UK Health Libraries Group Conference “Health libraries under the microscope: perfecting your
formula”, 12-13th July 2012. Glasgow Science Centre, Glasgow.
Kate Misso & Caro Noake, Kleijnen Systematic Reviews Ltd, York.
The theme of the HLG 2012 conference was examining health libraries ‘under the microscope’ to assess and
evaluate our own performance and current practice. The conference was opened by Professor Peter Reid from
Robert Gordon University. Professor Reid spoke of the “genetics” of information professionals as evolving in
response to ever changing work environments and reinforced the importance of a dynamic and reflective
approach to professional practice. This message resonated across many sessions throughout the conference.
Delegates represented all sectors of health information and library work; the majority came from the NHS, with
attendees from NICE, independent health libraries, charities and consultancies. The venue of the Glasgow
Science Centre offered delegates a fantastic space, lots of room to move between sessions and mingle during
coffee and lunch breaks. The IMAX cinema auditorium hosted the main sessions, and as the largest cinema
screen in Scotland, provided a stunning - if vertigo-inducing - backdrop to the conference presentations.
Caro and I both presented sessions on the Evidence Aid mapping exercise we collaborated on in 2011. The
project was intended to identify randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews relevant to natural disasters
and humanitarian emergencies, by searching a variety of resources covering biomedical, health, nursing,
economics and social sciences. To this end, twenty-three databases were searched.
Unlike a systematic review, the aim of this exercise was not to find everything on a specific area, but to retrieve
examples of trials and reviews from across a range of suggested topics, including disasters such as earthquakes,
tsunamis, flooding and radiation leaks as well as the corresponding humanitarian response to issues including
health, shelter, communication etc that would follow such a disaster.
Caro presented a poster detailing a post-hoc analysis undertaken after reference screening, which was
completed to inform a comparison of contribution and unique yield for databases from the different subject
groupings. The included studies were analysed to identify total and unique yield by database, yield of included
studies, balance and Number Needed to Read (NNR) to detect relevant references.
On the final day of the conference, I presented a session in the IMAX auditorium. This session provided an
overview of Evidence Aid’s objectives and how the mapping exercise aimed to identify the evidence base in
this field. What better way to raise the profile of Evidence Aid than on a cinema screen the equivalent in size to
a small football pitch and five double decker buses high!
Despite the date being Friday the 13th, the session was very well attended and generated lots in interest in
Evidence Aid’s research agenda, both from delegates in person and on the HLG twitter-feed.
As hoped, the event was a great success in raising Evidence Aid’s profile among UK information professionals,
many of whom enquired about how they can help with Evidence Aid’s work.
Kate Misso
Information Specialist Manager
Kleijnen Systematic Reviews Ltd.
Unit 6
Escrick Business Park
Riccall Road
York YO19 6FD
Tel: 01904 727989
Email: kate@systematic-reviews.com
http://www.systematic-reviews.com
Caro Noake
Information Specialist
Kleijnen Systematic Reviews Ltd.
caro@systematic-reviews.com
UK Health Libraries Group [ http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/special-interestgroups/health/pages/default.aspx]
UK HLG Conference 2012 – posters [http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/special-interestgroups/health/events/conferences/Pages/hlg-conference-2012-posters.aspx] and presentations
[http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/special-interest-groups/health/events/conferences/Pages/hlg-conferencepresentations-and-posters.aspx]
References
Misso K, Noake C, Allen C, Clarke M, Kleijnen J. Mapping the evidence: identifying evidence on natural
disasters & humanitarian emergencies for Evidence Aid [Oral presentation]. UK Health Libraries Group
Conference 12-13th July. Glasgow: HLG, 2012.
Noake C, Misso K, Allen C, Clarke M, Kleijnen J Mapping the evidence for natural disasters and humanitarian
emergencies: a comparison of database search yields for Evidence Aid [Poster]. UK Health Libraries Group
Conference 12-13th July. Glasgow: HLG, 2012.