Open Evidence-Krafty Librarian

 

Did you catch the Krafty Librarian's post, "OpenEvidence: Smart Medicine or Smart Marketing?"  After meeting our new Internal Medicine Program Director, who had questions about it, I’ve been dabbling with OpenMedicine myself. While Michelle reports accurately that you need an NPI to create an account; I just used my hospital's NPI, and I was in without issue. (If you want a way around that)

The big question, of course, is its utility. I recently leveraged it not as a substitute for a comprehensive search, but to add to one. Specifically, I used it to reinforce my search results on best practices literature, giving me a quick double-check on established evidence to ensure I had a complete picture.

The original blog post raises vital questions about balancing slick presentation with true evidence integrity, and it challenges us to place resources like OpenEvidence in the correct context for our users. Is it a time-saver? Yes. Is it a perfect primary source? Probably not. We need to be the critical thinkers guiding our clinicians and researchers through the noise. 

https://kraftylibrarian.com/openevidence-smart-medicine-or-smart-marketing/ 

MLA Award Nominations Due November 15

 

Image by Mimzy from Pixabay

For fellow MLA members, this year's MLA award nominations are due November 15th, 2025. Nominate a colleague for one of the many MLA awards!

 The award categories include:

•  New to the profession
• Mid-career professionals
• Proven leader
• Organizational focus
• International focus
• Chapter & caucus
•  Lectureships

 Submit your nominations via MLA's Awards and Honors page. Note that you need to be signed into your MLA account in order to make a nomination. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has a great day!

Liz Suelzer Named MWCMLA’s Distinguished Librarian of the Year!

 Posted on behalf of Karen Hanus

We are thrilled to announce that Liz Suelzer, Applications Support Analyst Sr for the Advocate Health - Midwest Library, has been honored as the Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association’s Distinguished Librarian of the Year!

The Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MWCMLA) unites health sciences librarians across nine Midwestern states. The annual Distinguished Librarian of the Year Award recognizes an MWCMLA member at any career level who has provided outstanding service to the organization and advanced MWCMLA’s achievement and effectiveness.

Liz has held multiple MWCMLA leadership roles, including President-Elect, President, and Past President from 2019 to 2022, and currently serves as Chair of the Professional Practice Committee. In every role, she has brought vision, organization, and energy, transforming committee work and inspiring colleagues to achieve their best. Among her many outstanding contributions to the chapter, Liz launched the chapter’s Member Mixer Series, which created an engaging virtual event that fosters professional connection among our members. She also introduced the “Fan Favorite” award, which has expanded award recognition at the organization’s annual conference to include contributions beyond the traditional research categories. These initiatives reflect her commitment to inclusivity. Liz’s leadership and creativity extend beyond programming. She also guided the development of a strategic plan that set meaningful, achievable goals while positioning the Chapter for future growth.

The most important contribution for which Liz deserves this award is her leadership of the Professional Practice Committee. This committee has a challenging charge with a lot of members; it has been a tough committee to lead due to its size and sprawling purpose. Once Liz took over as chair of the committee, she was able to give its members a clear direction and successfully led the members and reinvigorated the group with a renewed sense of purpose. A member of the committee shared that “Liz made an immediate impression by effectively and efficiently leading her first meeting [of the Professional Practice Committee]. Her leadership, team building, and organizational skills are extraordinary. It only took one meeting for her to engage her committee members, clearly communicate the important work of this committee and convince us to actively participate. In my opinion, her efforts have resulted in the first highly successful execution of the committee’s original intent and purpose.” 

Congratulations, Liz, on this well-deserved recognition! Thank you for all you do to support and advance health sciences librarianship in the Midwest!

Clowning around with EndNote 2025's AI Research Assistant (clown shenanigans part II!)

 

EndNote 2025 now has an AI-powered Research Assistant tool to accompany its Key Takeaway tool. This new feature allows you to ask the Research Assistant (i.e., chatbot) questions, which the Assistant will answer using the content provided in the PDF you attach to a reference. As a note, in order to use the tool EndNote 2025 users must use a library they have synced with the online version of EndNote.

