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Background Objectives Methods Results Discussion Conclusion Stakeholders working on the COVID‐19 pandemic response needed access to evidence, requiring a systematic approach to identify and disseminate relevant research.Outline the stages of development of a COVID‐19 Literature Digest; demonstrate the impact the Digest had on decision‐making and knowledge gain; identify the lessons learned.A standardised process was developed to identify and select papers. The main sources for content were PubMed, bioRxiv and medRxiv. A shared EndNote library was used to deduplicate and organise papers. Three user surveys obtained feedback from subscribers to determine if the Digest remained valuable, and explore the benefits to individuals.40–60 papers were summarised each week. 211 Digests were produced from March 2020 to March 2022, with around 10,000 papers included altogether. Survey results suggest benefits of the Digest were gaining new knowledge, saving time and contributing to evidence‐based decision making.Digest procedures constantly evolved and were adapted in response to survey feedback. Lessons identified: learn from failure, communication is key, measure your impact, work collaboratively, reflect and be flexible.The Digest was successfully produced within the limits of available resource. The learning from this Digest will inform evidence monitoring, selection and dissemination for future health crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Information specialists conducting searches for systematic reviews need to consider key questions around which and how many sources to search. This is particularly important for public health topics where evidence may be found in diverse sources. Objectives: The objective of this review is to give an overview of recent studies on information retrieval guidance and methods that could be applied to public health evidence and used to guide future searches. Methods: A literature search was performed in core databases and supplemented by browsing health information journals and citation searching. Results were sifted and reviewed. Results: Seventy‐two papers were found and grouped into themes covering sources and search techniques. Public health topics were poorly covered in this literature. Discussion: Many researchers follow the recommendations to search multiple databases. The review topic influences decisions about sources. Additional sources covering grey literature eliminate bias but are time‐consuming and difficult to search systematically. Public health searching is complex, often requiring searches in multidisciplinary sources and using additional methods. Conclusions: Search planning is advisable to enable decisions about which and how many sources to search. This could improve with more work on modelling search scenarios, particularly in public health topics, to examine where publications were found and guide future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a significant increase in academic research in the realm of social sciences. As such, there is an increasing need for the scientific community to adopt effective and efficient methods to examine the potential role and contribution of social sciences in the fight against COVID-19. Objectives: This study aims to identify the key topics and explore publishing trends in social science research pertaining to COVID-19 via automated literature analysis. Methods: The automated literature analysis employed utilizes keyword analysis and topic modelling technique, specifically Latent Dirichlet Allocation, to highlight the most relevant research terms, overarching research themes and research trends within the realm of social science research on COVID-19. Results: The focus of research and topics were derived from 9733 full-text academic papers. The bulk of social science research on COVID-19 centres on the following themes: 'Clinical Treatment', 'Epidemic Crisis', 'Mental Influence', 'Impact on Students', 'Lockdown Influence' and 'Impact on Children'. Conclusion: This study adds to our understanding of key topics in social science research on COVID-19. The automated literature analysis presented is particularly useful for librarians and information specialists keen to explore the role and contributions of social science topics in the context of pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Public health students need to use different resources to those used by other health science students. Objectives: To compare how users expect to interact with library resources and services with how they reported actual interactions and expected future usage, to inform library planning. Methods: During first semester orientation, a paper questionnaire was administered to graduate students (n = 25), followed by an end of semester questionnaire in a mandatory public health course. Differences (orientation vs. actual and actual vs. predicted future) were analysed using chi‐square tests. Results: Most graduate students utilized library resources as frequently as they anticipated at the semester's start. Regarding which library resources they would use, respondents' predictions during orientation were accurate. Respondent confidence in their abilities to use the library resources rose by the semester's end, and the group's expectations of using electronic books in the future semester increased significantly. Discussion: Graduate students had realistic expectations when predicting their library resource usage and difficulties and most expected to value the quiet space as much as they did. Conclusion: Such tracking of