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Collaboration with Librarian Brings Award
to Public Health Course
Sure, students have researched and written term papers as undergraduates. But how do they systematically find, review and critique all the evidence-based literature on a particular topic?
In The University of Texas School of Public Health, a course on “Systematic Reviews and Evidence-based Public Health” is the answer. Now that course and its creator, Patricia Dolan Mullen, Dr.P.H., have won the second annual UT Library Directors’ Award for Excellence in Library Resource Integration.
Patricia Mullen, Dr.P.H., left, and librarian Margaret Anderson
collaborated on a course at the UT School of Public Health that
has won an award
for excellence. Photo by Michele Mocco
Announced at the Innovations in Online Learning Conference in Austin this summer, the award recognizes not only the use of online resources for the course, but also the integration of a librarian to further instruct students on searching databases and developing mechanisms for keeping track of results. The course was selected from nominations from across the UT System.
Margaret J. Anderson, public services librarian in the UT School of Public Health Library, lectured on selection of topic-appropriate databases, development of a search strategy, citation checking, library databases and use of bibliographic management software.
“Because of the importance of library searches to systematic reviews and meta-analysis, I have always asked a librarian to do a session on searching,” said Mullen, professor and training director in health promotion and behavioral sciences. “The difference started when I began to think of the students as clients of search experts. Clients need to be prepared when meeting with the librarian, with clear specifications and one or two examples of what the search needs to be designed to find.
“Extending this analogy, Ms. Anderson also became familiar with questions to ask the client at the beginning of a search that would help determine what documentation would be required,” Mullen said.
In addition to working as a full-time librarian, Anderson is also a Master of Public Health student in health promotion, planning to graduate in December. She already has one master’s degree, a Master of Science in information and library science, with specialization in health information.
In both student and expert roles, Anderson “could see what documentation was needed and errors in the way this is often done,” Mullen said, “and she then was able to bridge the typical gaps in knowledge and perspective.”
Teaching is not really new to Anderson. “As a librarian,” she said, “I teach to individuals on a daily basis, and groups as needed. I have trained students, staff, patients and the public, as well as consulted with faculty on locating, evaluating and utilizing health-related information for several years.”
As a student, Anderson said, “I learned a great deal from Dr. Mullen on the various types of systematic reviews. It has changed the way I think about searching and therefore how I conduct searches and train others. The course also broadened my view of public health and revealed how my skills fit into public health practice.”
The systematic review course is “one of the outstanding courses we have in the Division of Behavioral Sciences and Health Promotion, which has been ranked the #1 doctoral program in the country,” said R. Sue Day, Ph.D., associate dean for research and associate professor in epidemiology and nutrition.
“Very few of the schools of public health around the country have a library – and this shows how we have blended this great library resource into the specific needs of our school,” Day said. She added that the library director, Helena VonVille, “has worked very hard to get our library to meet the Association of Schools of Public Health guidelines for content.”
Mullen hopes that Anderson will be able to co-teach the systematic review class next spring. In addition, they are producing a series of searching and information management resources that will be made available to all School of Public Health students.
By Ina Fried, Public Affairs