Margaret Paterson, Subject Librarian for Health Sciences, Psychology, and Speech and Hearing Disorders at University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, supports the research efforts of roughly 1,000 undergraduates, graduate students, and academic faculty. She guides and trains users — individually or in groups, side-by-side in person, or online—on how to effectively use library resources to develop papers, theses, systematic and scoping reviews, and journal articles, among other research documents.
As part of the library’s digital resource review in the face of budget constraints, Paterson encouraged the library to switch database aggregators to Ovid to offer APA PsycINFO®, a widely used Behavioral Health resource from the American Psychological Association. The library already offered Embase® and MEDLINE® through Ovid. A longtime advocate of the platform, Paterson stressed Ovid’s superior search technology, user workflow efficiencies, and responsive customer support. As a result of the move to Ovid, users have increased time savings (searches are roughly 30% quicker than they were with the previous platform) and confidence, not only in their searching but also in the quality of their research output. The library has also benefited from greater cost savings, contrary to preconceptions.