probably enhances the value of the text for the radiologist/ultrasonographer, but diminishes its value for the practicing surgeon. I believe this is by design because the former group seems to be the intended audience. Although the book is devoted to “surgical” ultrasound, 20 of the 21 authors are radiologists and one is a gastroenterologist; no surgeons contributed to the chapters. There is, furthermore, no chapter on ultrasound principles, nor a basic science review of ultrasound physics; it is assumed that the reader already has a good knowledge of ultrasound techniques and interpretation. This makes the book less suited for the physician who uses ultrasound occasionally, or the clinician who wants to learn about the use of this modality in his practice. Some chapters have excellent descriptions of techniques to insure high-quality ultrasound studies, but the book is not a substitute for formal training in ultrasonography. Several chapters are quite comprehensive, with good coverage and plenty of references, including the chapters on intraoperative ultrasound of the liver, intraoperative vascular ultrasound, and endoluminal ultrasound of the rectum and anus. Other chapters are disappointingly brief, with very cursory coverage. In particular, coverage of intraoperative ultrasound of the pancreas and the breast and endoscopic ultrasound of the gastrointestinal tract would have benefited from expansion. Regardless of the extent of coverage of specific topics, this book should win an award for the highest quality image reproduction among medical textbooks. Although ultrasound images are notoriously “fuzzy,” those selected for inclusion in this text are remarkably clear and crisp. Occasionally, specific ultrasound findings were discussed, but corresponding images were not provided. Nonetheless, this is not an atlas of ultrasound findings, and does not pretend to be. Most surgeons will not want to buy this book, but it certainly deserves shelf space in their hospital or medical school library. The surgeon who is already familiar with ultrasound and uses this modality may want to add this book to his or her personal collection, after comparing it with one of the other available texts on surgical ultrasound to be certain of buying the one that will be most useful in his or her practice.

Mrs Lilian Sargeant MBE FLA 1907–98

Mrs Lilian Sargeant MBE FLA 1907–98

Differential CO2 Based Demand Control Ventilation (Maximum Energy Savings & Optimized IAQ) HISTORY, THEORY AND MYTHS

ABSTRACT Demand control ventilation (DCV) utilizing continuous outdoor and indoor (differential) carbon dioxide (CO2) measurements is an elegant closed loop feedback control methodology for determining damper position in a continuously changing HVAC system environment and subsequently maintaining a constant steady-state ventilation air (CFM) per person level. This article deals directly with the numerous misconceptions surrounding this technology as well as its applications as an energy conservation measure and commissioning tool. Summarized below are some of the benefits of adopting the DCV technology utilizing differential CO2 measurements: • Identifies over-ventilating systems and systems that under- and over-ventilate (e.g. VAV). • Makes use of existing computer controls, motors, and actuators, thereby keeping costs to an absolute minimum. • Saves significant amounts of electric and thermal—calculated simple payback of less than 10 months at a major medical school library. • Particularly well-suited f...