Provision of biomedical literature on digital platforms: Assessment of the Information Dissemination Service

Abstract

Health Literature Library Information Service (HELLIS) network is a consortium of health libraries in the South-East Asian region. In 1980, it was established in Sri Lanka with the main objective of providing better Information Dissemination Service (IDS). IDS which was established on digital platform in 2011 by the medical library, University of Colombo is popular among health care professionals and bio-medical scientists in the country. The study was focused to determine the efficacy of IDS on digital platform; to find the nature of Inter Library Loan (ILL) requests; to analyze the sources of reference and to provide comparative analysis among information requested groups. Statistics of IDS from 2013 to 2017 was used as data for this study. All ILL requests in the period (n=1809) were analyzed. The ILL requests fulfilled by World Health Organization (WHO) country office library and South East Asian Region (SEARO) library were named as sample A and remaining ILL requests fulfilled by other regions were taken as sample B. Only National Focal Point Library working days were considered as time required for processing. Fulfillment of ILL requests by sample A and B was 75.62% (n=1368). 89.6% (n=1151) was filled by sample A, whilst 41.3% (n=217) was by sample B. The highest percentage of requests fulfilled was recently published material between one to five years. After 30 years published materials were the lowest fulfillments. Time taken for the fulfillment of requests was one – two weeks. Most of reference sources were from well-established publishers and cited in Science Citation Index (55.3%) and Index Medicus searches (38.8%). 73% requests were received from academics and the service was gradually increasing among postgraduate students, but requests from clinicians were poor. According to the international standards, the IDS service was efficient since majority of the requests were fulfilled within a week. Efficiency was due to the digital portal launched in WHO-SEARO library and well-efficient staff members in both ends. Publications within current year to five years back were heavily used by Health Science professionals. Almost all requested reference sources cited in well-popular indexed databases. The service was well familiar among academics and postgraduate students, however awareness programmes should be conducted for clinicians.