Further to Emily's comment on library users falling away I would like to say that we have a similar situation. Most users are visiting the library to use the workstations, and this is often medical students checking emails.
I am not sure that this is entirely the result of accessing information on line,although we do now offer a significant number of our journal titles electronically. We plan to instigate a memthod of counting how many hits are made on each title during the coming year. This will help to make better informed decisions on what subscriptions are required for th coming year, but will also provide some evidence on shift of use.
I have noticed as well that the number of inter-library loan requests we receive from journals has fallen sharply over the past few years.
We have checked reports on the union system for the region and this is the same accross the board - the bigger acute hospitals as well as the smaller specialised ones like ours all show a similar pattern.
I know that funding for training courses and higher degree courses has been cut, and that study time is no longer time-tabled into the working week for nursing staff because of staff sortages and recruitment bans, so perhaps this is partly to blame.
The take up for library training sessions has also shown a similar sharp drop.
Perhaps the problem does not lie with the library services offered or the way they are publisiced and packaged but with the way the user perceives the need for continued professional develop and research.
Perhaps time constraints do not allow for continued professional developement to be a priority.
I think we sell the library and its services well, but the number of people buying is certainly in a decline

Vicky's problem with stock is one we experienced until recently.
The majority of our stock quite frankly is not worth pinching!!
However, we do provide a very good collection of student books, and each student receives three titles to retain for the duration of the placement with us (six weeks)
We always struggled receive the total number back and we also contact by email. and threaten and inform the university etc. but even the threat of not graduating until all books areretuned does not produce the required effect!!
May be your debt recovery procedure might work. It may shock borrowers into become returners.
We introduced a deterrent which has met with considerable success.
When beginning placement with us each student is required to leave a blank cheque. This they are informed is to cover replacement costs of non-returned books and their security badges.
When everything is returned the cheque is returned to them.
We have used this system for the last few years, and we have lost an insignificant number of titles in that time.
The students are quite compliable, and although it can be argued some may not possess a cheque book, this has not yet posed a problem.

The university is aware that we have this policy and does not oppose it.
It has saved staff time on overdues, phone calls, text messages, emails etc.
It also has the asvantages of having the books availanle for the next group.
Time is saved and things run smoothly.
Your proposed method may have the same effect, but it seems a little heavy handed and threatening - ours I think is effective but leans more towards gentle persuasion1
Paying for replaceent copies concentrates the mind on making that book return.....

A burning question for our library service is the difficulty not having a guest login account for any emergency, to help users to find information they need. We have to provide temporary internet accounts to library users who are students on work placements, but find that it takes more than a week to get temporary login details and sometimes login details issued to them do not work. This is frustrating for students as when their tutors direct them to use the online databases they come with so much enthusiasm to search for information to do their assignments and it doesn’t work.

Adding to the discussion on training sessions and performing literature searches for users....
Our library web page provides a form that users can complete to request aliterature search to be undertaken by library staff. The form is designed to glean as much information as possible - defining the clinical question, alternative terminology, restraints by time gender etc., what the results will be used for - audit, research etc.
The final question asks whether the user would like a training session or a refresher session. Many answer yes to this. Where this is the case the question they have posed is iused as the example in the training session they attend. This gives them the chance to view the results, and to have considerable input into the search strategy. As the session is designed around their actual need they remain focused.
If the answer is no library staff will perform a search - but as already mentioned - this leaves the problem of critical appraisal - and this is not undertaken for them.
Critical appraisal skills are taught on a time-tabled schedule - but take is very low - so even if the user does conduct a search - is critical appraisal a consideration?
We too find that very few users are interested in any advanced searching methods.
I think as librarians we tend to think we know what our users need because we think they should need current awareness etc etc.
Perhaps we have got it wrong and we should listen rather than assume.
It is difficult to know what areas they would like to be supported in, and difficult to find out.

Paula - in our experience, student nurses have not seemed that interested in electronic books, preferring hard copy, especially when they want to read whole chapters or do anything other than check for a specific detail. With our own e-books collection, we have found the main value to be in the ability to use the platform to search across the collection (the checking for specific detail aspect). Printing restrictions are often remarked upon, indicating that even when accessed electronically, users prefer to (try to) create their own hard copy of required sections.

