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<\/p>\nOur work is fairly constant, with large influxes in September and January from people gearing up for conference submissions. However, it\u2019s not just conference submissions but also applying for research grants. A fair amount of the research we do, will contribute to bids that individuals make for the hospital \u2013 some of which that have been really successful! I am constantly amazed by how little time people leave to get the research for their proposal done and the date of the proposal itself. \u00a0We have become adept at guessing the difference between someone who sends us an email saying \u2018ASAP\u2019 and one saying \u2018as soon as possible\u2019.<\/p>\n
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We are fortunate that our manager encourages us to get training, and so\u2026this week, we\u2019ve had \u2018levels of evidence\u2019. In the past we have we have attended \u2018Critical Appraisal Training\u2019 and had the more specific \u2018Literature Search Training\u2019. There is an avid librarian community on Twitter, and for those of who can\u2019t make it to conferences and away-days sharing what we learn via social media is key to helping ourselves and others develop within the profession. As we work in the NHS, there is definitely a trend of \u2018doing more with less\u2019 and we\u2019re constantly brainstorming ways to raise our profile within the hospital but also keep our own work varied and interesting, we\u2019re currently planning on a series of mini-videos to share on Twitter via @CEBIS to share our tips and tricks on searching with other information professionals. The aim is to make all librarians\/information professionals feel empowered to do literature searching and to not view it a magical art that only a few can do.<\/p>\n
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There have been many debates in our office as to whether something should belong in certain categories, we have regular arguments about if something is a \u2018case series\u2019 OR a cohort study. \u00a0The top of the pyramid is inhabited by \u2018systematic reviews\u2019 but as we always like to say, your systematic review is only as good as what\u2019s been reviewed and the rigorousness of the person (it should be people!) who did it. Equally, things like narrative reviews, editorials are at the very bottom but this is actually really misleading in our work. Sometimes, the qualitative information in an expert opinion can be incredibly more useful to a user than a systematic review that delves into studies that may be too much for someone looking for a summary on a topic. By the same definition when you\u2019re looking at Random Trials, the title may sound great, but when you start looking at the details and it\u2019s only 10 people or, it\u2019s only been done over a few weeks\u2026well it\u2019s not something that you would want to include. Because sometimes, it really is hard to figure out and it\u2019s a combination or practice but also just reading the article a couple of times. It is comforting to know that many academics have problems with exactly the same question.\u00a0 Janet Martin (Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesia & Perioperative Medicine and Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics) plays \u2018Name that Study! Do We need a new Category?\u2019 with her students yearly.<\/p>\n
This is a big part of the work we do for our users, essentially taking a lot of the legwork out their ongoing research.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One of the best parts of the job is learning about all the different conditions, and it means that no one day is the same as we always have requests coming in. It\u2019s not always the clinical requests (where we have to look up the words) either. Questions around education, simulations, reflective practice are also part and parcel of what we do. The irony being, that these types of questions don\u2019t fit into a traditional search methodology for the databases we use; making them more challenging, to parse into a search string to enable us to find the right and relevant information I recently did this:<\/p>\n
Any research that is currently available on sound\/acoustic therapy for tinnitus patients. <\/strong><\/p>\n
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\n PubMed<\/strong><\/p>\n sound therapy or acoustic therapy or aural rehabilitation or vibroacoustic therapy or VAT)) AND tinnitus) AND new research AND Humans<\/p>\n
sound therapy or acoustic therapy or aural rehabilitation or vibroacoustic therapy or VAT)) AND tinnitus) AND current or new research AND Humans<\/p>\n
sound therapy or acoustic therapy or aural rehabilitation or vibroacoustic therapy or VAT AND tinnitus Filters: Humans<\/p>\n
sound therapy or acoustic therapy or aural rehabilitation or vibroacoustic therapy or VAT AND tinnitus AND new research AND Humans<\/p>\n
sound therapy or acoustic therapy or aural rehabilitation or vibroacoustic therapy or VAT AND tinnitus AND new research Filters: Humans<\/p>\n
aural rehabilitation AND tinnitus) AND new research\u00a0Filters:\u00a0Humans<\/p>\n
sound or acoustic therapy)) AND tinnitus) AND new research<\/p>\n
sound or acoustic therapy AND tinnitus AND new research Filters: Humans<\/p>\n
sound or acoustic therapy AND tinnitus<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n NICE<\/strong><\/p>\n Tinnitus<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n TRIP<\/strong><\/p>\n sound therapy and tinnitus<\/p>\n
acoustic therapy and tinnitus<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n CINAHL<\/strong><\/p>\n sound therapy or acoustic therapy or aural rehabilitation or vibroacoustic therapy or VAT AND tinnitus AND new research AND Humans<\/p>\n
sound therapy or acoustic therapy and tinnitus<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Google Scholar<\/strong><\/p>\n sound or acoustic therapy AND tinnitus AND new research<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
We use a diverse group of databases but PubMed is usually the best place to start \u2013 especially if it\u2019s a clinical question. PubMed allows you to set up your search to become increasingly more narrow and detailed but something like Trip can only use keywords and even then you will pick up a lot of studies\/guidelines\/policies that are usually irrelevant to what you\u2019re looking for. NICE Evidence provides access to high quality authoritative evidence and best practice – especially useful when we\u2019re searching for Guidelines. I know you\u2019ll be surprised to see Google (in any form!) on that list but it\u2019s sometimes the best place to start to scope out what is actually available on a topic. BY doing this, if you are struggling this will enable you to figure out what your search terms might be, as some questions can use phrases that haven\u2019t been widely used. A most recent example is a question I\u2019ve had on \u2018The use of pabrinex and hydrocortisone in sepsis\u2019 \u2013 pabrinex is a not a commonly indexed terms in any of the databases we look at so I had to find out what the components of it are. Turns out that pabrinex is primarily made up of thiamine and vitamin c (also known as ascorbic acid). Adding these phrases to my search string meant that I was able to find results but also relevant results for the user. \u00a0This is the part of my job I enjoy \u2013 where you get to decipher your requests to find stuff!<\/p>\n
My background is as a qualified librarian but I\u2019ve never worked in a traditional library and my colleagues are from an equally varied background! This means that we bring different skillsets to the role namely \u2013 systematic thinking, an eye for detail and the ability to think critically and laterally about the questions that we\u2019re given.\u00a0 It\u2019s not something I ever saw myself doing when I was little but the more I\u2019ve worked in libraries the more I\u2019ve come to enjoy the process of searching, understanding and sharing information and knowledge with an interested audience<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our work is fairly constant, with large influxes in September and January from people gearing up for conference submissions. However, it\u2019s not just conference submissions but also applying for research grants. A fair amount of the research we do, will contribute to bids that individuals make for the hospital \u2013 some of which that have… Continue reading My week: Natasha Chowdory, a CEBIS Specialist at a large hospital in the West Midlands<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,237],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feature-article","category-winter-2019","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}