Andrew Creamer*, Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Cambridge, United States Myrna Morales*, Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Cambridge, United States Track: Practice Presentation Topic: Web 2.0-based medical education and learning Presentation Type: Poster presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2009-06-20

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Health/Medical Librarians have traditionally focused on the retrieval of information through paper journals and books and their electronic equivalents. However, due to the accessibility and evolvement of the Internet, global collaboration among biomedical researchers has increased and produced large data collections and data sets at an alarming rate. Some information professionals have developed tools for accessing these data. No one entity has taken the opportunity to identify these collections and tools in order to foster information sharing. The New England Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM, NER) recognizes the training and one-stop shopping access to resources that will help health/medical professionals support this global collaboration. As a result, a subcontract was awarded to Elaine Martin DA, Director of the Lamar Soutter Library of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA to create an e-Science portal to facilitate learning and collaboration among librarians.

Andrew and I were recruited to this project by Dr. Martin to identify topics and resources that will assist the librarian in his/her training and learning in order to better support biomedical researchers. This poster presentation will document and outline methods by which health information professionals can identify and evaluate resources for an e-Science web portal that will be hosted by a major medical school library website and a regional National Network of Libraries of Medicine website.

Using an Evidence-Based approach, Andrew and I will meet with Dr. Martin and the portal’s editorial review board to begin identifying topics and exemplar links, such as NCBI databases and Biotools, which are used by the molecular biology, research scientist community. Understanding that health information evaluation is a primary need on a global scale, it becomes important to document the criterion utilized by seasoned medical/health information professionals. It also becomes important to identify strategies that are efficient and effective for accessing biomedical research information. As the medical/health/molecular biology information field continues to rapidly evolve, traditional methods of identification and evaluation could potentially become more a liability than an asset for a librarian; therefore documenting and outlining innovative, unconventional, yet credible and valuable methods for identification and evaluation is a necessity. How librarians may use a resource that brings the variety of data sets, information seeking tools, and retrieval tools together will also be assessed.