In response to the literature searching debate, we don't critical appraise papers as yet either but we are thinking that we might offer this service in the future. Does anyone do this already? I agree with tveale that if we do go down this route in the future, it's vital to communicate in more depth with our users.

Requests for training sessions are also declining in our Trust too. One thing is certain from this forum, our profession will definitely be coming up against some challenging and interesting times in the next few years...

I think Judy Dawson raises a very valid point about librarians assumming what users need to know and tailoring services to meet this. However, I think it would be also true to say that library users also have very set ideas about what services we provide and furthermore, what we can/cannnot provide and what we should/shouldn't provide - I think that when questioned, library users would answer books/journals when asked about library services, and of course this is true but it is not the only service. This could be another burning question in our library actually, for although we have few complaints about our service, we also rarely get suggestions for improvements/what could be done better/what the users actually want. So another burning question is...how do we get our users to talk to us and tell us what they want from us.

My Burning Question....
With the start of term and a new intake of nursing, and medical students I have started to think about how we can more effectively measure the impact of our training courses. In previous years we have always provided feedback forms that asked users to rate our training skills as well as asking them to evaluate the content of the session and how useful they think it was etc. But what I really want to know is if the training courses we provide change their searching behaviour, how much of what we cover do the students retain? So last year we started to send follow up questionairres via email (containing a link to an online survey, with quick click answers) we had some responses, but I realised we hadn't measured what their starting knowledge was. So this year we are doing a pre-survey, an evaluation of our teaching and a follow up on whether they are using anything they learnt in the session. I am keen to be able to show lecturers and service users that the time spent in booking training and timetabling etc is time well spent and has an impact. Has anyone else had experience of doing something similar, or know of other reseacrh in this area? I will look through the previous comments and see if anyone else has the same burning question....

Just realised I posted this to the front page... oopps

My burning question is, although our library service is open to all NHS staff within Greater Glasgow and Clyde, we tend to be mainly used by clinical staff and I feel that there is an impression amongst non clinical staff that the Library is for doctors and nurses only. Although we have books on a range of non clinical topics to support pdp, we offer eLearning courses on non clinical topics, we have a member of staff that offers face to face support with basic IT and literacy and numeracy, how can we reach out to non clinical staff to promote these services and resources and encourage them to use the library service?

Until the end of last year the Republic of Ireland was a region within my organisation and the library provided services to them as per any other region. However I have learnt that the RoI organisation are not likely to start their own library.
My burning question is: how do I evaluate the need for a service where I do not know if I can survey the regional members?

Paul,

The team at Leeds University came to speak to us about their research which included measuring information literacy skills of incoming students. Perhaps there's some useful stuff in here.
http://www.cilip.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/BC3793E2-C2F8-43FF-A77C-F941D2D096CB/0/newton.pdf

My burning question relates to the provision of a library service to employees of our local primary care trust by service level agreement. We have provided such a service for at least 10 years, however the levels of funding have proved stagnant or reduced in real terms. Are we providing the service by the correct model or are there more cost effective models available? is having a static library more or less effective than a solely electronic delivery model?

Elizabeth, Thank you for the information it looks as if it will be useful. The comparison between student years is interesting and is something we may be able to look at doing to show the CPD involved in the training year on year. Thanks

Paula: Re: e-books and their acceptability to student nurses, I would agree with Jo, the other students we teach have been more demanding for e-books (social work and mental health students) than our nursing students. Demand still appears to be for multiple hard copies. However through board of studies there has been feedback for more e-books, from the limited user feedback I have some of the frustrion the students have is that there are not enough e-books available. Busy students appear resistant to learn to access e-books if there are only a few to choose from. We are in the process of growing our e-book collection, promoting it more and reducing hard copies. In the short term this may mean more support required for students to access the material and we will monitor the results and feedback.

My burning question is slightly different in that I would like to look at how to establish outreach activities as part of a new post and what evidence is out there to support such a service and what is considered best practice. To give you a little background, I inherited a library in a rather sorry state and have spent the last 9 months establishing library routines so that books are issued and returned rather than just taken, have a catalogue that is accurate (recatalogued and classified the whole library to participate in a
cooperative system)and bought up-to-date material to put on the shelves. We do not have any inductions and only respond to requests for training on a 1-1 basis

I have appointed a new librarian to assist me and I would like to look at the evidence for establishing outreach as part of this post. It would help me look at the best way of doing this rather than me working only with the ideas that I have and would hep me to avoid the pitfalls and mistakes that others have made.