Of course, I couldn't help but resort to my old clown antics to test out the tool, just like I did when testing out the Key Takeaway tool.

For this experiment, I tested whether the Research Assistant could pick up on clown nonsense in a study's methods. To do this, I replaced the abstract and methods sections of one of my own articles about clinical trials information sharing with nonsense about clowns (for a humorous read, you can take a look at the manipulated PDF here), and attached it to its corresponding reference in EndNote. I also replaced the abstract metadata in the EndNote record with clown nonsense. After syncing my library, I then entered the following question into the Research Assistant, "What methods were used to determine the extent of data sharing?"

Theoretically, the Research Assistant should have either stated the authors didn't specify their methods for determining extent of data sharing, or mentioned something along the lines of balloon animal residue analysis and unsolicited honking detection, but it did nothing of the sort. Instead, it appeared to draw data from the results and introduction sections to inform its methods summary. It didn't mention clowns, at all, even though all sections relating to the methods had been replaced with clown nonsense.

 

Here is the output of the Research Assistant, as the screenshot can be a bit hard to read:

• Methods used to determine data sharing

• The study analyzed 206 ClinicalTrials.gov (CTG) records of US federally funded COVID-19 clinical studies that included at least 200 participants
• It evaluated the records for links to supporting documents, individual participant data (IPD) sharing information, and associated publications
• The researchers looked for specific sections in the CTG records that indicated the presence of protocols, informed consent forms, and statistical analysis plans.
• Data was collected on how many records provided links to these materials and the mechanisms for accessing IPD, as well as any discrepancies in the information provided.

To be fair, the Research Assistant did pick up on clown nonsense when you asked it to "Summarize the methods used for this study."

 

Here is the output for that query, as well:

• Methods summary
• Study design: the research employed a multi-phase, interdisciplinary approach to investigate the discoverability of supporting research materials in COVID-19 clinical studies on ClinicalTrials.gov.
• Data Collection:
• Behavioral surveillance: Observers were trained to recognize clown behaviors, using tools like binoculars and audio recorders to monitor high-traffic areas for clown-like activities.
• Material forensics: Environmental samples were collected from locations identified as high clown activity zones, focusing on traces like wig fibers and greasepaint residue.
• Psychological profiling: Participants were assessed using three instruments to gauge their clown potential, including a questionnaire and observational tests.
• Data Analysis: Observations and samples were catalogued and scored using the Clown Threat Index (CTI), which quantified behaviors to identify individuals with clown-like tendencies.
• Ethics and oversight: The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board, ensuring ethical standards in data collection and participant interaction.

While I hope it would be unlikely authors would replace sections relating to their methods with utter nonsense, this little experiment demonstrates the limitations of AI PDF summarizers, namely how they can miss vital context within the full text. Researchers wanting to save time with these summarizers may miss (potentially critical!) methodological flaws in a study (such as in this case, where there was a mismatch, to say the least, between the methods and the aims of the study). While PDF summarization tools and chatbots can be convenient, researchers should exercise caution if they decide to utilize such tools, and always verify information by examining the full text. 

For some additional resources relating to generative AI in the health sciences, check out:

• Evaluating large language models on medical evidence summarization: “In this study, we systematically examine the capabilities and limitations of LLMs, specifically GPT-3.5 and ChatGPT, in performing zero-shot medical evidence summarization across six clinical domains.”
• Evaluating a large language model’s ability to answer clinicians’ requests for evidence summaries: “This study investigated the performance of a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool using GPT-4 in answering clinical questions in comparison with medical librarians' gold-standard evidence syntheses.”
• Evaluating ChatGPT's ability to simplify scientific abstracts for clinicians and the public: "This study evaluated ChatGPT's ability to simplify scientific abstracts for both public and clinician use. Ten questions were developed to assess ChatGPT's ability to simplify scientific abstracts and improve their readability for both the public and clinicians."
• How effectively do large language models and AI-based automation tools assist in writing and summarizing evidence syntheses?: Cochrane Training webinar recording on potential uses of large language models in systematic reviews.
• AI Hallucinations Are Getting Worse: NY Times coverage of the worsening issue of hallucinations in generative AI
• Ebling's AI Examples (Ebling's Box folder containing additional generative AI examples!) 

