ICML 2009: Continuing Education: Beyond search results: an introduction to pragmatic evidence retrieval and appraisal

Presenter/s: Ms Andrea Lane, BMJ Publishing Group Ltd

Biography: Andrea Lane is the Information Specialist Manager for the BMJ Evidence Centre at the BMJ Publishing Group. She manages a team of 8 Information Specialists who undertake literature search and appraisal for all BMJ Evidence Centre resources including BMJ Clinical Evidence. Prior to this Andrea was an assistant librarian at the British Medical Association in London. Andrea is also on the Health Libraries Group committee in the UK as a member of the Membership and Publicity panel.

Session: With easy access to information via the internet and a computer literate culture, an overwhelming amount of electronic information can be found which varies hugely in quality. Increasingly librarians are being asked not just to find information but to provide good quality evidence in a time limited environment. How best to provide the end-user with a manageable list of abstracts using a comprehensive and rigorous search?

This course is aimed at people wishing to understand more about the pragmatic searching and critical appraisal process and discover practical and time efficient ways to reduce the number of irrelevant results while maintaining quality. The workshop is aimed at complete beginners. We will explain the processes the information specialists use in the production of BMJ Clinical Evidence and suggest ways to incorporate some of the principles of this approach when answering clinical questions.