We have very much the same problem as Edith. Clinicians tend to use the library with very little prompting, but other staff groups seem reluctant to make use of the facilties we offer. We have a dedicated member of staff whose responsibility is to offer time-tabled and ad-hoc training sessions on everything electronic - but response to these is poor.
The library service is publicised well in a number of ways, and new staff receive library induction so I feel that the majority of staff are aware of the library service - yet statistics show that we are issuing less books, providing less inter-library loans and receiving less enquiries and training requests than in past years. Electronic resources have had impact but I think this is only a part (and a slight one) of the problem.
This lack of library involvement is part of the reason for my burning question - are books purchased at considerable cost going to remain unused on the shelves making it more appropriate to provide requested titles as inter-library loans? I feel, perhaps because of traditional expectations, that a library should offer a collection of relevant and current titles for loan - but this is hard to justify when loan figures are at an all time low.
I feel that this is lack of interest more than discontent with the quality of th material on offer - but how do I prove it?

I find myself rather bizarrely in a different situation to the one described by Judy and Edith in that our inter-library loan requests have increased hugely from last year (697 journal article requests in the last 5 months). Part of this is probably due to the fact that all NHS libraries in the South Central area offer up to 50 free ILLs per person employed by the NHS and there are no longer charges!
However, the requests for ILLs here could show that the staff are not as knowledgeable at using the e-resources provided and need the Library to act as intermediary for them, whereas the training sessions given to staff in Edith and Judy's libraries, enable the staff to be more self-sufficient. So a reduction in ILLs might be a good indicator?

Sue, we have an outreach librarian post within our library service (currently vacant but we're recruiting soon), we have found it has added a lot of value to our service, we serve staff across the county and, as you have experienced, daily routines such as enquiries, stock management, staffing the library, etc etc does not allow most of us the time to work with and promote our services to those staff who can't easily access our physical libraries. Amongst the outreach librarian's roles were making contacts around the county, delivering tailored training to specific groups, developing our current awareness services, working on a clinical librarian project with the hospital trust. It has proved a great opportunity to promote our services more widely and to raise awareness, it has brought in additional demands for ILLs, literature searches and training sessions. Despite restructuring and job cuts in the organisation, management are very keen for us to recruit to the post again, which I think is a clear indication of its success!

Apologies for being late to the party. I have many burning questions, but the one I'll ask here is: "Marketing Plans: Do they <really> increase footfall & usage?"

Reading through others' comments, I'd like to see a move to more e-journals. I'd like to see a wider purchasing throughout the NHS - with both national and area groupings. i don't want bundling, either! I know this is unlikely; my budget slims down while the publishers fatten up their prices.
However, where we have currently switched to online over print, only one individual complained: most of our users are thrilled at being able to access their favouritie journals 'out-of-hours'. It took about a year to sink in (thus confirming my belief that whether it's a cutback or alternative provision, it isn't noticed for at least nine months...), and we've just run a survey for users. The comments have been highly laudatory.
About online training: I'm a great believer in providing what people need, when they need it. That means that if someone walks in on a Friday afternoon, when my e-trainer doesn't offer courses, then it's my privilege to help them find relevant, pertinent articles - and to show them the "quick 'n' dirty" method, then suggest they undertake some 'proper' training! It's very true that knowledge not used goes rusty quickly: and our enquirers did not come into the field of information! This is our skill! So why not save them time?

I'd also like to see a national project for keeping back issues of hard copy medical journals..other than through recourse to BL...

Thanks Jo and Paul for your thoughts on eBooks and nursing students. Our purchasing of eBooks has been dictated by reading lists, so the content should be in demand. I agree with you both that eBooks don't seem to be their 1st choice; although I've had quite mixed reactions where they either really seem to embrace the format or they completely don't like the idea all. Perhaps this relates to their learning style/preference? I'll be interested to see if I can find any studies.

Sue - I think the rise in demand for ILLs shows that our customers find it easier to fill out a request form rather than 'battle' with the content electronically. I would agree that a reduction in ILLs might be an indicator of training in E-resources. This makes me think that the success of our eBook implementation will rely on our promotion and training as Paul suggests.