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has a great weekend! 

Nominate Someone for WHSLA's Librarian of the Year Award!

 

 Nominate one of your colleagues for WHSLA's Librarian of the Year Award! The deadline for nominations is October 31st, 2025.

This career award is bestowed upon a professional (MLS or equivalent) librarian in recognition of outstanding leadership, achievement and commitment to the library profession. The librarian shall be currently employed in a Wisconsin health sciences library and must be an active member of WHSLA.

Criteria for the award include (but are not limited to):

1. Distinguished service to the profession; outstanding participation in activities of professional associations; and notable 
2. publications, presentations and projects.
3. Dedicated leadership and vision in health sciences libraries including automation technology, management, networking,
4. education or service.
5. Active support of and participation in WHSLA.
6. Enhancement, expansion and interpretation of library service to the community and/or strengthening of the library's role and position in the community.
7. Development of innovative programs that have benefited WHSLA members. 

Nominate a colleague via WHSLA's Librarian of the Year nomination form. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone is having a great fall! 

 

Save the Date: WHSLA Wisdom Chat October 24, 2025 at 2pm: Karen Hanus and Liz Suelzer will focus on The Library's Role in Successful Implementation of System-wide Online Tools

Friday, October 24, 2025 from 2-3 pm CST

In this WHSLA Wisdom Chat, Liz Suelzer and Karen Hanus of Advocate Health, will deliver a presentation focused on the role the Library plays in the successful implementation of hospital system-wide tools, with a look into our experience with implementing Lippincott Nursing Procedures. The session will illustrate how librarians collaborate with clinical and IT teams to ensure seamless implementation. Attendees will gain insights into problems the hospital system or library may encounter when librarians are not at the table during implementation as well as what special knowledge and skills librarians can contribute to the implementation.

This presentation will be followed by our usual round of sharing.

WHSLA Wisdom Chats are open to all WHSLA members in good standing.  Meeting invitations will go out soon.  If you are a current member and did not receive an invitation, please contact Michele Matucheski, WHSLA Wisdom Chat coordinator filling in for Barb Ruggieri this year.   There's still time to join/renew your membership, if you want to attend this session.

This session will be recorded and made available for later viewing on the members only section of the WHSLA Website.  Special thank you to Paije Wilson and Ebling Library for hosting and recording the session.  

Better Information - Better Decisions: October is National Medical Librarians Month - 2025

 

Attend the MLA UX Caucus' FREE event: EBSCOhost Idea Exchange!

 Many (if not most) libraries have moved to the new EBSCOhost user interface. Now that you and your patrons are using it regularly for both novice and expert searching …

• Do you have questions about which features have vanished and which are just hiding from you
• Have you found solutions or workarounds for things you thought the new UI couldn’t do?
• Are you running into system errors or missing functionality?

All are welcome at the EBSCOhost Idea Exchange! Join this open forum to share your challenges and strategies. Help us compile a crowd-sourced resource matching problems to solutions, listing outstanding issues, and brainstorming enhancement requests.

Save the date: Wednesday, November 19, 2025, from 12:00 – 1:30 pm Central Time, hosted by the MLA User Experience (UX) Caucus. Zoom information is included below.

 

Topic: EBSCOhost Idea Exchange

Time: Nov 19, 2025 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88632776538?pwd=eDkb6o1M5MqsZnQMu5Losr30OkZ0OK.1

Meeting ID: 886 3277 6538

Passcode: uxc2025