Evidence Based Library and Information Practice: The Impossible Will Take a Little While (*Lo imposible se llevar

1
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
The Impossible Will Take a Little While (Lo
imposible se llevará un poco de tiempo)
Andrew Booth Reader in Evidence Based Information
Practice
2
(No Transcript)
3
(No Transcript)
4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
Puerto Rico United Kingdom
PR UK
Climate tropical marine, mild little seasonal temperature variation Climate rain, rain, rain and more rain
Natural hazards periodic droughts hurricanes Natural hazards periodic floods freezes
Independence none (territory of US with commonwealth status) Independence Ditto
8
Outline

• What is Evidence Based Library and Information
  Practice (EBLIP)?
• Why is EBLIP so Important?
• How is EBLIP carried out?
• What are the Barriers?
• How might these Barriers be Overcome?
• EBLIP - a practical and feasible tool to improve
  all areas of library and information practice.

9
What is Evidence Based Library and Information
Practice (EBLIP)?
10
Evidence based library and information practice
is

• Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
  (EBLIP) seeks to improve library and information
  services and practice by bringing together the
  best available evidence and insights derived from
  working experience, moderated by user needs and
  preferences.
• EBLIP involves asking answerable questions,
  finding, critically appraising and then utilising
  research evidence from relevant disciplines in
  daily practice. It thus attempts to integrate
  user-reported, practitioner-observed and
  research-derived evidence as an explicit basis
  for decision-making. (Booth, 2006)

11
Evidence based library and information practice
is

• Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
  (EBLIP) seeks to improve library and information
  services and practice by bringing together the
  best available evidence and insights derived from
  working experience, moderated by user needs and
  preferences.
• EBLIP involves asking answerable questions,
  finding, critically appraising and then utilising
  research evidence from relevant disciplines in
  daily practice. It thus attempts to integrate
  user-reported, practitioner-observed and
  research-derived evidence as an explicit basis
  for decision-making. (Booth, 2006)

12
Three Cogs?
User-Reported
Practitioner-Observed
Research-Derived
13
Why librarians?

• As a profession which has the ability to manage
  the literature of research, librarianship is
  uniquely placed to model the principles of
  evidence-based practice, not only as they apply
  to other disciplines which we serve, but also as
  they apply to our own professional practice
  (Ritchie, 1999)

14
Arent we doing it already?

• What are we doing well?
• What might we do better?

15
15
1 Million
14
500,000
13
250,000
12
125,000
11
64,000
10
32,000
9
16,000
How do librarians typically make their day to
day decisions about their services?
8
8,000
7
4,000
6
2,000
5
1,000
4
500
3
300
2
200
5050
1
100
A Go 5050?
B Phone a Friend?
C Ask the Audience?
D Conduce Evidence Based Search?
16
Why is EBLIP so Important?
17
Is it worth it?

• I blogged about the Norwegian tutorial Search
  and WriteAt the Creating Knowledge conference,
  Therese Skagen (University of Bergen Library,
  Norway) talked about this project in the context
  of, and use of projects to develop, EBP. She
  identified some challenges to EBP including time
  allocation, dissemination (within and outside the
  library), competences (in research and planning),
  and resources.
• Management needs to be supportive, and you need
  to believe that research can be of value to the
  organisation. She suggested trying out EBP in a
  small area of the library service to begin with.
  Therese saw gains from EBP in terms of, for
  example, your own learning, strategic
  understanding or (organisationally) increased
  quality of service and better morale.
  Information Literacy Weblog

18
How is EBLIP carried out?
19
The 5As

• Ask a focused question
• Acquire the evidence
• Appraise the studies
• Apply the findings
• Assess the impact
• ...and your own development

20
Ask a focused question
21
SPICE
S Setting Where? In what context?
P Perspective For who?
I Intervention What?
C Comparison What else?
E Evaluation How well? What result?
22
SPICE Tell Me What You Want, What you Really
Really Want!
23
Six domains of EBL (Crumley Koufogiannakis)

• Reference/Enquiries providing service and access
  to information that meets the needs of library
  users.
• Education finding teaching methods and
  strategies to educate users about library
  resources and how to improve their research
  skills.
• Collections building a high-quality collection
  of print and electronic materials that is useful,
  cost-effective and meets the users needs.
• Management managing people and resources within
  an organization.
• Information Access Retrieval creating better
  systems and methods for information retrieval and
  access.
• Marketing/Promotion promoting the profession,
  the library and its services to both users and
  non-users.