I am involved in encouraging users to access web portals that have been developed with their information needs in mind. When promoting these online services (I have mostly demonstrated these services to AHPs and nursing staff) they seem enthusiastic about what is available but then statistics show that after being introduced to the services on offer, don't use it regularly. Mostly they are too busy to explore or search for resources online or they will ask someone in an office based role to access information on their behalf. My burning question is whether these services are needed more or less once they are qualified and past the student and exams stage? Or is the hospital library seen as an extension of the university library that is not used once studies are finished?

This is a delayed response to Stephen Molloy’s question on Informed choice service for information on various aspects of childbirth.

I work for the Specialist collections (www.library.nhs.uk/specialistcollections) that is part of the NHS evidence. This is a service provided by NICE. NHS Evidence (www.evidence.nhs.uk) is a search engine for which specialist collections that are “digital libraries” covering a specific area of health care, provide content. There are specialist collections on women’s health, complementary and alternative medicine, public health, child health and many other specialist areas. These are some of the collections that I feel are providing similar information to that of Informed choice service. All these collections can be searched through a single portal of NHS Evidence.

So I feel it would be a good idea to search both these services and compare the results. I would be interested in knowing you opinion on how NHS Evidence compared to the Informed choice service.

A burning issue that is in the process of resolution at my specialist collection (SC) is the question of Who and What relating to the SC. I am weary of using the term “digital library” anymore, as it is officially called a specialist collection since Apr-09.

Who will be the Stakeholder group for the child health SC, What their role should be, in the SC. This problem is a compound one as the SC is governed by a contract that dictates the content development strategy and day-to-day maintenance. So what role will the stake holder group play in the SC?

The "Who" part of the issue can be answered but without the What part of the issue there might not be enough motivation for the invited organisations to associate themselves with the SC as a stakeholder.

Sorry to make such a late posting. My burning question relates to encouraging users to utilise our new online library management system. In October 2008 we moved over to a new system called Shelcat. This system has a number of benefits for our current service users, including: improved ability to view and reserve materials held in other Health Libraries throughout Scotland; improved access to on-line booking of materials such as books, resources, leaflets and posters. All existing members were contacted and informed about the new online library management system and asked to complete new registration forms, which were completed by the majority of existing users. All new users to the service receive a copy of how to use the new online system, but to date users are still using old systems for ordering materials. For example, faxing copies of leaflet and poster orders forms, ordering books via the phone or sending e-mails. Whilst we welcome all of the aforementioned methods, as we try to ensure users can access the service in a variety of methods, I feel that users aren't reaping the benefits of the new system. Does anyone have any ideas how we can go about marketing the new online system? I have thought about organising a roadshow or a stand at all of the health centres.

In response to Louise who wants to encourage users to utilise their new on-line library management system. We also had a new on-line library management system and like Louise found that in spite of giving all new and indeed old users a copy of how to use the new system, many were still opting for phone, e-mail as well as actually coming to enquiry desk to place reservations, renew books etc. However, we promoted this new service at our Induction Sessions where they also received copy of how to use new system; we also contacted small groups/departments and gave training sessions in how to search catalogue efficiently. We also promoted it via our Newletters, Open Days, Flyers and indeed face to face or over the phone when users contacted us for renewals etc. We now find after over 12 months of having this new system and much promotion of its advantages many users are now beginning to use the on-line system, although we still have a few who insist on Library Staff placing holds etc. for them! So a lot of promotion does pay off in the end Louise.

My burning question relates to self-issue. Is there any evidence to show that self issue systems are cost effective in releasing library staff to perform other tasks; for eaxample, literature searches/training? Also, does it prevent the loss of books and outweigh the cost of having to replace them?
One of our satellite libraries in the PCT is not staffed full time; consequently many books go "astray", as users don't always phone the main library to have books issued correctly, although there are notices clearly displayed asking them to do this. Has anyone found that self issue resolved these problems?

In response to Louise. My question was on the exact same topic (see above). I also work for NHS Scotland, we use the Shelcat, and like you we have not been receiving as many online ILL or photocopy requests as you might expect. There is a comment below my comment that might be of use to you too.

Thanks for pointing this out James. The comments are really useful. As part of the Quality Assurance Framework we are required to develop a training and outreach strategy so the comments made regarding promotional activities are really useful, along with the discussions surrounding developing an outreach strategy.

