Afternoon Session 1: Data Management

Session Moderator: Dr. Sue Yeon Syn
Great Room C

Data Needs and Data Services: How Library Information Professionals Can Contribute to Data Management by Christopher Belter, Bibliometrics Informationist, National Institutes of Health Library; Kevin Gunn, Coordinator of Religious Studies and Humanities Services, The Catholic University of America; Kimberly Hoffman, Lead, Science and Technology Team and Mercer Library, George Mason University; and Dr. Ingrid Hsieh-Yee, Professor, Dept. of Library and Information Science, The Catholic University of America

This panel will discuss how library information professionals can contribute to data management by supporting the data needs of researchers and providing innovative data services. Dr. Ingrid Hsieh-Yee will discuss the scope and nature of research data management and highlight how library information professionals can support scholars’ data needs and ensure long-term access to research data. In the context of researchers’ many data needs, including data access, data management, and data preservation, Kimberly Hoffman will present on librarians learning, launching and sustaining data services, whether as a standalone service or working with a group. Christopher Belter will highlight the various data-intensive services provided by the NIH Library–such as bibliometrics, custom website design, and data visualization–to demonstrate the range of opportunities for librarians to provide data services beyond management and archival. Kevin Gunn will discuss the varied needs of humanities and social science scholars and recurring data issues that are common in these disciplines, such as data integrity, access and availability, stewardship, librarian training and professional service ethic, and collaboration among “unequals.” By addressing these issues, library information professionals will contribute to knowledge creation and digital scholarship.

Afternoon Session 2: Innovative Research

Session Moderator: Dr. Sung Un Kim
Great Room B

Systematic Reviews and Evidence-based Research by Cynthia Thomes, University of Maryland University College

Over the past two and a half decades or so, there has been ever-growing interest in evidence-based research; decision makers at all types of institutions and organizations are increasingly being asked to justify their decisions by demonstrating that they have thoroughly searched the existing literature and have drawn appropriate conclusions from it. In my presentation, I will explain what systematic reviews are and how they differ from traditional literature reviews, and discuss how systematic reviews have contributed to the evidence-based practice movement. I will discuss the steps involved in conducting a systematic review and some of the proposed standards for reporting search results (e.g., PRISMA). I will also mention specific tools that can be used for conducting systematic, evidence-based research (e.g., discovery tools) and will demonstrate search skills that will help ensure that search results are comprehensive as well as relevant.

Non-Traditional Legislative Research by Tomasz Kolodziej, HoganLovells

Legislative research usually follows a standard set of procedures that draws on a number of usual resources and databases that are both free and subscription. Sometimes, however, we have to be able to step out of our box to find documents that may not be within those databases or are not easily found using usual procedures. In my briefing I would like to give a quick overview of resources that may not be part of the traditional routine, but can also be very useful for legislative researchers. I will discuss how to leverage some of Google's advanced searching tools to find legislative documents such as "site:" to find documents directly at government websites–federal, state, and local.

I will underscore the usefulness of the C-SPAN Video Library as a resource for finding congressional transcripts and other useful legislative information. I will run examples of how the Wayback Machine, archive.org, and the Hathi Trust library can be used for finding historical legislative materials that may not be available on subscription databases. I will mention the usefulness of state law libraries, state archives, state legislature, and other repositories websites for finding historical materials on the state level. For example, Florida State University provides access to older Florida statute materials not easily found elsewhere. Finally, I will discuss how news aggregators such as Lexis Publisher or InfoNgen can be leveraged for legislative research purposes.

Not the School but the Fish: Adding Value to Bibliometrics with Granularity by Sarah Davis and Jamie Roberts, LAC Group at NOAA Central Library

Like many libraries in recent years, the NOAA Central Library has developed a bibliometrics program and publication analysis service. As part of this program, the library has been tracking all peer-reviewed publications authored by NOAA researchers and provides high-level analysis of approximately 2,000 publications annually, with more than 8,000 publications since the project's inception in 2012. The program provides useful insight into the publication output of the organization as a whole.

