ICML 2009: Meeting Room 3 Session 20

Theme: Partnerships & Collaborations

Time: 16.00-17.15
Date: Wednesday 2nd September 2009
Chair: Rolf Schafer

REBLs...with a cause: a catalyst for evidence based collection development
Veronica M Delafosse, Caulfield Hospital, Australia

In addition to being librarian at Caulfield Hospital and Convenor of the REBLs...with a Cause Special Interest Group, Veronica is an active Committee member of ALIA Health Libraries Australia. Her interest in collection development led her to compile Resources for health sciences: a guide for Australia (Adelaide: Auslib Press, 1995) and win the 2008 YBP/Lindsay & Croft Research Award for Collection Services to assist her with REBLs project work.

Abstract:
Purpose: To develop an evidence base for collection development built on consensus agreement between expert rehabilitation specialists and librarians. This would initially be relevant for trainee registrars who rotate to different hospitals every six months to gain experience in particular areas of rehabilitation. Eventually it will cover other rehabilitation specialties (nursing and allied health).

Method: Following the endorsement of REBLs as the inaugural Special Interest Group of ALIA Health Libraries Australia formal liaison with the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine was established. The librarians reviewed, updated and promoted the resources lists in consultation with the AFRM.

Model: Members are developing partnerships and collaborations with rehabilitation colleagues and specialists both within their workplaces, externally through the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine initially; and eventually through other health professions.

Outcomes: Core and recommended resources lists of the five main specialties for trainee rehabilitation registrars; evaluating this model with the expectation of translating it to other areas (eg geriatrics); encouraging the librarians to put this evidence into practice within their collection development strategies; and working together to ensure that the resources are available to the relevant rehabilitation specialties.

Benefits: Assuring the trainees will have access to these resources; assisting with benchmarking and accreditation as a teaching hospital for AFRM; promoting rehabilitation librarians to help raise our awareness among health professionals. Future: Expanding the model to rehabilitation nursing and allied health; promoting the model; collaborating with journal and book suppliers.

Creating Research Capacity in Developing Countries: The Role of International Collaborative Networks of Information Professionals: A Case Study of Ophthalmic Resource Centres in Asia and Africa
Presented By: Ms Sudha Risal Sharma, Lumbini Eye Institute, Nepal
Presented By: Mr P Kirubanithi, Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology, India
Pamela C. Sieving, National Institutes of Health Library, USA
Bette Anton, Fong Optometry & Health Sciences Library, University of California, USA
Catherine Howett, BC Centre for Epidemiologic and International Ophthalmology, University of British Columbia, Canada

Ms Sudha Reisal Sharma is the Librarian at the Lumbini Eye Institute Library, Nepal.

Mr. P, Kirubanithi is the Senior Librarian and Information Officer of the Aravind Eye Care System, India.

Abstract:
The goal of building health care capacity in developing countries is dependent upon establishing clinical and research Communities of Practice (COP). There is a need for infrastructure, funding, high-level support, advocacy and a community vision. Particularly, to function in the knowledge economy, Communities of Practice require the capacity to generate, disseminate, absorb and respond to knowledge. Information literacy, research development programs and the availability of trained information professionals are key.

Case Study: VISION 2020: The Right to Sight is the global initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness, coordinated jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). Seva Foundation (USA) and Seva Canada, two partners in this initiative, support Centre for Community Ophthalmology in Asia and Africa. These Centres are designed to produce the clinical and management personnel, management systems, and community activities required for both sustainable hospital and outreach programs, as well as training programs. 

Seva’s solution incorporates support for Resource Centres and a network of vision science librarians developing both traditional and digital library services, linked with their professional colleagues through the Association of Vision Science Librarians (AVSL).
Our paper focuses on documenting the successes and challenges of this loosely connected network of international research units with markedly differing ‘information ecologies’ : differing size, infrastructure a variety of personnel resources with different training potential, a myriad of language barriers and sometimes unstable political climates.

Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM) : A Tool for Global Accessibility of Health Research in the Western Pacific Region
Mr Julio E Dizon, WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, Philippines
Charlie Raby, WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, Philippines
Presented By: Dr Jeong-Wook Seo, Seoul National University Medical Library, Korea

Dr Jeong-Wook Seo is Professor of Pathology at the Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul Korea, specializing in the pathology of congenital and adult heart diseases. He is also the Director of the Seoul National University Medical Library. He led the digital library project of his university and the electronic medical records project of his university hospital. He is one of key members of the Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM) project which is a regional activity of the Global Health Library of World Health Organization. He together with Charles P. Raby at the office for the Western Pacific Region of WHO organized the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) in May 2008 and He became the Secretary General of the Association. He is currently the editor-in-chief of Basic and Applied Pathology and of the Korean Journal of Pathology and he is a member of the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE). He completed MD and PhD degrees at Seoul National University and held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of London and the University of Pittsburgh.

Abstrqact:
The Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM) is a project of the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WHO/WPRO) in collaboration with several institutions in its member countries. Its goal is to produce an online index of medical and health-related journals published in the WHO Western Pacific Region which can be accessed on the Internet, thus ensuring global accessibility of health research done in the Western Pacific Region. To attain its goal, the project aims to pursue the following objectives: (1) to index medical/health-related journals in member countries of the WHO Western Pacific Region, (2) to create a bibliographic database containing records linked to their full-text, (3) to raise the level of journal publishing in the Western Pacific Region through a peer-review system, and (4) to build the capacity of participating health institutions. WPRIM is the contribution of WHO/WPRO to the Global Health Library (GHL) initiative which aims to extend to everyone the benefits of the knowledge that is essential to the fullest attainment of health.

Bridging the Partnership Divide: HINARI Over Eight Years
Kimberly J Parker, World Health Organization, Switzerland

Kimberly Parker is the HINARI Programme Manager at the World Health Organization where she coordinates the HINARI Access to Research Initiative. Kimberly received an MILS degree from the University of Michigan. She was a US National Library of Medicine Associate before joining Yale University Library, eventually becoming Head of Electronic Collections there. Recently Kimberly has been working on issues of ensuring appropriate skills to support electronic resource management in developing countries, examining the role of intermediaries in federated authentication systems, and observing the effect of different kinds of communication in enhancing information literacy in developing countries.

Abstract:
Successful public-private partnerships do not last eight years by chance. A partnership develops in the first place by defining and agreeing on common grounds and goals. As time goes by, the dynamics of any partnership must reinvent itself and will then prove enduring or not. HINARI Access to Research Initiative was conceived in early 2001 to offer developing country institutions free or nominal-cost access to the world's biomedical literature. Initially, HINARI was a partnership of six major commercial publishers and the World Health Organization. Eight years later, HINARI is one of three sister programs, and the partnership has grown to include three United Nations agencies/programmes, Yale and Cornell universities, more than 130 publishers of all shapes and sizes, the International Association of STM Publishers, Microsoft Corporation, Ex Libris, and innumerable individuals and institutions who have become champions and ambassadors of the concept.

What cohesion principles have kept HINARI alive and vibrant? The paper will cover the following points in detail:

• respect
• openness and transparency
• flexibility and compromise
• engagement and autonomy
• review and re-inspiration

The audience will be encouraged to apply and discuss the relevance of different points to their own collaborative activities.