ICML 2009: Continuing Education: EBLIP Service: How to make your services evidence based

Presenter/s: Mr Andrew Booth, School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield

Biography: Andrew Booth is an information professional/researcher with experience of a wide range of aspects of evidence based practice. He has worked in health information for 25 years, most recently at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield where he is Director of Information Resources. His current brief is to develop research intelligence services within the University and surrounding region. Andrew is Reader in Evidence Based Information Practice and teaches Systematic Reviews and Critical Appraisal on the Masters in Public Health programme. Andrew is one of the most experienced trainers in critical appraisal in the UK having been a frequent tutor at week-long courses in Durham and in Oxford. For the last six years he has led a team that teaches critical appraisal in conjunction with the British Medical Association Library. Andrew has a particular interest in all aspects of small group teaching.

Session: Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) is a recent, exciting paradigm gaining popularity throughout the library world. This model for day-to-day decision-making aims to translate theory into practice by presenting and modelling approaches to integrating evidence into daily decisions. The course provides a practical and intensively interactive introduction to the stages of the evidence based practice process accompanied by didactic instruction, to help participants to understand key concepts and case study materials that simulate real-life decision-making.

Course Objectives

By end of the course each participant will have:

• Acquired working knowledge of techniques for tackling implementation issues in a topic of interest to them and their employers
• Gained insights from the broad perspectives of those leading, and those on the receiving end, of implementation
• Gained skills in evidence based practice in a library setting
• Experienced benefits of small group project-based problem-solving
• Identified further training needs associated with evidence based library and information services