Also like many libraries, the NOAA Central Library faces ever-increasing expectations with little increase in resources or staff. The library’s bibliometrics program has met this challenge by parsing the data gathered in its large-scale publication tracking project to increase granularity and give more meaningful and manageable analyses of smaller sets within the organization at large. This enables a greater understanding of the production and impact of NOAA’s many autonomous line offices, labs, and programs. By creating boilerplate templates and detailed workflows for creating and reporting bibliometric analyses on this scale, we have been able to leverage existing data sets with minimal additional effort in order to provide offices and programs within NOAA with valuable information regarding their scholarly output.

Expanding the program in this manner highlights the value of bibliometrics to our funding offices and increases the value of the library within the organization, as well as continuing to leverage this data to enhance collection development and outreach functions.

Afternoon Session 3: Community Engagement

Session Moderator: Dr. Renate Chancellor
Room 321/323

Literary Engagement on the Streets: Library Services for the Un-Housed by Christopher Stewart, The Catholic University of America

Community engagement is essential to providing the best services to our communities. This action-based session will provide participants with a usable toolkit. The session will also help participants evaluate who is un-housed, debunk myths regarding the un-housed community and literacy, review ALA’s Extending Our Reach: Reducing Homelessness through Library Engagement, and start the process of creating a manual that can be used in the participant's community.

According to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Washington, DC has some of the highest levels of income inequality and unemployment, which fuels poverty and illiteracy. This session seeks to deepen the community bond and library engagement through literary empowerment, by providing street libraries that are open and available to all. This session will equip participants with a practical toolkit that will creatively engage the community through a lens that is relationship-focused.

Participants will walk away feeling empowered through actionable knowledge by being able to list major library collaborators and grantees that provide similar literary projects, conduct a Community Needs Assessment Survey, and demonstrate how their communities can best be served through relationship-based community engagement practices.

Public Programs as Opportunity: Increasing Value in U.S. Academic Music Libraries by Nicholas Brown, Library of Congress, The Catholic University of America

The current trends in public programs and program-related outreach in U.S. academic music libraries are discussed via a web-based content analysis of fifteen institutions’ presenting activities. Public programs are defined in this context as instructional, educational, informational, or entertainment events (including performances, classes, and workshops) that are open to the general public. Three case studies of best practices are evaluated relating to specific academic music libraries from the randomized sample. Comprehensive recommendations for academic music library programming are presented, based on existing models and initiatives at large government and public libraries with significant music and performing arts collections. Academic music libraries can engage in new broadcast and media opportunities, develop innovative strategic community partnerships, diversify collections, and adjust target audience models in order to drastically enhance and better demonstrate their value. If the recommendations are explored and enacted, music librarians can serve as leaders in the academic library community by showing how branch libraries and subject-specific service points can be leveraged to maintain and expand levels of service.

Health Information Services to New Era Veterans by Beverlee Hall, Veterans Health Administration Medical Center

As the nation recovers from a decade and a half of the global war on terror, it is noteworthy that our population of veterans has changed. The number of WWII and Vietnam veterans continually decreases as the number of Afghanistan and Iraqi war veterans increases. Notable also is the increased number of female veterans, specifically those seeking care at VA Medical Centers.

As this very special population transitions, health information needs and health information seeking behaviors also change. Veterans are assuming greater responsibility for and management of their health care. This has influenced a change in the role of VA health information professionals, clinical librarians and health informationists. New healthcare management tools (i.e., electronic health records, MyHealth E-Vet), transparency directives and patient advocacy trends have not only made health information more accessible to veterans and their families but also changed the provision of health information services. Resource validation (i.e., evidence- based), information literacy training (veterans and clinicians), and evaluation (commercial vs. government-provided resources) present more increasingly complex challenges than those experienced in contemporary, non-health science libraries.

In Veterans Health Administration Medical Centers, health information professionals work with clinical teams, veteran patients, and colleagues from various library venues to provide relevant information and services. However, it is not without challenges. New era veterans, similar to general health consumers, 1) seek health information independent of health care professionals, 2) use technology to a greater extent and in almost all aspects of life, and 3) use online health information to validate/challenge their health care providers.

This presentation discusses these challenges in the context of a VA Medical Center Library and from the perspective of a health information professional who is also a veteran.