by Rob Penfold | Apr 20, 2026 | Events
📝 Event Description
Human participant research sits at the uncomfortable intersection of good intentions, regulation, and paperwork — and it applies to far more projects than most people realise. This session provides a practical, big picture overview of what counts as human participant research, and why interventional research is only a subset of that, why “clinical trial” is not synonymous with “medical experiment,” and how projects move from idea to ethics and governance approval to actual participants. Framed specifically for health library professionals, Sarah will explore where library services can add real value across the research lifecycle, from shaping research questions and evidence bases through to protocols, data management, consent, and publication — and why working closely with local research offices makes all of this easier for everyone involved.
🗣️ Presenter
Sarah Rathjen – Eastern Health Library
In her previous life, Sarah worked in a wide variety of roles in the Health and Medical research field over 15 years, with the majority of her experience in Ethics and Governance (both as a submitter and an approver), before a recent career change to librarianship!
Currently she works as the Clinical Research and Education Librarian at Eastern Health.
She has a passion for both human participant research, for exploring innovative ways to deliver education and training, and for getting the right information to the right people at the right time – which is why she’s presenting here!
She loves dogs 🐶, but does not have one yet, so encourages you to tell her about your pets.
✅ ALIA HLA Competencies
CA1 – The health environment
CA7 – Health research
View HLA Competencies
🧑🏫 HLA Health Professional Development Scheme
This session contributes 1.0 hours towards CPD
View the HLA Health Professional Development Scheme
🕑 When
Wednesday, 17 June 2026
1-2pm (Vic/NSW/TAS/ACT/QLD);
12:30-1:30pm (SA/NT);
11am-12pm (WA);
3-4pm (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 membership)
Non-Members – $30
⌨️ Register
Register | Additional Information
by Rob Penfold | May 13, 2026 | Events
A free, online, community event for research support professionals
Register
Visit the event page for more information (including Program)
While waiting, you can view recordings from the 2025 event or other health library videos on the HLA Videos page
by Rob Penfold | May 18, 2026 | News
This survey – held once every three years – is now open and closes 14th June
Visit the site for more information and to complete the survey
Doing so helps increase the visibility of health librarians …
Why it is important for health librarians to be included in a Specialist Digital Health Workforce Census
Including health librarians in a specialist digital health workforce census is critical because it makes visible a workforce that is central to safe, effective, and evidence‑informed digital health systems. Health librarians work at the intersection of clinical care, research, information governance, digital literacy, and health informatics. When we are excluded from workforce data collections, our contributions are rendered invisible to policymakers, funders, and senior health administrators.
A digital health workforce census can be used to:
- map current workforce capability
- identify skills gaps and future needs
- inform funding, workforce planning, and training priorities
- demonstrate workforce impact on health system outcomes
If librarians are not counted, the data inevitably underrepresents the true breadth of specialist digital health expertise within hospitals and health services. This can lead to:
- underinvestment in library and knowledge services
- assumptions that digital health skills sit only with IT or clinical informatics roles
- missed opportunities to leverage librarians’ expertise in areas such as evidence synthesis, data quality, AI governance, and digital capability building
Inclusion in the census formally recognises health librarians as part of the digital health ecosystem rather than as an “optional support service”.
by Rob Penfold | Mar 12, 2026 | Events
“A four-day, free, virtual professional development event for information professionals supporting evidence synthesis services in libraries and other information workplaces”
Registration is free and includes the full schedule of symposium sessions. All sessions will in English, held on Zoom, with Zoom-integrated captioning and transcripts available.
Shortly before the event, you will receive an access link for the LESSS Zoom event by email
Registration closes on June 11, 2026.
Sessions (except for networking events and roundtables) will be recorded with transcripts, but presenters may chose to not release that recording for viewing after the conference
View the Symposium home page
by Rob Penfold | Mar 31, 2026 | Events
✅ Get in quick as spaces are limited and capped!
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW:
Reviews (systematic or scoping) are a great way to answer research questions or summarise evidence on a topic, but they take a long time and are a lot of work. Fortunately, there are now tools and methodological innovations that can help with doing reviews. One of these tools available is the Evidence Review Accelerator (TERA) built in Australia by a team at Bond University. TERA improves the speed of conducting reviews by accelerating all the tasks in a review. This workshop will cover all the tools available in TERA, but will focus on using the tools of most value to information specialist/librarians. Attendees will gain practical experience using TERA quickly design and run precise search strategies, while also gaining background information on the other review tasks to better enable review support at their institution. TERA is available at the following website: https://tera-tools.com/, and a 12-month subscription to TERA is included in the workshop fee.
🗣️ PRESENTER:
The workshop will be presented by Justin Clark, a Research Fellow in Evidence Review Acceleration and lead of the Automation program at the Institute for Evidence-Based Practice (IEBH) at Bond University, Gold Coast Australia. He is also the Cochrane Information Specialist for the Acute Respiratory Infections Group, was a member of the Cochrane Information Specialists Executive and the Co-Lead of the search group of the Living Evidence Network. He is one of the inventors of the Two-Week Systematic Review (2weekSR) method, a founding member of the International Collaboration for the Automation of Systematic Reviews (ICASR) and leads the development of the Evidence Review Accelerator (TERA), a suite of automation tools that accelerate the production of evidence synthesis. His research focuses on improving evidence synthesis methods to reduce the resources needed to conduct reviews of the evidence.
For more information about Justin’s research please visit his Research Profile: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=55311800800
💸 COST: ALIA – $120; Non-ALIA – $180
🕧 TIME: 10am – 4pm (face to face)
WHAT TO BRING:
BYO laptop; lunch (or head to nearby eatery at lunchtime)
🌏 WHERE: Face to face in either Melbourne, Brisbane or Sydney
Melbourne
Tuesday May 26th 2026
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons – Skills & Education Space
250/290 Spring St, East Melbourne VIC 3002
Register here: Advances in Systematic Review Automation Methods – Melbourne Workshop
Brisbane
Thursday May 28th 2026
Pathology Queensland (CSIRO site)
Block 1 (make yourself known at security)
39 Kessels Rd, Coopers Plains QLD 4108
https://maps.app.goo.gl/14zowXMdZuUg6w61A
Register here: Advances in Systematic Review Automation Methods – Brisbane
Sydney
Friday June 12th 2026
Royal North Shore Hospital – Kolling Institute
10 Westbourne Street, St Leonards NSW 2065
Register here: Advances in Systematic Review Automation Methods – Sydney Workshop
