Information Overload Curation during COVID-19

Abstract

In late December 2019 and early January 2020, librarians began to hear and read about a novel coronavirus that was beginning to concern public health and infectious disease specialists. Many of us remember when SARS and H1N1 were emerging as public health threats, but this virus quickly proved to be far concerning: more people were becoming infected and experiencing higher morbidity and mortality. In response, medical librarians kicked literature sharing operations into high gear – both in response to and in anticipation of information needs. With the help of colleagues within the Department of Veterans Affairs and through community listservs such as MEDLIB-L and Expert Searching, in January 2020, the author gathered resources and articles and began compiling weekly updates. These evolved into two separate products (1): a standing (and growing) resource list of sites and tools, and (2) a weekly update of forthcoming events and the latest literature. These events included upcoming meetings and training sessions from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and other organizations. The literature alert included both a curated collection of impactful literature and a list of articles recently published in PubMed. It is delivered to over 800 people each week and the author has had the opportunity to tell colleagues about it through articles in Doody’s Collection Development Monthly and BMJ Insider’s. Both of these products quickly became massive due to vast quantities of new publications (up to 5000 or more articles per week). There was not enough time to review all of the literature to whittle down the quantity in a meaningful way without potentially overlooking a piece of research that would be important and useful. By spending hours each week reviewing e-mails and trying to reduce how much to include and, with growing knowledge and shifting foci, a dent has been made in the volume. Feedback and appreciation came from many recipients; Nancy Clark, Director of the Veterans Affairs Library Network (VALNET), and Ed Poletti, Chief, Learning Resources, at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, sent out the VALNET literature alert evaluation assessment so that additional comments could be gathered allowing further refining of the alert. Nearly 94%