24
Acquire the evidence
25
Searching the literature

• LIS databases
• Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA)
• Library, Information Science and Technology
  Abstracts (LISTA) www.libraryresearch.com (EBSCO
  Publishing) FREE
• Cover librarianship, classification, cataloguing,
  bibliometrics, information retrieval, information
  management

26
Optimal Combinations of Library Databases
Sampson et al (2008)
27
Appraise the studies
28
Appraise Evidence

• Checklists for appropriate studies
• Information needs analyses (CRiSTAL)
• User studies (CRiSTAL)
• Interventions Addressing the Need for education
  and Training (RELIANT)
• EBL Critical Appraisal Tool (Glynn)

29
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice

• ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLip
• 6-10 Evidence Summaries per issue "provide a
  critical appraisal synthesis for a specific
  research article, so that practitioners may more
  readily determine if the evidence in that
  research study is valid and reliable, and whether
  they can apply it to their own practice." 

Koufogiannakis, 2006
30
Apply the findings
31
How do we APPLY the evidence

• Ideally we want Evidence that is Directly
  Applicable.
• More commonly we encounter Evidence that needs to
  be Locally Validated (e.g. through a survey or
  audit of local services).
• In our general reading we encounter Evidence that
  Improves Understanding.(Koufogiannakis and
  Crumley, 2004)
• Final category is Evidence that may inform our
  Choice of Methodologies, Tools or Instruments
  (Booth, 2004)

32
Four point plan

• Demand evidence best way to get organization to
  become evidence-based is for leaders to ask for
  evidence supporting decisions and
  recommendations.
• Examine logic and critically evaluate any
  evidence presented.
• Treat organization as unfinished prototype - Try
  something new in a limited way, gather evidence
  and then adapt, revise and retry as needed.
• Cultivate attitude of wisdom throughout the
  organization - act on best available evidence at
  the time, keep questioning what we know, see if
  new evidence comes to light and be open to any
  new evidence.
• Fisher Richardson EBLIP4 (2007) (after Pfeffer
  and Sutton)

33
As Koufogiannakis and Crumley state

• "When using research to help with a question,
  look for high quality studies, but do not be too
  quick to dismiss everything as irrelevant. Try to
  take what does apply from the research and use it
  to resolve the problem at hand" (Koufogiannakis
  and Crumley, 2004)

34
When considering Applicability think SCOPE

• Severity How urgent/important is the problem?
• Clients Does the planned intervention fit with
  the values, needs and preferences of my users?
• Opportunity Is now the time to apply this? Has
  the situation changed since the evidence was
  produced?
• Politics Is there local support for this
  intervention?
• Economics Can we afford this intervention? Will
  this be at the expense of something else?

35
Assess the impact ...and your own development
36
Evaluate impact of intervention

• Identify what you need to measure, what data you
  need to measure it, appropriate methods for
  measuring
• Do changes support organisational goals and
  objectives?
• Gather data you need, not data that is easiest to
  gather
• Compare changes to predicted deliverables/outcomes
  in original project plan
• Quantify extent of changes
• Have changes resulted in customer service
  improvement?
• Have any further questions arisen?

37
Evaluate your EBLIP performance

• Have I followed the stages of the EBLIP process?
• Have I improved my professional knowledge and
  skills?
• Has the process revealed any personal or
  professional strengths or weaknesses?

38
What are the Barriers?
39
Possible barriers

• time constraints
• lack of knowledge about sources of research
  evidence
• limited access to the literature
• lack of training in critical appraisal skills
• emphasis on practical rather than intellectual
  knowledge
• work environment (structural barriers)

40
Challenges to searching the LIS literature

• problematic indexing
• getting access can be difficult
• not comprehensive
• full text not always easy to obtain
• multiple study designs
• unhelpful abstracts
• limited coverage of publication types

41
How might these Barriers be Overcome?
42
Ten Steps for Practical EBLIP

• 1. Integrate EBLIP into recruitment and
  development
• 2. Practice Evidence Based Project Management
• 3. Incorporate Evidence Review into Existing
  Meetings
• 4. Utilise Evidence Based Standards and
  Guidelines
• 5. Implement Evidence Based Webpages

