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Category: Health Sciences Research Commons

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The theme for 2025’s International Open Access Week asks ‘Who Owns Our Knowledge?’ The theme  “asks a pointed question about the present moment and how, in a time of disruptions, communities can reassert control over the knowledge they produce” (International Open Access Week, 2025).  

Changes within the publishing and information landscape reveal how fragile existing infrastructures are (Mauran, 2025; Palmer, 2025). Unpacking the long-term consequences of data manipulation or loss will take time. In the near future, these disruptions erode trust in institutions and long-standing research practices. The manipulation and/or loss of research datasets limits researchers' abilities to distribute their findings with colleagues and other invested stakeholders. Data loss and manipulation also contributes to gaps in knowledge that could influence public policy or perception of critical issues. 

These are not new concerns. As illustrated by the following infographic, the current research lifecycle locks information behind financial barriers and fails to capitalize on new knowledge to drive innovation and discovery." The current system for public access to research articles and educational materials is broken: ownership is often unclear, and the reuse of knowledge is limited by policies that do not maximize the impact of public funding” (Garcia, 2013). 

Infographic that describes the current funding cycle for research articles.
(Vollmer & Garcia, 2013)

While multiple parties (such as academic institutions, publishers, funding entities) would need to collaborate to radically change the current publishing landscape, researchers can take small steps to improve public access to their research products. 

Open Licenses, Institutional Repositories & Research Products

The Creative Commons licenses are a set of legal and digital tools that are available to users interested in distributing their products and explicitly and systematically outlining how others may engage with their work. There are six licenses available for use, plus a public domain dedication label. The following infographic from Ohio State University arranges the license from most open to least open and includes definitions for the four license elements.

Infographic that orders the Creative Commons licenses from most open at the top to least open. The order is as followed: CC-0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-ND, CC-BY-NC-SA, CC-BY-NC-ND. To the right is the icons for the license elements and definitions for each license element.
(Ohio State University, n.d.)

Creative Commons licenses are designed with three layers: the legal code, the common deed and associated metadata. They may be applied to research or creative products such as posters and presentations, though open source software should use appropriate licenses. List of open source software licenses are available through the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative. The Creative Commons licenses give clear and explicit permission to viewers who engage with open access materials. 

The licenses are interoperable, working across multiple systems and platforms which makes research products accessible to large populations. When used in conjunction with an open access repository, such as the Health Sciences Research Commons, Creative Commons licenses empower researchers to retain ownership of their work, define reuse terms and open knowledge to institutions and individuals. If you need assistance with selecting an appropriate license, the Creative Commons License Chooser Tool is a helpful resource. By answering a few questions, the tool automatically presents the best license for your situation. It also provides rich text and HTML for seamless embedding.

Why This Matters

Open access and open knowledge is valuable for many reasons. It democratizes the knowledge production process, allowing for researchers from different disciplines and communities to contribute their knowledge and expertise. In turn, these open knowledge sources are accessible to everyone, allowing for a continuous conversation. 

Open research builds trust between researchers and communities who often contribute to research funding through taxes. Research data and products are no longer intangible artefacts, but variables that are consulted when improving individual and communal quality of life. 

Last, open access gives researchers greater flexibility in dictating how others may use their work. Creative commons licenses and open access platforms provide explicit instructions for reuse so terms and conditions are equitably applied. 

Redesigning the current publishing landscape and infrastructure requires patience and collaboration. A fully open access publishing environment will not appear overnight. There are small steps we can take to push for more access to information and research. Over time, these steps will make way for a greater, more robust open access ecosystem. 

References:

Creative Commons. (2025). International Open Access Week. https://www.openaccessweek.org/

García, T.S. (2013). Public access to publicly funded materials: What could be. Creative Commons Blog. https://creativecommons.org/2013/09/25/public-access-to-publicly-funded-materials-what-could-be/

Mauran, C. (January 31, 2025). Thousands of datasets from Data.gov have disappeared since Trump's inauguration. What's going on? Mashable. https://mashable.com/article/government-datasets-disappear-since-trump-inauguration

Palmer, K. (June 10, 2025). Preserving the federal data Trump is trying to purge. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2025/06/10/preserving-federal-data-trump-trying-purge

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MLA Medical Library Association. Better information. Better Decisions. Partner with your medical librarian.

October is National Medical Librarian Month! True to this year’s theme, librarians and staff at Himmelfarb Library can help you find ‘Better Information’ to help you make ‘Better Decisions.’ You might be surprised at the number of resources and services we provide. Whether you’re looking for help performing a literature search, installing clinical apps like Lexidrug or DynaMed, working on a systematic review, or navigating the scholarly publishing landscape, accessing materials at other local academic libraries (and beyond), Himmelfarb can help!

General Himmelfarb Statistics

To give you an idea of the wide variety of resources and services Himmelfarb Library offers, here’s an overview of some general Himmelfarb statistics from the last academic year:

General InformationUse
In-Person Library Visits141,680
Library Catalog Searches1,229,787
Research Guide Views1,501,277
CollectionsTotals
Physical Volumes Owned70,703
Unique Book Titles29,479
Journal Titles6,600
Databases120
Borrowing & UsageUse
Journal Usage1,211,421
Database Usage269,835
Physical Items Borrowed3,280

It’s clear from the above data that Himmelfarb users are visiting our physical space and using our physical collections, electronic journals, databases, and research guides. 

