G.O.T. IT ! Gruppo Operativo per il Trasferimento della ricerca bibliografica nei servizi sanitari. Task Group for the Transfer of medical bibliographic information to health services.

Laura Cavazza*, Chiara Bassi**, Rita Iori*** , Eleonora Belletti****, Leslie Locche°, Maria Pia Schiavina°°, Maria Pia Fantini°°°
*Soprintendenza beni librari - Regione Emilia-Romagna
**Biblioteca CEVEAS - Azienda USL di Modena
***Biblioteca Medica ASMN - Azienda Ospedaliera di Reggio Emilia
****Biblioteca Azienda Arcispedale S. Anna di Ferrara
°Biblioteca Centralizzata Azienda Ospedaliera S. Orsola-Malpighi di Bologna
°°Biblioteca Assessorato Sanità - Regione Emilia-Romagna
°°°Agenzia Sanitaria della Regione Emilia-Romagna
LCavazza@ibc.regione.emilia-romagna.it

GOT was officially founded on December 28, 2000; the acronym stands for Gruppo Operativo per il Trasferimento dei risultati della ricerca bibliografica nei servizi sanitari, a task group of libraries that gives life to a consortium project called Network informativo per il trasferimento dei risultati della ricerca bibliografica nei servizi sanitari (an information network for the transfer of bibliographic reseach in health services).
The project was born in 1999 through the co-operation, in the EBM field, between Soprintendenza per i beni librari e documentari della Regione Emilia-Romagna and Agenzia sanitaria regionale.
EBM is the common ground: by bringing forward the quality issues in bibliographic research for the delivery of the best available evidences, EBM enhances the role of the library within the Local health unit. The links between library and unit are strengthened as the bibliographic services are necessarily improved to support EBM methodologies, from enquiries to document delivery to consistent training and updating aimed at staff and users. Soprintendenza and Agenzia sanitaria regionale pooled their respective expertise and began sharing the intents common to both.
 

GOT Goals

Our main goal is to create networked services among the libraries of the Local health units and grant a correct bibliographic information flow from searching to delivery. Searches must deliver the best available scientific evidences, in order to back the best diagnosis, therapy and care to citizens when they get to the health and hospital service in their area and in order to favour scientific research.
The project intends to reach its aims by:

• acquiring and managing medical information resources, on a consortium basis and more specifically by sharing the purchase of databases and information resources, for a more cost-effective approach;
• acquiring the content of scientific material through a net of libraries that will provide an efficient and co-operative document delivery service within the existing legislation on copyright;
• creating and maintaining an on-line union catalogue of the serials, as the necessary basis for document delivery;
• training library staff and users and updating their skills.

• Give all bio-medical librarians in Emilia-Romagna a common and shared training in the field of EBM, databases searching and management of serials, create a focus on continuing education;
• update the regional survey of medical and health libraries and their collections, services and staff in order to back further decisions;
• select a group of libraries against a set of criteria (skilled staff, range of serials collections, services and/or libraries with good growing-up potential) to form the first core group of GOT; extend the model to all other health and medical libraries in due time;
• decide shared acquisitions, after a free trial of the products, in order to get the highest quality information resources and best performing software for the project and its management. This will lead to savings that can be differently exploited.

GOT Results

Over the past two years, the following work-packages were completed:

1999
 

• ground course for librarians of biomedical libraries in Emilia-Romagna, with 17 trainees attending(1);
• framework of the regional survey of medical and health libraries with Gruppo nazionale BDS-Bibliotecari documentalisti sanità;

• first informal group formed by some selected Local health units and Regione Emilia-Romagna;
• four month trial of relevant databases (Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library) on two different software environments;
• three training sessions on the databases of the trial;
• two seminars on copyright and contract practice for library consortia;
• establishment of the GOT Group and Funding Agreement among four Units (Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna and Ferrara) and Soprintendenza per i beni librari e documentari della Regione Emilia-Romagna. The rules bring together different parties with a common goal. The libraries buy and share access to the selected databases; information resources costs are equally shared among the interested parties. Soprintendenza has a scientific steering role and the task of organising the training, following the project development, organisation and contractual aspects. One of the parties is in charge of making orders for the group;
• purchase of two databases (Embase and Medline) on SilverPlatter software; 
• execution of the regional survey;

• start-up of a document delivery scheme among three GOT libraries;
• trial of more databases and software;
• survey of the serials owned by the four participating libraries in order to build a union catalogue;
• opening to new partners.

[Click here to see graph 2]
 

GOT Future

The agreement wants to open up to more Local health units wishing to participate; our general aim is, understandably, the inclusion - in due time - of all the regional health units in Emilia-Romagna. By the end of the year and in 2002, we plan to increase the number of available databases, start a trial of a software for document delivery and serials, investigate the feasibility of a union catalogue of serials and an OPAC, develop the e-journals sector and awareness, envisage new training as the project goes on. Last but not least, develop a GOT website.
 

References

1 L. Cavazza [... et al.], A project of information and training on Evidence Based Medicine aimed at librarians in Emilia-Romagna (Italy) 
(http://www.icml.org/posters/post60/poster60.htm) 18/04/2001

Acknowledgements

Translated by Margherita Spinazzola; the authors would like to thank Paola Bussei and Zeno Orlandi for their co-operation.