VETERINARIAN FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION

by Beryl Glitz

A focus group of veterinarians was held at the University of California, Davis, on March 15, 1995, with ten participants including faculty and staff from the veterinary school at the University of California, Davis; practitioners from the Davis/Sacra mento area; and librarians from UC Davis. This was the final focus group to be held during the present contract, one of six which PSRML has organized to explore the information needs of the various health professional groups which it serves. Questions c overed the need for information from the student, faculty, and practitioner viewpoint, the role of the library, and changing needs for the future. Following are some highlights from the discussion; a full record of the meeting is available by contacting the PSRML office.

• Students make little use of the library in their first three years in school. The fourth year is most intense and many resources are used, including searching the online literature.
• Not all students know how to use the library effectively and though most are given some type of orientation in their first year, this is not really helpful since they won't use the library heavily until later and will then have forgotten all they lear ned.
• Timing is critical for the introduction of information-seeking skills.
• A required course, which forces students to utilize information resources would be helpful, though time in the curriculum is always a problem.
• Computers will be come more and more important for students as class materials and examinations are made available online. With so many sources of information available to them, they need to learn how to handle it more effectively.
• All students, in their final year, should be taught how to access information when they leave school.
• Faculty may not know how to utilize the library and its resources effectively in today's curriculum even though they know it is an important resource.
• Faculty need access to the latest information and expect to be able to get it quickly, easily, and at their desk-top.
• Seminar courses can provide a good method for learning to use the library, but most courses don't require that students actively look for information.
• A computer-generated course which covers the highlights of how to use a library and which is always available, might be a good solution.
• Although document delivery services can be very useful, many faculty use students to do their searches and get their articles.
• MEDLINE is an excellent database for veterinarians with its coverage of basic sciences journals; topics such as general virology and bacteriology are important as well as much of the human information available in the database.
• Adding more veterinary journals to MEDLINE would be a great service since it would bring all the major resources together and veterinarians would only need to learn the one system. Now they must turn to other systems, each with its own search languag e.
• More animal-science oriented information and veterinary toxicology needs to be in MEDLINE.
• Conference proceedings information is heavily used by veterinarians. Making it available through MEDLINE or on the World Wide Web would be very helpful. This type of information is never easy to obtain; perhaps libraries have a role in scanning proc eedings and making them more widely available.
• Practitioners need to access the latest information right when they need it and not have to wait for it to be available in journals.
• Modem access to library and information resources is critical, especially to veterinarians in rural areas which is where a majority practice.
• Most practitioners, when they look for information, are not looking for an article but the answer to a specific problem, related to a case. Most of the time this is needed immediately, so the information must be online.
• Online discussion lists can help but this information is anecdotal and not peer-reviewed so can be potentially dangerous.
• Filtering or selecting information can reduce time but who would do this filtering is important. Opinions vary and can be biased because of geography, background, and experience.
• Expert systems can be useful but are expensive to keep updated.
• The Web is an excellent way to get at information because of its hierarchical nature. Summaries can be provided but with more in-depth information available for those who need it.
• Computer use is growing in veterinary practice so the equipment to access information and electronic continuing education resources is readily available.
• More veterinarians are using GRATEFUL MED now. It would be a more useful tool if MEDLINE is expanded.