by Rob Penfold | Feb 2, 2026 | News
Three good reasons to complete:
- Very short (only 11 questions)
- Only one of the questions is mandatory – basically you only need to respond where you have something to say …
- It will be very helpful to the HLA Committee for shaping strategies, directions, events & more
You have no doubt returned to work bright-eyed & bushy tailed, and eager to advance health librarianship. So grab a cuppa 🍵 and let us know your thoughts:
➡️ HLA Survey 2026 ⬅️
by Rob Penfold | Jan 23, 2026 | News
New issues of JEAHIL, JCHLA (reviews of Lens, DynaMed, OpenAlex etc)
New Aaron Tay posts:
The Blank Box Problem: Why It’s Harder Than Ever to Know What to Type Into an AI Search Bar
Deep Research, Shallow Agency: What Academic Deep Research Can and Can’t Do
Model Context Protocol (MCP) Servers – Wiley AI Gateway & PubMed – How Claude can now pilot test search strategies using PubMed
Google Scholar Labs (ask it a natural language question and it provides a set of citations with each having a summary of the answer underneath it)
Google Scholar blog (highlights and comments now available in Scholar PDF Reader)
Interesting read – Technically Accurate, Medically Fatal : The AI Error We Caught in Real-Time
Very extensive wiki on AI compiled by a medical librarian (Dean Guistini). Scroll down to see the most visited topics, review on individual tools
Conducting Systematic Reviews in a Day: Enter Artificial Intelligence (one of the authors is from the Centre for Journalology so must be good)
“We recently introduced otto-SR (Otto Science Institute), a generative AI system for automated screening and data extraction that incorporates advanced prompting strategies and agentic LLM workflows. Data from currently unpublished studies involving benchmarking against dual human reviewers suggest that otto-SR achieved superior performance in both screening (otto-SR: 96.7% sensitivity, 97.9% specificity; human: 81.7% sensitivity, 98.1% specificity) and data extraction (otto-SR: 93.1% accuracy; human: 79.7% accuracy) tasks. Most notably, otto-SR reproduced and updated an entire issue of the Cochrane library (12 SRs) in under 2 days*, highlighting the potential for automation to accelerate evidence synthesis and to provide decisionmakers with timely information. Across these 12 SRs, otto-SR included nearly twice as many eligible studies as the original Cochrane authors (114 versus 64 studies)”
* “Using otto-SR, we reproduced and updated an entire issue of Cochrane reviews (n=12) in two days, representing approximately 12 work-years of traditional systematic review work“. From the preprint describing Otto
Queryome: Orchestrating Retrieval, Reasoning, and Synthesis across Biomedical Literature
“More recently, the concept of agentic RAG has gained traction, promising more sophisticated “deep research” capabilities. Systems developed by industry leaders such as OpenAI [16], Perplexity AI [17], and Google [18] have demonstrated the ability to decompose complex questions, perform iterative searches, and synthesize more comprehensive reports. Yet, these general-purpose agentic systems are not specifically tailored for the biomedical domain … to bridge this gap, we introduce Queryome, a multi-agent deep research system designed specifically for end-to-end biomedical literature analysis. Queryome orchestrates a hierarchy of collaborating AI agents that perform iterative, multi-faceted searches against a curated, comprehensive search engine covering the entirety of PubMed [1]. Crucially, the system is engineered to reason over abstract text of every retrieved article, ensuring that its final synthesis is deeply grounded in the available evidence”
Available as an app for Windows & MacOS
Instats videos – quite a few are free (using Filters (top right) > Sort by > Free. Many are quite technical but there are a number on research, using statistical tools (R, Python etc). An upcoming one is AI Tools for Research 2.0 (requires free registration, can be watched later)
Previously mentioned the many useful ebooks available via Open Educational Resources (OER) but difficulty in keeping track on new ebooks available. You can sign up to receive updates here
Spotted in the Fin Review re terrible corporate jargon – being “Promoted Outwards” is “not about job cuts but giving employees the opportunity to embrace new challenges outside the organisation”
TRIP Mind Maps live / Video introduction
Amusing PubMed article
by Rob Penfold | Dec 8, 2025 | Events
📝 Event Description
Looking to level up your grey literature skills? This interactive event brings health librarians together to:
* Share practical strategies
* Explore real-world examples
* Discuss challenges in finding and using grey literature
You’ll gain actionable techniques to:
* Improve your searches
* Enhance your training sessions
* Deliver better results for your clients
Connect with peers, learn proven approaches, and walk away with tools you can implement immediately
🗣️ Presenters
Rachel Davis & Sonny Chandra – Canberra Health Services Library
Rachel is a Senior Client Services Librarian at Canberra Health Services Library. Having moved to health libraries after 15 years in public libraries, her passion is empowering people through critical literacies, quality information and lifelong learning. Rachel draws on her background in government and library services to navigate complex information landscapes, including grey literature.
