Being Evidence Based in Library and Information Practice. Edited by Denise Koufogiannakis and Alison Brettle. London: Facet Publishing, 2016. 224 p. Paper $75 (ISBN 978-0838915219).
As a response to Booth and Brice’s foundational work, Evidence-Based Practice for Information Professionals: A Handbook (2004), Koufogiannakis and Brettle present a new model of evidence-based practice that is both more realistic and more tailored to library and information professionals’ work.
Originating in medicine in the early 1990s, evidence-based practice was first conceived as a new approach to clinical decision making in which clinicians consulted the research literature and integrated this knowledge into their professional judgments. As a reflective and methodical approach, it quickly caught on and has since expanded to other professions, including dentistry, social work, and librarianship. The term “evidence-based librarianship” first appeared in the late 1990s, but it has since evolved to evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) so as to include the wide range of information professionals whose work takes place outside of libraries.
In this book, Koufogiannakis and Brettle expand upon Booth and Brice’s model rather than replacing it. Because it embraces other types of evidence as relevant for librarianship and takes into deeper consideration the specific local library contexts in which evidence is used, their model evolves naturally and is more accommodating. Librarians who are limited by busy schedules or a work environment unconducive to research will find still find it possible to apply this model.
The book’s first part provides the theoretical grounding for the new framework, describing each of its core elements chapter by chapter. The second part is a series of chapters written by librarian practitioners from academic, public, health, school, and special libraries. Here, each author highlights how EBLIP has developed in their sector and how it has impacted their work. In providing these case studies, the editors also fill in the gap left by Booth and Brice, whose book, while being foundational and well-researched, is not very practical as a “handbook.”
Those already familiar with evidence-based practice will appreciate having a real reference to consult, and those new to EBLIP, or to research altogether, will immediately see the value and possibility that EBLIP can offer. The authors succeed in inspiring their readers and empowering them to put their framework to use.—Meagan Lacy, Information Literacy Librarian, Guttman Community College, CUNY, New York, New York