Improving Access to Health Information: Digital Librariesfor the Health Sciences

Sponsored by SIG DL, and SIG MED

Brian Hilligoss, Moderator, and Co-organizerHealth Sciences Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel

Hill. brianh@unc.edu

Dongming Zhang, Co-organizerWelch Medical Library, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. zhang@jhmi.edu

Lisa M. GivenSchool of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta. lgiven@ualberta.ca

Elizabeth SadlerSchool of Library and Information Studies, University of

Alberta. bess.sadler@ualberta.ca

Debra S. KetchellLane Medical Library & Knowledge Management Center, Stanford University

School of Medicine. ketchell@stanford.edu

Steven MacCallSchool of Library and Information Studies, The University ofAlabama. smaccall@bama.ua.edu

Introduction

Access to health information is an important objective for consumers and health professionalsalike, yet various obstacles threaten to prevent users from finding the information they seek.Both researchers and practitioners are working to understand how various user groups seek forhealth information, the obstacles that they face, and how user interfaces may be improved to

support these information-seeking behaviors and needs. Panelists will report on systemevaluation efforts and empirical studies of user behavior and will demonstrate innovative userinterfaces that attempt to provide alternative approaches to health information.

Similarity Clustering as a Design Principle for Digital Collections: Creating UsableInterfaces for Seniors Lisa M. Given, and Elizabeth Sadler

In response to a call for further investigation into the use of browsing strategies in interfaces forseniors accessing health information of various kinds, researchers at the University of Albertaare contributing to an understanding of how seniors are able to access drug information usingtwo different online image-based retrieval systems. The panelists will report on the results of anempirical study that included qualitative interviews and a series of retrieval tasks, in whichparticipants were shown a series of different pills and asked to identify the pills and provideinformation on each one using the interfaces under evaluation. These interfaces included apublicly accessible website of pill information (www.drugs.com) and a new prototype interfaceoffering visual similarity-based groupings of pill images. The former provides access to druginformation through a searchable database, while the latter displays all pill images on a singlescreen and allows users to choose similarity criteria across various dimensions to cluster the pillinformation. By assessing the features of both interfaces, in the context of other resources andsearching strategies participants have used successfully in other information sources, the resultsprovide a model of ideal search features and functions that best meet seniors’ informationretrieval needs.

Information Access and Management in a Health Science Portal EnvironmentDongming Zhang

Portal systems empower users with the capability of personalization and customization so theycan access and manage their daily information seeking more efficiently and effectively. Inaddition, portal systems make it possible for librarians to gain more understanding of users’needs and behavior and, therefore, to develop and provide more proactive services for users.This panelist will discuss the development of numerous creative services to improve informationaccess and management on MyWelch, the health science information portal system of WelchMedical Library at Johns Hopkins University. The evaluation of users’ reactions through usageanalysis and a user survey will also be discussed.

Customized Portal and Metasearch for Clinicians at the Point of Care

Debra S. Ketchell

A first step in integration of clinical reference at the point of care is a customized portal with ametasearch across content sources with a fast, simple interface. At Stanford, the target clinicianpopulation includes medical students, residents, clinical faculty and nurses. The library licensesseveral clinical reference packages and provides metadata to local and freely accessiblecontent. Clinician advisors, focus groups, usage statistics, and user satisfaction surveys areused to iteratively design the system. The panelist will discuss the selection of content,development of the portal/metasearch, evaluative data, lessons learned and how this workprefaces the second step of integrating clinical reference directly into the electronic medicalrecord system of two Stanford hospitals based on patient parameters.

Authors, Librarians, Readers: Consistent Information Access in a Large-ScaleHuman-Constructed Clinical Digital Library of Online Medical Books

Steven MacCall

Providing professional information services to time-constrained work environments such asmedical clinics continues to be a challenge for the library community. This presentationdescribes an approach employed by the Clinical Digital Libraries Project (http://www.cdlp.org/) that seeks to synergize the work of the authors who create clinical information resources and thelibrarians who create collections of these resources. Authors construct traditional medical booksin a standardized way as highly structured documents that include chapters, chapter sections,and subsections, which, in addition to book indexes, enable readers to access specificinformation. Librarians build collections of highly structured medical books, one result of which isconsistent information access across the resources of a collection. In this presentation, wecontend that in the current era of online medical book publishing, such structural standardizationof information access is not available to readers. We describe an approach to this problem thatprovides for structural standardization, the result of which is consistent information access inlarge-scale human-constructed clinical digital libraries of online medical books.