Medical Library Services in Germany

Survey of medical library services in Germany

Thank you for participating in our survey of medical library services in Germany. Please check with your colleagues that the survey is filled in only once per library.

The results of this survey will be used for an article on German medical libraries in Health Information and Libraries Journal (HILJ). To be in line with HILJ's regular feature "International Perspectives and Initiatives" the focus of the survey is on current developments of medical library services and their uptake in our country. If you have any queries, please contact us!

Dr. Helge Knüttel, Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg
Dr. Iris Reimann, Universitätsbibliothek der RWTH Aachen
Dr. Evamaria Krause, Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg
Dr. Martina Semmler-Schmetz, Universität Heidelberg, Bibliothek der Medizinischen Fakultät Mannheim
Maria-Inti Metzendorf, Cochrane Metabolic and Endocrine Disorders Group & Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf

We very much thank Gerhard Bissels and the Fachhochschule Graubünden for supporting this survey.

There are 25 questions in this survey.

Type of library

In this section we ask you a number of questions about the institutional context and user groups of your library.

1 What type of organisation does your library belong to? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • University (incl. medical faculty) or university hospital
  • Clinic/policlinic/institute at a larger hospital
  • Non-university hospital
  • Nursing school/school for other Allied Health Professionals
  • Research institution
  • Pharmaceutical enterprise
  • Other

Please state what kind of organisation your library is part of, even if it serves users from other organisations, too!

In case none of the institutional types fits to your organisation, please choose 'Other' and enter the kind of organisation in the text field.

2 Does the organisation your library belongs to conduct medical/helth research? *

Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No

3 Which client groups does your library serve? *

Check all that apply
Please choose all that apply:

  • Doctors
  • Nurses, midwifes, and Allied Health Professionals
  • Researchers
  • Medical/Dental/Veterinary students
  • Students/trainees of nursing, midwifery, and Allied Health Professions
  • Health professionals outside own institution
  • Patients and the public
  • Other:

Collection

In this section we ask questions about the types of resources your library offers.

4 What types of resources does your library offer? *

Check all that apply
Please choose all that apply:

  • books (print)
  • books (digital)
  • journals (print)
  • journals (digital)
  • Ovid MEDLINE
  • Ovid EMBASE
  • EMBASE (embase.com)
  • EMCare
  • CINAHL
  • Carelit
  • Thieme Certified Nursing Education (CNE)
  • TRIP Pro
  • Cochrane Library
  • AMED
  • BIOSIS
  • Faculty of 1000
  • Scopus
  • Web of Science
  • UpToDate
  • DynaMed
  • Clinical Key
  • Deximed
  • EbM Guidelines
  • BMJ Best Practice
  • AMBOSS
  • Other:

5 Do you license some or all of your electronic resources via a consortium?

Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No

Services

In this section we ask questions about the range of services your library offers to its users.

In cases where another organisational unit of your institution is in charge of a service, please select "other department".
Example: There is a "Department for Research Data Management" separate from your medical library that provides such services.

In cases where a service is clearly not applicable to your institution, please select "not applicable".
Example: Courses within the curriculum of a medical/nursing faculty will usually not be applicable when your library is not affiliated to such a faculty.

6 Does your library offer mediated searches for researchers working on systematic reviews, clinical guidelines, and similar publications? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable
Mediated search' means that library staff develop and possibly carry out the search for the medical researches, though, obviously, in close collaboration with them.

7 Does your library offer researchers consultations to assist with the development of a search strategy? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable

8 Does your library offer lectures/practicals/courses/seminars within the curriculum of the medical/nursing faculty (voluntary/compulsory and/or with ECTS points)? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable
Please choose "Yes" if your library offers eLearning of this category.

9 Does your library offer optional training sessions (i.e. outside of the medical/nursing curriculum, and without ECTS points)? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable
Please choose "Yes" if your library offers eLearning of this category.

10 Does your library offer one-on-one consultations for students working on their Master thesis? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable

11 Does your library offer one-on-one consultations to PhD students? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable

12 Does your library offer one-on-one support to postdocs? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable

13 Does your library offer a 'clinical librarian' service, i.e. searches for clinicians' daily practice? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable
Please, answer with 'yes' if you provide at least one of the services from the whole range as found by: Brettle, A. , Maden, M. and Payne, C. (2016), The impact of clinical librarian services on patients and health care organisations. Health Info Libr J, 33: 100-120. doi:10.1111/hir.12136.

14 Does your library offer consultations or support for the critical appraisal of clinical evidence? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable

15 Does your library offer consultations or support for Open Access (financially or organisational)? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable

16 Does your library offer consultations or support for research data management? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Offered by other department
  • Not applicable

17

Did your library's research support services result in (co-)authorship in peer reviewed publications?

*

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Not applicable
Please choose "Yes" if  your library's research support services resulted at least once in a (co-)authorship in a peer reviewed publication.

18 Does your library conduct research in the field of librarianship/information science (e.g. method development, evidence-based librarianship)? *

Choose one of the following answers
Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Other department

Staffing

In this section we ask questions about the number and background of staff at your library.

Please enter the total of posts in Full Time Equivalent, so if you have one 40% and one 80% post, enter 1.2.

19 Number of staff at academic level (subject liaison librarian, German 'Fachreferent') in FTE

Only numbers may be entered in this field.
Please write your answer here:

20 Number of other staff with an academic background (e.g. academic writing tutor)

Only numbers may be entered in this field.
Please write your answer here:

21 Number of staff with a qualification at BSc level (e.g. 'Diplom-Bibliothekar (FH)')

Only numbers may be entered in this field.
Please write your answer here:

22 Number of staff with an apprenticeship (e.g. 'Fachangestellte für Medien- und Informationsdienste (FaMI)')

Only numbers may be entered in this field.
Please write your answer here:

23 Number of staff with no formal qualification

Only numbers may be entered in this field.
Please write your answer here:

24 Number of staff with different qualifications (please specify)

Please write your answer here:

25 Are some tasks of your medical library (e.g. acquisitions, cataloguing, teaching) carried out by other departments such that the staff involved is not contained in the numbers you enter in this section for your medical library? *

Please choose only one of the following:

  • Yes
  • No

Thank you for taking the time to fill in our survey! The article is scheduled to be published in HILJ March 2020 (Vol 37, No 1, March 2020).


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