Ping Li, PhD
GSLIS, Queens College, City University of New York
Lin Wu, MLIS, AHIP
Health Sciences Library and Biocommunications Center
University of Tennessee Health Science Center
The 37th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association
for Information Science, Ottawa, ON, May 28-30, 2009

Evidence-Based Medicine
“The integration of the best research evidence with
clinical expertise and patient's unique values and
circumstances\" (Straus et al. 2005).

 Defining an answerable question
 Collecting or finding evidence to
answer the question
 Evaluating the evidence
 Integrating the evidence and patient
factors to make and carry out clinical
decisions
 Evaluating the whole process
(McKibbon, Eady, and Marks 1999)

 Health care professionals
 Medical librarians

Reference job
content analysis Reality
Disconnects?
???
Literature
review

To explore whether and how
practicing medical librarians in the
United States are playing a role to
support and enhance EBM practice.

 Online survey created with Survey
Monkey
 Questionnaire distributed to MEDLIB-L,
the MLA discussion list, several listservs
from MLA Chapters and MLA Sections,
and some blogs hosted by medical
librarians
 14 questions in total (11 multiple-choice
questions & 3 open-ended questions)

 598 worldwide
 596 valid survey
 532 from the United States

 Years of work experience
 Job title
 Work setting
 EBM related responsibilities
 Nature of EBM related responsibilities
 Participants' comments

 Data was exported to Microsoft Excel.
 United States respondents were filtered out
by IP address.
 Excel's PivotTable function was used.
 Focus was on the participants' answers to the
11 multiple-choice questions.
 Cross tabs were created to find out the
differences in medical librarians' specific EBM
related responsibilities and the nature of
their EBM responsibilities by library type and
by their work experience.

Work Experience Number Percentage
Hospital Library 268 51%
Academic Library 223 42%
Special Library 38 7%

Work Number Percentage
Experience
Over 5 Years 401 75%
3 to 5 years 51 10%
Less than 2 Years 80 15%

EBM Academic Library Hospital Library Special Library
Responsibility
Expertise with EBM 197 (88%) 252 (94%) 33 (89%)
resources
Providing EBM 189 (85%) 256 (96%) 28 (74%)
research
Contributing to 135 (61%) 163 (61%) 17 (45%)
EBM initiatives
Attending morning 28 (13%) 27 (11%) 1 (3%)
report
Attending medical 23 (11%) 25 (10%) 1 (3%)
round
Attending journal
30 (14%) 34 (13%) 3 (8%)
club
Teaching EBM 179 (80%) 132 (50%) 13 (34%)

EBM Responsibility 0-2 Years 3-5 Years More than 5
Years
Expertise with EBM 69 (87%) 46 (90%) 368 (92%)
resources
Providing EBM 69 (87%) 44 (86%) 362 (91%)
research
Contributing to EBM 33 (42%) 35 (70%) 248 (62%)
initiatives
Attending morning 11 (15%) 6 (12%) 39 (10%)
report
Attending medical 6 (8%) 10 (20%) 33 (9%)
round
Attending journal club 10 (14%) 8 (16%) 49 (13%)
Teaching EBM 45 (57%) 33 (67%) 246 (62%)

Academic Library Hospital Library Special Library
EBM Routine Occasional Both Routine Occasional Both Routine Occasional Both
Responsi- & Project- Routine & & Project- Routine & & Project- Routine &
bility related Occasional related Occasional related Occasional
& Project- & Project- & Project-
related related related
Providing
20 74 94 41 54 161 6 8 15
EBM
(10%) (35%) (45%) (16%) (21%) (62%) (18%) (24%) (45%)
research
Contributi
24 59 52 12 76 77 1 9 7
ng to EBM
(13%) (33%) (29%) (6%) (37%) (37%) (4%) (32%) (25%)
initiatives
Attending
morning
report,
24 15 17 31 20 19 2 3 1
medical
(12%) (7%) (8%) (13%) (9%) (8%) (7%) (10%) (3%)
round,
journal
club

0-2 Years 3-5 Years More than 5 Years
EBM Routine Occasional Both Routine Occasional Both Routine Occasional Both
Responsi- & Project- Routine & & Project- Routine & & Project- Routine &
bility related Occasional related Occasional related Occasional
& Project- & Project- & Project-
related related related
Providing
10 24 35 7 16 21 51 97 214
EBM
(13%) (32%) (46%) (15%) (35%) (46%) (13%) (25%) (56%)
research
Contributing
to EBM 6 15 12 5 20 11 27 110 113
initiatives (11%) (26%) (21%) (11%) (46%) (25%) (9%) (35%) (36%)
Attending
morning
report, 12 2 5 4 5 4 41 32 28
medical (17%) (3%) (7%) (9%) (11%) (9%) (12%) (9%) (8%)
round,
journal club

 US medical librarians have been taking on
various EBM-related responsibilities.
 The most frequently reported role is to
provide EBM research to users, followed by
teaching EBM, and contributing to EBM
initiatives in their institutions.
 Attending journal clubs, morning reports,
and medical rounds is not a popular
responsibility among medical librarians.

 Hospital librarians are most active in
providing EBM research.
 Academic librarians are most active
in teaching EBM.

Any relationship between medical
librarians’ work experience in the
profession and their provision of EBM
related services?

 US medical librarians are taking the EBM
challenge and have been playing an active
role in supporting and enhancing EBM
practice.
 Significances
 Providing guidance for both practicing and
future medical librarians
 Bringing insight into the development of
library schools’ curricula

 Content analysis of participants'
comments
 Medical librarians' perspectives on
the provision of EBM-related
services

McKibbon, K. Ann, Angela Eady, and Susan Marks. 1999. PDQ: Evidence-based
principles and practice. Hamilton, Ont: B.C. Decker, Inc. McKibbon, K.
Ann, and Liz Bayley. 2004. Health professional education, evidence-based
health care, and health sciences librarians. Reference Services Review 32,
no. 1: 50-53.
Straus, Sharon E., W. Scott Richardson, Paul Glasziou, and R. Brian Haynes.
2005. Evidence based medicine: How to practice and teach EBM. 3rd ed.
Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.