How Does Pretesting for PubMed Knowledge Spark Student Learning?

Predoctoral students enter dental school with varying skill levels for searching biomedical databases and a tendency to overestimate their abilities. Accordingly, PubMed instruction is embedded within a required dental course and includes a graded component. This article describes a pretest/intervention/posttest developed for the PubMed session. The expectation for this new assessment was that motivation to learn PubMed would increase during the intervention if pretesting objectively showed students the difference between their self-perceived versus actual PubMed abilities. The goals were to help students better self-assess their genuine searching abilities, spark learning during the instruction session, and elicit measurable improvement in skills.

Staff development planning in an academic health sciences library.

OBJECTIVE: A staff development committee (SDC) was convened to implement staff development opportunities for an academic health sciences library system comprised of three separate facilities. The charge for the SDC was to: (1) develop programs to enhance workplace skills and personal growth, (2) communicate the availability of existing programs at the university and medical center, and (3) encourage the staff to participate in these opportunities. PROGRAM: The committee created goals and objectives and developed a survey designed to give staff the opportunity to provide input for this initiative. With an 80% response rate, the survey results were used to plan 15 events based on staff needs and preferences. First-year attendance for SDC-sponsored events was 459. Committee members served as liaisons for each event. Two forms were developed to facilitate event planning. A monthly announcement sheet, email reminders, and the library's local area network are used to communicate upcoming SDC events and encourage attendance. CONCLUSION: This approach can serve as a useful model for similar program planning in any organization.

Assessing the information needs of psychiatric residents.

OBJECTIVE: Staff at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic Library conducted a survey of residents and fellows to determine their informational needs and their interest in an orientation to the library's resources. METHODS: A brief questionnaire was distributed to the facility's 59 psychiatric residents and fellows to determine their awareness of 12 library resources and services (e.g., online databases and database searches conducted by librarians), their interest in an orientation to these resources and services, their self-rated level of skill in using them, whether they would attend training sessions, and, if so, when the best time for such sessions might be. RESULTS: A total of 28 questionnaires were returned. Respondents favored an orientation (82%) and indicated that a 1-hour session would be appropriate, although the best time to hold it was less clear. Fifty percent or more were aware of each of the six resources they would be most likely to use in their work. Nearly all had used MEDLINE, but most respondents had not used most of the other resources and services. CONCLUSIONS: Instruction on the use of information resources can be useful to psychiatric residents and fellows. On the basis of the survey results, a library orientation session was developed to address the information needs indicated by respondents and to enhance their skills in retrieving pertinent literature for clinical care and research. A post-orientation questionnaire indicated that the session was useful and well received.