HILJ, Mar 2009
43
Ten Steps for Practical EBLIP

• 6. Develop Evidence Based Questionnaires
• 7. Practise Evidence Based Collection Management
• 8. Evaluate Information Literacy Instruction
• 9. Manage Change using Evidence Based Methods
• 10. Evaluate Evidence Based Strategies

HILJ, Mar 2009
44
1 - Integrate EBLIP into recruitment and
development

• Integrate into job descriptions
• Integrate into Staff appraisal and performance
  review
• Highlight in Promotions and Revalidation

45
2. Practice Evidence Based Project Management
Data Analysis Action
What? Findings So What? Implications Now What? Recommendations
Brooks S et al (2007). What, So What, Now what.
In Connor E (2007). Evidence-based librarianship
case studies and active learning exercises.
Oxford Chandos.
46
3. Incorporate Evidence Review into Existing
Meetings

• Dont initiate EXTRA evidence based meetings
• Introduce an evidence based component into staff
  meetings, project meetings, team meetings etcetera

47
4. Utilise Evidence Based Standards and Guidelines
48
5. Implement Evidence Based Webpages
49

• Booth, A. (2006)
• Australian supermodel? A practical example of
  evidence-based library and information practice
  (EBLIP).
• Health Information and Libraries Journal 23 (1)
  69-72.

• Cotter, L., Harije, L., Lewis, S. Tonnison, I.
  (2005) Adding SPICE to our library intranet site
  a recipe to enhance usability online. Available
  from http//conferences.alia.org.au/ebl2005/Cotte
  r.pdf Accessed February 2007

50
6. Develop Evidence Based Questionnaires

• How often, though, do those researchers use the
  same questionnaire or at least the same or
  similar (enough) questions (after getting proper
  permissions and giving proper attributions, of
  course)? How often, when selecting survey
  participants, do they try to control for the same
  factors as the studies they are using as
  examples? How often, in other words, do they
  approach their project from the standpoint of
  gathering results that will be directly
  comparable to the work they are using as models?
  Not having studied this systematically myself, I
  cannot say for sure, but my impression is that
  the answer would have to be not very often.
  (Plutchak, 2005)

51

• Mind your Ps and Qs (pitfalls of questionnaires)
• Booth A. Health Info Libr J. 2005
  Sep22(3)228-31.

• A quest for questionnaires
• Booth A. Health Info Libr J. 2003 Mar20(1)53-6.

Demystifying Survey Research Practical
Suggestions for Effective Question Design.
Charbonneau, D.. Evidence Based Library and
Information Practice, 2 7 12 2007
52
7. Practise Evidence Based Collection Management
53
8. Evaluate Information Literacy Instruction

• Exploring Methods in Information Literacy
  Research
• Suzanne Lipu, Kirsty Williamson and Annemaree
  Lloyd (eds.) (2007)Topics in Australasian
  Library and Information Studies No. 28. soft
  coverISBN 978 1876938 61 1

54
9. Manage Change using Evidence Based Methods
55
10. Evaluate Evidence Based Strategies

• If we have tried any of the above strategies
  did they work, what was their value, what would
  we have done differently?

56
The 11th (and First!) Step

• Being willing to put everything we have back
  into the 'central pot' (i.e. everything is up for
  evaluation) and to start defining our essential
  services from scratch is actually the first - and
  arguably the most important - step of EBLIP
  service.

Forthcoming in HILJ, Mar 2009
57
Evidence-based librarians?

• How many decisions you make are based on sound
  research ?
• Where do you go to find evidence to inform your
  decisions ?
• Would you be able to assess the validity,
  reliability and relevance of a study to inform
  your practice ?

58
Are you ready to meet the challenge?

• To identify important answerable questions from
  your practice
• To rapidly review the evidence for answers to
  these questions
• To make changes to your practice
• To evaluate those changes
• To share the lessons learnt

59
EBLIP - a practical and feasible tool
60
Should we set up..a library blog?

• A story of day-to-day library folk.
• ....to be informed by the evidence

61
Task One Using the SPICE framework form a
focused question
62
Ask a focused question
63
SPICE
S Setting Where? In what context?
P Perspective For who?
I Intervention What?
C Comparison What else?
E Evaluation How well? What result?
64
SPICE
S Setting
P Perspective
I Intervention
C Comparison
E Evaluation
65
Acquire the evidence
66
Task Two What databases might you use for
Seeking the Evidence? (a) For this question
(b) Generally
67
Appraise the studies
68
The Evidence Base

• Delivering the News with Blogs The Georgia State
  University Library Experience (Internet Reference
  Services Quarterly)
• Looking to the Future Implementing Blogs in a
  Community College Library (Internet Reference
  Services Quarterly)
• Library weblogs. (Library Management)
• Blogs in American Academic Libraries An Overview
  of Their Present Status and Possible Future Use
  (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
• The Use of Blogs in Medical Libraries (Journal of
  Hospital Librarianship)
• The blog as a high-impact institutional
  communication tool. (The Electronic Library)
• Are Blogs Here to Stay? An Examination of the
  Longevity and Currency of a Static List of
  Library and Information Science Weblogs. (Serials
  Review) etcetera..

