The goal of this project is to develop a Health SmartLibrary (HSL) system prototype that will assist the busy health care professional with selecting and managing electronic information in a way that is useful for them in making clinical decisions. The Northwestern University Galter Health Sciences Library and the Medical School Emergency Medicine Division will collaborate to develop this prototype over a 24-month period. This project will involve building the tools necessary so that health care professionals can receive, organize, and manage electronic information they need and want easily and efficiently.
Our aim i s to design a model that can be duplicated at other institutions interested in providing the HSL service to their users. To meet this goal the following objectives have been identified: l) Design a web-based system that will make intelligent guesses and assumptions about the user based on the information the user(s) provides and can be customized by the user. 2) Design a service that provides the user with customized full-text library resources such as journals and books based on the information the user provides. 3) Design a meta-search engine that allows the user to search many of the library?s resources with one search tool. 4) Design a service that will generate automatically customized literature updates with links to full-text when available. 5) Design a database that will serve as a """"""""personal file cabinet"""""""" of links to journal articles, textbooks, and other resources for each user that can be accessed directly from the user?s HSL page. 6) Implement the """"""""HSL"""""""" at Northwestern University and provide the tools developed to other libraries interested in providing the HSL service. 7) Evaluate the usage of the HSL to determine its impact in managing information for health care professionals. Northwestern University has both the electronic resources and the staff experience needed to develop the Health SmartLibrary. The complexity of the project requires staff time and the appropriate computer resources to accomplish the tasks. Funding this project will provide us with the staff and computer resources needed.
| Shedlock, James; Frisque, Michelle; Hunt, Steve et al. (2010) Case study: the health SmartLibrary experiences in web personalization and customization at the Galter health sciences library, Northwestern University. J Med Libr Assoc 98:98-104 |
| Shedlock, James; Walton, Linda; Frisque, Michelle et al. (2003) Evaluating the Health SmartLibrary. AMIA Annu Symp Proc :1008 |