In response to Ramyas question regarding guest logins. We have a login to use for members of our Trust or known visitors, which we can use if they do not have their own logins. However, we type this in for them, rather than just handing over our password etc. Our students on placement receive their logins from the undergraduate co-ordinator when they arrive on placement. The student logins usually work, if not they have to refer back to the undergraduate co-ordinator who will sort it out with our IT Department.

Ramya, I have generic logins here that allow students or staff who don't have staff emails or logins to use the computers. These logins are restricted for use during our staffed opening hours and was set up by our IT team as they could configure the user accounts in the Active Directory and restrict the hours between which the account can be used.

I am new to the health library sector and read with interest all the information regarding user training which is very useful for me. It is clear that we are all looking for the most effective and cost benefit ways to handle training programmes as this helps to promote our services too.

In my opinion group training is useful as it helps to share experiences, but realise that it may not work so well as each one will have a specific enquiry. 1 to 1 training is useful as we can spend more time with the users. Particularly to those who are new and have not much exposure to using online databases, I think it is good to draw up training sheets with exercises based on the clinical practice/evidence based medicine etc. and give guides to where to go for information, along with links to the websites; and should work through the exercises with them. What is important is to relate our training to their individual needs/practice.

Thank you Teres and Sue for the information about guest logins. I have forwarded the information to my manager so that we can disuss this problem with the IT department.

If the posts in this forum had tags attached it would be very helpful, in that one could search and read all related posts.

On Paula's question on reasons for student preferencse regarding ebooks I would like to suggest they are complex. That might seem an easy way out of the question, but after doing a dissertation on ebooks I can vouch for it!

A variable is the ebook itself ; - is just a scanned copy of a print book with scant adjustment for the e-format? Or has it been born-digital and paid due attention to usability principles like having short pages with less need for scrolling etc.

Then there are different types of access; full access where you can make notes and annotations and mark favorite pages; read only access where you simply can read the book. Full access usually requires registering with the ebook provider, such as Myilibrary etc. Yes, another password and username for the user.

Sometimes a user can be reading an ebook and by pressing a full access feature they will be automatically logged out, if they hadn't registered. ...Imagine having a book whisked away from you by a librarian, while you were in the act of reading it!

This anecdotal evidence, which I captured on computer, using MORAE, screen capture software, led me to understand the commitment and outlay of time and energy that users have to make to just use ebooks, to just read the content.

Therefore training and support in using ebooks is really needed. Users want to access the content and make notes however they wish, on paper, on the ebook plaform, in a word document. Users need to know when to use the subject index or the search facility. Users need to use the contents page of an ebook - it was just a matter of flicking paper with print - and to generally navigate well.
Tutorials could really help with all these issues.

My burning question relates to a slightly different area of work to many of the posts above:

Recently, my organisation has initiatied a "virtual knowledge management directorate" of which my department if a participant. This has raised a whole host of new issues both practical and theoretical in relation to knowledge management and how to make it work within an NHS organisation.

If I were to try and define my burning question more clearly using the SPICE model it would be something like: What is the benefit of implementing knowledge management practices within an NHS body from the perspective of management and employees compared to traditional information management practices? (not sure I covered all the SPICE elements there but you get the idea!)

Following on from the question above, and assuming for the moment that we accept the validity of knowledge mangement practices, what is the most effective way to implement knowledge harvesting and implementation?

I would be very interested to hear what people think about the above questions and how they might have applied knowledge mangement or knowledge harvesting in their own roles.

I have to confess that after being on annual leave for the first two weeks on the course I am trailing behind a bit with the tasks (hence the late posts) and find myself a bit overwhelmed by the number of posts here on the burning questions forum.

I find it interesting that after skimming down the posts and comments above that there are two main strands that seem to interest all of us - namely training dilemmas and online resources. This perhaps reflects the overall "burning questions" of the current information envrionment.

The training discussions are particularly interesting as having worked in two very different NHS organisations I have found the issues around group versus 1:1 and cost savings versus effectiveness to have arisen in both roles and clearly in many of your roles too. Personally I feel that in the case of group versus 1:1 training, which is the best option really depends on the user and the topic of the training. For instance, when a user is lacking in confidence in their abilities or in the use of IT, putting them into a group learning situation can be the worst possible action as they may well feel too intimidated to participate and therefore take away nothing but an increased sense of inadequacy. On the other hand, a training session introducing users to one of the NHS e-libraries in a general sense works well as a group session.