Sonny brings over 26 years of experience in library services across Fiji and Australia, with a strong focus on academic and special libraries. His expertise includes library leadership and management, digital and information literacy, teaching, training, and research support. A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Sonny is passionate about enhancing learner engagement and interaction. He specializes in designing, delivering, and evaluating library training programs that empower learners and improve learning outcomes.
✅ ALIA HLA Competencies
C2: Reference and Research Services
C6: Health Literacy and Teaching
C7: Health Research
View HLA Competencies
🕐 When
Wed 18 Feb 26
1:00-2:00 pm (Vic / NSW / Tas / ACT)
12:00-1:00 pm 👑 QLD / 12:30-1:30 pm 🍷 SA / 11:30-12:30 pm 🐊 NT / 10:00-11:00 am 🐟 WA / 3:00-4:00 pm 🥝 NZ
🌐 Where
Online webinar Zoom – a link will be sent the day prior.
This event will be recorded and sent to attendees following the event.
💲 Cost
ALIA Members – Free (👉 one of 14 benefits of HLA Membership)
Non-Members – $30
🖥️ Register
Register
Additional Information
🧗♀️ Professional Development
One CPD hour towards Health Professional Development Scheme
by Rob Penfold | Jan 5, 2026 | Events
📗 Event Description
Join us for a practical session on literature searches, focusing on how to present results effectively to clients.
Learn strategies to make your search outputs clear, actionable, and tailored to client needs.
🗣️ Presenters
Jana Waldmann – The King Prince Charles Hospital – Metro North Health
Susie Moreton – Epworth Healthcare (Epworth Knowledge Services)
Jackie Edwards – Murrumbidgee Local Health District
Maddie Beer – Monash Health
Jana is the Manager, Library Services at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, Queensland. You’ll find her most days trawling medical databases for evidence to support patient care, organisational change, and research. With a background in magazine and technical publishing, she is a big fan of templates and making documents functional but pretty. She has a passion for evidence synthesis methods, working with research teams on reviews and raising awareness of best practice through education and training.
Susie trained as a teacher before completing her Masters in Information Science. She has worked in academic libraries and publishing, and joined Epworth in 2009 where her passion for autodidactism, discovery and access has enabled her to contribute across all domains. EKS is a fully accessible web-based knowledge service which is integrated with Epworth’s clinical, education, research and quality activities. Susie has positioned literature searching as EKS’s premier service for doctors and senior staff, leveraging our expertise in discovery, access and understanding of our requestors’ needs.
Jackie is Library Manager at Murrumbidgee Local Health District, located at Wagga Base Hospital. I support MLHD staff and affiliated students from UNSW Rural Medical School and CSU School of Rural Medicine. I have extensive experience in local government, health, and University libraries. My interests include user experience, digital resources, and research.
Madeleine is a Medical Librarian at Monash Health Library with extensive experience in advanced literature searching to support clinical care, research, and organizational decision-making. She also delivers training webinars to enhance literature searching skills among healthcare professionals.
