English-Language Restriction When Conducting Systematic Review-based Meta-analyses: Systematic Review of Published Studies

Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) February, 2009

The English language is generally perceived to be the universal language of science. The top 10 international medical journals in 11 medical specialties (measured by impact factor) are English-language publications.The exclusive reliance, however, on data that are published in English and that are used as the basis of systematic reviews of health care interventions may not result in an accurate representation of existing evidence. Excluding languages other than English (LOE) may lead to erroneous conclusions, because a language bias is introduced
http://www.cadth.ca/index.php/fr/hta/reports-publications/search/publication/881

Evaluation of query expansion using MeSH in PubMed

Lu Z, Kim W and Wilbur WJ. Evaluation of query expansion using MeSH in PubMed
Information Retrieval Numéro Volume 12, Number 1 / février 2009 Pages 69-80
"This paper investigates the effectiveness of using MeSH® in PubMed through its automatic query expansion process: Automatic Term Mapping (ATM) "
Open access: http://www.springerlink.com/content/a7665w69716219v7/?p=5d299d4e2b3540d4bd2afbf1622604ec&pi=3

Meeting collection development needs in resource poor settings

Kanyengo CW. Meeting collection development needs in resource poor settings: the University of Zambia Medical Library experience
Collection Building 2009 Volume: 28 Issue: 1 Page: 26 - 30
"The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the current state of information resources and approaches used to meet collection development needs at the University of Zambia Medical Library"
Abstract: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01604950910928484

PubMed queries

Yeganova L. How to interpret PubMed queries and why it matters
Journal of the American Society for Information Science 2008 Volume 60 Issue 2, Pages 264 - 274
"A significant fraction of queries in PubMed are multiterm queries without parsing instructions. Generally, search engines interpret such queries as collections of terms, and handle them as a Boolean conjunction of these terms. However, analysis of queries in PubMed indicates that manysuch queries are meaningful phrases, rather than simple collections of terms. In this study, we examine whether or not it makes a difference, in terms of retrieval quality, if such queries areinterpreted as a phrase or as a conjunction of query terms. And, if it does, what is the optimalway of searching with such queries..."
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121503251/abstract

Open access journals

Frandsen TF. Attracted to open access journals: a bibliometric author analysis in the field of biology
Journal of Documentation Year: 2009 Volume: 65 Issue: 1 Page: 58 - 82
"The present study aims to investigate the use of open access by researchers from developing countries and is thus a supplement to the existing author surveys and interviews..."
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&contentId=1766883

Document Supply Service at South Korean Medical Libraries

Shin EJ. The Effect of Mass Purchase on Document Supply Service at South Korean Medical Libraries
Libri International Journal of Libraries and Information Services Vol 58 (2008), No 4, pages 211-311
"Many studies have already reported that document supply service has decreased as a result of electronic journal bundles provided by consortia, but this study shows the matter in a new light. The author performed an analysis to verify the direction that DSS has moved in the past five years at South Korean medical libraries, especially among KMLA (Korean Medical Library Association) members..."
Abstract: http://www.librijournal.org/2008-4toc.html

New approval plan in a health sciences library

Czechowski L. Edging toward perfection: Analysis of a new approval plan in a health sciences library
Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services Volume 32, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 107-111
"Collection management librarians seek to refine an approval plan in order to minimize the number of returns. The University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Libraries created a new plan and spent 18 months evaluating and fine tuning the plan so that returns could be reduced. After that time, it was decided that, given the amount of literature in the health sciences, that the goal of no (or few) returns is not achievable"
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lcats.2008.08.016 [Science Direct]

Headings in information mapping

Kools M,Ruiter RAC,, van de Wiel MWJ, Kok G. The effects of headings in information mapping on search speed and evaluation of a brief health education text
Journal of Information Science, Vol. 34, No. 6, 833-844 (2008)
"The present paper presents a study in which a print health education document was varied systematically in accordance with the Information Mapping method, to examine the effects of heading frequency and information order on participants' search speed and their evaluation of the text layout..."
Abstract: http://jis.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/6/833

SCIndex

SCIndex is the first Serbian Citation Database of scientific literature created by Center for scientific evaluation and National Library of Serbia. That project, supported by Serbian Ministry of science, contains (includes) more than 237 000 full text articles from 357 serbian scientific journals, for biomedical science with starting year is 2000., humanity and arts - from 1991.
Each Monday, 350 new articles are added. SCIndex is accessible from everywhere in the World, every post, server, all you need is internet access, pc or iPhone. Just type http://scindeks.nb.rs/
Which information SCIndex gives? Details about journals, information about where we can find it in which database, or in which library, is there full text articles or not, data about cited authors…
Try it!


(written by Ana Ivkovic)

Predicting Future Information Resource Utilization

Eldredge JD. Predicting Future Information Resource Utilization Under Conditions of Scarcity: The First Cohort Study in Health Sciences Librarianship
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, Vol 3, No 4 (2008) 82-88
Abstract and free full text: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/4127

Medical document retrieval

Névéol A. et al. Natural language processing versus content-based image analysis for medical document retrieval
Journal of the American Society for Information Science 2008 Volume 60 Issue 1, Pages 123 - 134
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121413224/abstract

Open-access publishing in the biological and medical literature

Davis PM. Author-choice open-access publishing in the biological and medical literature: A citation analysis
Journal of the American Society for Information Science 2008 Volume 60 Issue 1, Pages 3 - 8
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121421651/abstract

The EQUATOR Network

Simera I. The EQUATOR Network: facilitating transparent and accurate reporting of health research
Serials: Journal for the Serials Community Volume 21, Number 3 / November 2008
"The EQUATOR Network is a new international initiative that aims to improve the clarity, completeness and transparency of scientific publications by providing resources and education relating to the reporting of health research and assisting in the development, dissemination and implementation of robust reporting guidelines."
More Abstract

Collaboration of Veterinary Libraries

Jaros J et al. Saving the Elusive Past for the Future: A Case Study in Collaboration of Veterinary Libraries
Journal of Agricultural & Food Information 2008 Volume: 9 Issue: 4 pp 329 - 340
"This article presents a collaborative project undertaken by a group of veterinary librarians as an attempt to deal with the problematic nature of grey literature"
More abstract