With the enormous growth in interest and use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems seen since the launch of ChatGPT in autumn 2022 have come questions both about the legal status of AI outputs, and of using protected works as training inputs. It is inevitable that UK higher education institution (HEI) library copyright advice services will see an increase in questions around use of works with AI as a result. Staff working in such library services are not lawyers or able to offer legal advice to their academic researchers. Nonetheless, they must look at the issues raised, consider how to advise in analogous situations of using copyright material, and offer opinion to researchers accordingly. While the legal questions remain to be answered definitively, copyright librarians can still offer advice on both open licences and use of copyright material under permitted exceptions. We look here at how library services can address questions on copyright and open licences for generative AI for researchers in UK HEIs.
When seeking medical information on social media, users tend to rely on subjective judgment rather than objective judgment, although both are influential. Furthermore, in the current era, in which marketing methods involving big data algorithms and artificial intelligence prevail, negative signals, such as information overload, have a more pronounced impact than positive signals.
By Michael North This post is the second in a series exploring the National Library of Medicine’s rich and varied collection of “herbals,” which are books devoted to the description of medicinal plants (and sometimes other natural substances) with instructions on how to use them to treat illness. The Library’s herbals are some of the…
New survey by the American Library Association. Despite their online presence, 98% of Purdue undergraduates use libraries for study, socializing, and resources like Wi-Fi. The survey highlights a shift in library design, emphasizing flexible, multi-purpose areas over traditional print collections. Modern libraries now offer amenities like natural light, diverse study environments, and tech-equipped spaces to meet student needs. The study underscores the importance of adapting library spaces to support both academic and social functions, ensuring they remain vital hubs for the next generation of students
As the authors of this paper state,
offering timely access to evidence-based practices is crucial to address the research-practice gap and provide evidence-based care to children and young people.
This review summarises the key barriers and facilitators to help achieve this. It also highlights some of the conflicting priorities that CYP mental health services currently face between these identified facilitators and barriers (e.g., high service demands and prioritising innovation).
Additionally, this review emphasises the need to learn and use implementation strategies within CYP mental health settings in order to test and trial these methods and understand the effects within local and individual contexts.
Health sciences library public services underwent profound changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Circulation, reference services, instruction, interlibrary loan, and programming were all significantly affected. Libraries adapted by moving to virtual services, featuring online workshops, video consultations, and digital information sharing. Reference services moved to virtual consultations for a streamlined experience, and instruction transitioned to interactive video tutorials. Interlibrary loan services saw a decrease in print material lending but an increase in electronic subscriptions. Library programming shifted from in-person to virtual, focusing on wellness activities. This post-pandemic transformation underscores the importance of ongoing adaptation to meet changing user needs.
This article describes how the library evidence team became part of a wider board project to develop a governance system for Apps. It also describes how the skills of librarians can be developed to work in this area and raise the profile of the team within the board.
To help address the well-being of the campus and contribute to empathy building amongst students pursuing careers as healthcare providers, an academic health sciences library built a graphic novel collection focused on comics that discuss medical conditions and health-related topics. The collection contains the experiences of patients, providers, and caregivers. The reader-friendly format of graphic novels provides an easy entry point for discussing empathy with health professions faculty and students. The collection has been used in the classroom during library instruction sessions, with the idea of integrating it within the curriculum.
Summary points
The TARCiS (Terminology, Application, and Reporting of Citation Searching) statement provides guidance in which contexts citation searching is likely to be beneficial for systematic reviewers
TARCiS comprises 10 specific recommendations on when and how to conduct citation searching and how to report it in the context of systematic literature searches, and also frames four research priorities
The statement will contribute to a unified terminology, systematic application, and transparent reporting of citation searching and support those who are conducting or assessing citation searching methods
Conclusion: Social media facilitates interpersonal communication, information exchange and knowledge sharing, and infographics may draw people into healthy lifestyle and fitness information items relevant to them.
A scoping review to determine how health service librarians instruct practicing clinicians and health sciences faculty in support of their continuing education.
as people aged, they searched for significantly less health wellness information (P<.001) and more health guidance (P<.001), and health management information (P=.003).
This cross-sectional study compared plain language summaries (PLSs) from medical and non-medical organizations regarding conclusiveness, readability and textual characteristics.
Our overall assessment is that MTI is a potentially useful tool for researchers wishing to classify texts from a variety of sources into disease areas.
ChatGPT provides different answers to similar questions based on the prompts, and patients may not have expertise in prompting ChattPT to elicit a best answer. (Prompting large language models has been shown to be a skill that can improve). Of greater concern, ChatGPT fails to provide sources or references for its answers. At present ChatGPT cannot be relied upon to address patient questions; in the future, ChatGPT will improve. Today, AI requires physician expertise to interpret AI answers for patients.
When screening full-text literature using highly reliable prompts, GPT-4's performance was more robust, reaching “human-like” levels. Although our findings indicate that, currently, substantial caution should be exercised if LLMs are being used to conduct systematic reviews, they also offer preliminary evidence that, for certain review tasks delivered under specific conditions, LLMs can rival human performance.