 This study day was
organised by
Libraries for Nursing and held at the Cavendish Square HQ of
the Royal College for Nursing.
The events was organised by Olwen Revill who also ran the reception
desk.It was attended by at least 60 delegates, mostly librarians in NHS or higher education libraries serving nurses, and aimed to provide help and guidance with critical appraisal and explore it's significance to practice. |
 Olwen Revill |
 Rebecca Davies |
Delegates were welcomed by Rebecca Davies on her last
day as the chair of the
Libraries for Nursing group. She set out the purpose and themes for the day along with organisational issues. Later in the day she invited delegates to consider joining the committee of LfN and ask for copy for the groups bulletin describing projects and activities they were undertaking in their areas which would be of interest to a wider audience. |
| The first presentation of the day was given by Dr Faith
Gibson, Lecturer in Children's Nursing Research at Great Ormond Street
Hospital NHS Trust. Faith addressed the topic of facilitating critical
appraisal in practice, in which she started with a brief history of some of
the key issues and strategy documents relating to nursing & DoH research.
She went on to explore some of the problems still facing nursing in developing a research/evidence based approach and participating fully in clinical governance initiatives. These related both to the nature of nursing and the work culture. Faith then described some of the approaches adopted at Great Ormond Street to enhance the culture of Evidence Based Nursing and gave insights into those which had worked and others which had not produced the desired benefits. Her comment about the use in one unit (? Bristol) of unit based librarians provoked some discussion. She finished with some "Steps for success" which would not be easy but could help to move forward in research based practice. |
 Dr Faith Gibson |
 |
I went next with a presentation about "Quality of health
information on the Internet" which was based on work by Lisa Gray and
the BIOME Special Advisory Group on Evaluation, which highlighted worries about
the poor quality of Internet resources in health and some of the difficulties
in evaluating it and then went through the guidelines used by the BIOME
gateways which are available at:
http://biome.ac.uk/guidelines/eval/ A copy of the presentation can be seen here I also gave brief information about the new JISC Resource Guide for Health and Life Sciences which will be available soon at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/resourceguides/hls |
| Jackie Lord, head of Library and Information at the
Royal College of Nursing next gave a short presentation in which she described
the modernisation and refurbishment of the RCN library and its branches and
resource centres around the country. Jackie has also recently taken over as chair of the "Health Libraries Group" of which Libraries for Nursing is a part, and thanked members for completing a recent questionnaire and promising these would be analysed and taken into account in future developments within the organisation. |
 Jackie Lord |
 Vickie Orton |
The final presentation of the morning was by Vickie
Orton, Library Projects Coordinator for the RCN who described and
demonstrated the new map driven UK Nursing Libraries Website, which is
available at: http://www.nursing-libraries.org Vickie described a little about the history of the site and it's intention to enable all UK nurses to find out about their local nursing library, and details such as opening times and access restrictions. She encouraged all delegates to visit the site and check their library is included in the directory, and the details are up to date. |
| Lunchtime provided a good opportunity for networking with old friends and
meeting new ones. An opportunity was also provided for delegates to visit the nursing libraries web site and explore the refurbished RCN library - but not to go shopping in John Lewis over the road. The other exploration was of glass doors (in the toilets) but perhaps this could have been an analogy for the topic of the day in that it was about seeing information but the quality could be clouded. |
 |
 Dr Alison Weightman |
The more detailed work work in the afternoon was led by Dr
Alison Weightman, Deputy Director of
Library Services at University of Wales College of Medicine
who gave a short introduction to critical appraisal for librarians, based on
work she had been doing with Health evidence Bulletins Wales. Following her overview delegates worked in small groups to examine a systematic review and assess it's quality. For a copy of her handout and links to the forms used see: http://www.uwcm.ac.uk/support/information_services/libraries/guides/critical_appraisal.htm |
| Generally this was a useful day, which was well organised, and seemed to address very relevant issues to the attendees. |
|
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If you have comments or would like to find out more about the activities
listed above please mail me. Rod.Ward@Sheffield.ac.uk
Page created: 29.11.02
Page last updated: 30.11.02