✅ ALIA HLA Competencies
C3: Resources
C5: Digital, ehealth & technology
View HLA Competencies
🕐 When
Thursday, 5 March 2026
1-2 pm (Vic/NSW/TAS/ACT) | 12-1 pm (QLD) | 12:30-1:30pm (SA) | 11:30am-12:30pm (NT) | 10-11 am (WA) | 3-4 pm (NZ)
🗺️ Where
Online webinar Zoom – a link will be sent the day prior.
This event will be recorded and sent to attendees following the event.
💰 Cost
ALIA Members – Free (One of 14 reasons to consider HLA Membership)
Non-Members – $30
📝 Register
Register / Additional Information
🧗♀️ Professional Development
One CPD hour towards Health Professional Development Scheme
by Rob Penfold | Jan 5, 2026 | Events
📔 Event Description
Join ALIA HLA and VHLC (Victorian Health Libraries Consortia) for an insightful session on navigating the complex world of publisher negotiations. Learn practical approaches to securing better deals, managing costs, and building strong partnerships that benefit your health library and community. Whether you’re new to negotiations or looking to refine your skills, this event will provide actionable tips and real-world examples to help you achieve the best outcomes.
🎁 Presenters
Cass Gorton – VHLC & Monash Health
John Prentice – VHLC & ANZCA
Juliet Marconi – SA Health
Gnana Segar – Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District
Cass is the Manager – Access and Discovery at Monash Health Library and the Chair of the Victorian Health Libraries Consortium (VHLC). Cass has a background in librarianship, archives, and records management in health, government, and higher education.
John has been the library manager at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists for over 9 years, and has been a VHLC committee member for much of that time working on deals with Springer, McGraw-Hill, Taylor and Francis and Elsevier. In a previous life at Victoria University he worked on licensing as part of the library e-services team.
Juliet is the Knowledge Manager for SA Health Library Service (SAHLS), responsible for the strategic directions for the Service and enterprise-wide procurement of online resources. Juliet rejoined SA Health in March 2021 when she returned from Cairns, Queensland. She joined the SAHLS team as Manager Library Services for the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network team in late 2022. Juliet was permanently appointed to the SAHLS Knowledge Manager role in January 2025. Since qualifying as a librarian, Juliet has worked in various health library management roles within both South Australia and Queensland, including project management roles in digital health, online services and information & knowledge management services. She is passionate about strategic planning and empowering staff to achieve their professional goals.
Gnana was educated in India and possesses 36 years of experience across three countries. He has dedicated his career to the evolution of Academic and Hospital libraries. Gnana is a specialist in leveraging technology to bridge the gap between complex information and user engagement. His career highlights include leading the creation of the first union catalogue across five universities and implementing the first open-source catalogue within NSW Health. His mission is to champion evidence-based clinical decision-making by providing timely, high-impact information services. Alongside his team, he focuses on empowering health practitioners with the skills to find, appraise, and apply research. By ensuring the best research is at the fingertips of those who need it, they directly contribute to superior patient outcomes and the long-term vision of healthy people and resilient communities.
✅ ALIA HLA Competencies
C3: Resources
C5: Digital, ehealth & technology
View HLA Competencies
🕑 When
Wed 25 Mar 2026
1-2 pm (Vic/NSW/TAS/ACT) / 12-1 pm (QLD) / 12:30-1:30 pm (SA) / 11:30am-12:30 pm (NT) / 10-11 am (WA) / 3-4 pm (NZ)
🗺️ Where
Online webinar Zoom – a link will be sent the day prior.
This event will be recorded and sent to attendees following the event.
💵 Cost
ALIA Members – Free (one of 14 reasons to consider HLA membership)
Non-Members – $30
📝 Register
Register / Additional Information
🧗♀️ Professional Development
One CPD hour towards Health Professional Development Scheme