69
Task Three What criteria would you use to judge
which articles from the previous list may be
useful to answer your question?
70
Apply the findings
71
Task Four Using the SCOPE framework discuss the
likely implications of introducing a library blog
into your library
72
When considering Applicability think SCOPE

• Severity How urgent/important is the problem?
• Clients Does the planned intervention fit with
  the values, needs and preferences of my users?
• Opportunity Is now the time to apply this? Has
  the situation changed since the evidence was
  produced?
• Politics Is there local support for this
  intervention?
• Economics Can we afford this intervention? Will
  this be at the expense of something else?

73
Assess the impact ...and your own development
74
Task Five Working in two groups (left and
right) L what measures would you use to
evaluate whether a library blog has been a
success?R what learning needs for you and your
colleagues can you identify as a result of this
EBLIP process?
75
Some Conclusions
76
Can EBLIP be fitted within the LIS Curriculum?

• Two alternatives
• Add an EBLIP module to existing overloaded
  curricula
• Integrate EBLIP into every module
• What is the Evidence Base?
• What are the Burning Questions?
• Where are the Gaps?
• ..Reviews of the Literature

77
EBLIP Skills
Hallam Partridge (2003)
78
The future of EBLIP is Integration NOT
Aggregation!

• "By my faith! For more than forty years I have
  been speaking prose or EBLIP! without knowing
  anything about it, and I am much obliged to you
  for having taught me that." - Moliere Le
  Bourgeoise Gentilhomme

79
Future of EBLIP

• the long-term future of evidence based library
  and information practice probably lies not in a
  single-minded focus on research-derived evidence
  but in a more encompassing approach that embodies
  reflective practice.the ability to critically
  analyse, make informed judgements and direct
  actions can be triggered by any number of
  catalysts, of which research evidence may be just
  one.
• Booth (2003).

80
EBLIP RIP!

• ultimately evidence based practice will
  contribute to a toolbox from which the reflective
  practitioner will occasionally draw. The ultimate
  objective of evidence based information practice
  is thus to write itself out of existence!
• Booth (2003).

81
Some Useful Resources

• EBLIP Journal https//ejournals.library.ualberta.c
  a/index.php/ EBLIP
• Libraries Using Evidence Toolkit
  http//www.newcastle.edu.au/service/library/
  gosford/ebl/
• EBLIP5 Conference http//blogs.kib.ki.se/eblip5/

82
References - 1

• Booth, A. (2004) Evaluating your performance. In
  Booth Brice. Evidence Based Practice for
  Information Professionals a handbook. Facet
  127-137.
• Booth, A. (2009) Eleven steps to EBLIP service.
  Health Information and Libraries Journal, 26,
  (1) 81-84.
• Grant MJ (2007) The role of reflection in the
  library and information sector a systematic
  review. Health Info Libr J. 24(3)155-66.
• Jerome RN. Further developing the profession's
  research mentality. J Med Libr Assoc. 2008
  Oct96(4)287-9.

83
References - 2

• Hallam, G Partridge, H. (2003) Generic
  capabilities for the library and information
  professional report on a QUT teaching and
  learning research project prepared for the ALIA
  LISEKA working group. Unpublished report.

84
References - 3

• Koufogiannakis D Crumley E (2004) Applying
  evidence to your everyday practice in Booth A
  Brice A (2004). Evidence-based Practice for
  Information Professionals a handbook. London,
  Facet. Chapter10 pp.119-126
• Plutchak TS. Building a body of evidence. J Med
  Libr Assoc. 2005 Apr93(2)193-5.
• Sampson M, Daniel R, Cogo E, Dingwall O. Sources
  of evidence to support systematic reviews in
  librarianship. J Med Libr Assoc. 2008
  Jan96(1)66-9.