group expectations, experience and predicted usage helps library managers' plan where support is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The majority of the US population have poor knowledge of cancers related to human papillomavirus (HPV). Identifying best sources for communicating this information can guide strategies to promote HPV vaccination. Objectives: To assess the relationship between sources of health information and individuals' knowledge of HPV‐related cervical and oropharyngeal cancer. Methods: This study conducts logistic regression on the most recent wave (2019) of the Health Information National Trends Survey. Dependent variables are indicators for self‐reported awareness that HPV causes (a) cervical cancer and (b) oropharyngeal cancer. The primary indicator is a variable for different sources of health information: The Internet, professional sources, print materials, friends/family and never looked for health information. Results: Being female, young, non‐Hispanic White and having college education is associated with higher odds of knowing about HPV‐related cervical cancer. Controlling for demographic factors, individuals using professionals and the Internet are more likely to know that HPV causes cervical cancer (aOR: 2.65, 95% CI: 1.66, 4.25; aOR: 2.47, 95% CI: 1.75, 3.50, respectively) compared to those who have never looked for health information. Similar results were found for HPV‐related oropharyngeal cancer. Conclusion: Findings provide implications for targeted messaging through effective channels to improve HPV vaccination uptake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Small databases, such as Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) and Social Policy and Practice (SPP), can add value to systematic searches. Search strategies designed for large databases may not be appropriate in small sources. A different approach to translating strategies could ensure that small databases are searched efficiently. Objectives: To establish the contribution HMIC and SPP made to public health guidelines (PHGs); and to recommend an efficient method of translating search strategies. Methods: Eight PHGs were analysed to establish how many included publications were retrieved from HMIC and SPP. Six options for translating strategies from MEDLINE, using variations of free text and subject terms, were compared. Results: Health Management Information Consortium contributed 15 and SPP eight of the 483 publications cited in the PHGs. The free‐text only search was the one option to miss an included publication. The heading word (with truncation) option was more precise than applying subject headings. Discussion: There is a risk of missing relevant publications in free‐text only searches and it is preferable to include subject terms efficiently. Conclusion: The heading word (with truncation) option did not miss the evidence included in the PHGs and was the most efficient method for translating MEDLINE to HMIC and SPP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Celebrating its 75th year in 2022, Lynsey Hawker and Imrana Ghumra, Co‐Chairs of the Health Libraries Group (HLG) look back on its origins, celebrate key activities and achievements. From its humble beginnings as the Medical Section of the UK Library Associations' University and Research Section, becoming a Section in its own right, its evolution as the Medical, Health and Welfare Libraries Group. Celebrating its publications, awards, partnership working and advocacy work, they invite you to share your memories and reflections on the HLG and its previous incarnations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Micro‐blogging services empower health institutions to quickly disseminate health information to many users. By analysing user data, infodemiology (i.e. improving public health using user contributed health related content) can be measured in terms of information diffusion. Objectives: Tweets by the WHO were examined in order to identify tweet attributes that lead to a high information diffusion rate using Twitter data collected between November 2019 and January 2020. Methods: One thousand hundred and seventy‐seven tweets were collected using Python's Tweepy library. Afterwards, k‐means clustering and manual coding were used to classify tweets by theme, sentiment, length and count of emojis, pictures, videos and links. Resulting groups with different characteristics were analysed for significant differences using Mann–Whitney U‐ and Kruskal–Wallis H‐tests. Results: The topic of the tweet, the included links, emojis and (one) picture as well as the tweet length significantly affected the tweets' diffusion, whereas sentiment and videos did not show any significant influence on the diffusion of tweets. Discussion: The findings of this study give insights on why specific health topics might generate less attention and do not showcase sufficient information diffusion. Conclusion: The subject and appearance of a tweet influence its diffusion, making the design equally essential to the preparation of its content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a course that was developed in response to health sector and local authority workers being reliant on Google and using it for their information needs regardless of whether it was the best place to search. The methodology for developing and structuring the course is explored, including details of the content included. The author concludes by asserting that teaching users about the effective use of Google is an important part of user education. D.I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]