Interestingly, most of the cost effectiveness discussions I have had with management regarding training have revolved around the use of charges to discourage people from non-attendance rather than to make money. Have others had a different experience, and is this different within other sectors e.g. academic libraries?

Just a short comment to apologise for my spelling on the last two posts - I have no excuse except an over-dependence on spell checkers!

In my post from 1.30pm the second last paragraph should read:

Following on from the question above, and assuming for the moment that we accept the validity of knowledge mangement practices, what is the most effective way to implement knowledge harvesting and retention?

The point Jane Smethurst makes about users claiming they "can get everything on Google" is interesting. I bet if the whole NHS core collection was cancelled, users would be up in arms! I find that quite often my users mind something through Google (Scholar), which I don't have a problem with, but end up using their NHS Athens password to access the full text. Because they're not "going in" through NLH/NHS Evidence, they don't appreciate that the NHS has paid ££££s to access that article. So they don't appreciate how much we (library services) do.

Apologies for my tardiness in entering this discussion, my excuses being annual leave and generally being busy.

I work for a strategic health authority, thus a lot of the information that is of interest to us isn't necessarily "exclusively" healthcare information. For example, recent pieces of work have included demand management (health economists worrying about the fact that demand/use of A&E depts keeps increasing, despite expensive initiatives such as walk in centres, minor injuries units etc that were supposed to relieve the burden) and education quality - an ongoing function of the SHA is to ensure that universities (the SHA commissions all HE healthcare courses in the region) are producing (if that's the right word) graduates that are "fit for purpose", and also that students receive good quality placements throughout their course. So, two very big topics there (economics, veering into business, and education). Anyone who's ever used NLH/NHS E will know there isn't a huge coverage of those topics, beyond the rudimentary coverage of literature in Medline.

So, to cut a long story short, my burning question is: do I buy (assuming my library service won the lottery as I don't have a budget for it! More realistically I'm thinking do I bid for the money) lots of "alternative" resources, things like Emerald and EconLit and the BEI, knowing full well that on a cost per use basis it's probably not going to be brilliant (we're a small organisation) but...do we need access to as broad a range of literature as possible to be truly "strategic" and learn from all sectors, having acknowledged that the NHS doesn't exist in splendid isolation from the rest of the world!

I suppose what I'm asking more generally is - at what cost should comprehensive access to information come?

A further burning question I have, which I notice several other people have addressed, so I probaby already have some idea of the answer!

I currently offer 1:1 training sessions, at the user's request, but don't do any group/drop-in sessions. I have found so far that people have very different requirements/interests - some people will come to me and ask how to search and we may spend an hour or more looking at various aspects of NLH, as they have spotted various things but they aren't really sure what they are/do, let alone explaining the finer points of how to search the databases! Other people may actually be great at searching, and know as much as me about Booleans and subject headings and so on, but just want a few pointers on the current interace and things like saving and emailing results. Okay, that might be down to my teaching methods (as I tend to let the students ask questions and let them decide on the direction of the session - although I have a checklist of things I aim to show them, but I tend to take their word for it if they tell me they're happy with something and want to skip it) - although as Jane S points out, that's a feature/strength of adult learning as opposed to "classroom" techniques. But I'm aware that people may be reluctant to approach me for these sessions if they just want to get an idea what's involved, but don't have a massive lit search to undertake and don't want to know the intricacies of Medline subject headings!

So, my burning question in this area is - do I start some "drop-in" sessions and hope that people will come along, taking the risk that it will not be taken up of course? Will the addtional publicity/profile it gives my service encourage people to come along out of curiosity? Or will it backfire completely and discourage people who would have preferred the individual attention of a 1:1 session?

"interace" = "interface"!

The comment Emily made about users not realising they are benefiting from NHS subscriptions when accessing resources through Google Scholar is a very valid one. Interestingly, I have seen similar comments from NHS staff here in Scotland suggesting this is a UK-wide issue within the NHS. However, I wonder if the willingness of clinicians etc to use Google Scholar over e-libraries within the NHS indicates a need for simplification of access through the e-libraries - "NHS Google" if you like?