Himmelfarb Services

Himmelfarb librarians and staff provided valuable services to support education, research, and clinical care. From answering reference questions through our Ask a Librarian service, providing in-depth reference consultations, processing 3D printing requests, and borrowing books and articles from other libraries for our users, we’ve been busy! Here’s a look at what we’ve done in these areas during the last academic year:

ServicesUse
Reference Questions Answered1,661
Reference Consultations441
3D Printing Jobs Completed100
Docs2Go & CLS Items Borrowed1,839

Health Sciences Research Commons

Himmelfarb’s institutional repository, the Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC), also had a busy year. The HSRC is where you can archive your scholarly works, including articles, conference papers, poster presentations, working papers, datasets, and other scholarly works. Works archived in the HSRC are indexed in Google Scholar, which can help your work get noticed. Just take a look at the number of times works archived in the HSRC have been downloaded below:

Health Sciences Research CommonsTotals
Total Works Archived50,821
Total Works Downloaded1,866,330
Works Archived (24-25 Academic Year)2,744
Works Downloaded (24-25 Academic Year)462,161

Thank You, Himmelfarb Librarians & Staff!

In honor of National Medical Librarians Month, we’d like to say thank you to every Himmelfarb staff member for all of the hard work and dedication they put into every single day! Without our amazing staff and librarians, we wouldn’t be able to provide our students, faculty, and staff with the services and resources they need to pursue their educational, research, and clinical care goals every day. 

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Picture of black hands folded around a rainbow ribbon.
Photo by Anete Lusina

Himmelfarb Library’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (DEI Committee) is proud to announce the release of the new LGBTQ+ Health Research Guide! The guide features resources that address LBGTQ+ healthcare in clinical and research settings and explores sexual orientation and gender identity barriers to accessing healthcare. You’ll also find general resources including links to LGBTQ+ health organizations at GW and in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area. Relevant books, e-books, and journals from Himmelfarb’s collection, educational resources about pronouns and preferred terminology, and podcasts to help you learn about LGBTQ+ healthcare are showcased in the guide. 

Featured books from Himmelfarb’s Diversity and Disparities in Health Care Collection include:

Highlighted journals on LGBTQ+ health include:

Please note that some resources, such as e-books and journal collections, may require GW credentials to access.

The Researchers tab of the guide provides insight into useful MeSH search terms, links to helpful research-related guides, and information about conducting research. This tab also features published works related to LGBTQ+ health by GW authors in Himmelfarb’s Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC).

The DEI Committee wants this guide to be a high-quality resource relevant to our community, and we encourage our users to share relevant resources for inclusion in the LGBTQ+ Health Guide through our Resource Suggestion Form. If you are a member of a GW organization and would like your organization to be featured in this guide, or if you’re interested in partnering with the DEI Committee, please contact the current committee chair, Brittany Smith, at bsmith91@gwu.edu. 

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Piles of books and magazines fill the picture.
Photo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash

We live in an age of an ever-increasing amount of research. And while this has obvious benefits, it poses a serious challenge to practitioners who want to stay abreast of their field. Tools that reduce the noise - therefore - are most useful at this moment.

The “What You May Have Missed” series from The Annals of Internal Medicine (in collaboration with McMaster University) is one such tool. 

Launched in April 2024, the series curates groundbreaking articles meant to keep researchers current, especially for internal medicine physicians who must be familiar with a broad range of medical knowledge. 

The series began as a prototype in 2022 to foreground material that had been submerged in the rush to understand Covid-19. Divided into eight disciplines like cardiology and oncology, their team selects and summarizes articles curated from 120 journals, helping researchers identify salient features to zoom in on. Check out their main page, which explains the rationale behind the project and explanation of the selection process.

The series takes a frank tone, answering “Why should internal medicine physicians know about this article?” They recognize the value of attention, in other words, and select articles with this knowledge in mind. For example, in the Critical Care section, the team selected the article: “The institutional switch to small-volume blood collection tubes in the ICU may decrease RBC transfusions without affecting laboratory results” and summarized it this way: 

Why should internal medicine physicians know about this article?

Frailty can negatively affect the prognosis of adults aged 70 or older who present with non–ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). However, many guidelines do not differentiate between the recommendations for management of NSTEMI in older adults versus younger adults with respect to the utility of an invasive management strategy. Even though some evidence in the past has suggested that invasive strategies are more effective for older adults when compared with conservative measures, these studies have not been randomized and frailty was not assessed (1).

For those seeking the freshest information, the Annals of Internal Medicine also features the ACP Journal club, which similarly highlights and summarizes ten articles a month. 

Both are fantastic resources to help reduce paralysis of choice and keep you up to date with the most current research!

References:

Iorio, A., & Laine, C. (2024). What You May Have Missed in 2023: Keeping Up With the Constant Flow of New Medical Evidence. Annals of Internal Medicine, 177(5). https://doi.org/10.7326/M24-0832

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Picture of a student standing in front a research poster talking to another student.
Image from https://smhs.gwu.edu/news/celebrating-generation-knowledge-research-days

The GW Research Showcase is just around the corner! The School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) Research Showcase is at the University Student Center on April 25, 2024. This year’s Keynote Speaker, Omaida C. Velazquez, MD. will present “Gene-Modified MSCs and Direct Gene Therapy as Novel Strategies for Vascular Regeneration and Wound Healing.” The medical student poster session will be held from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm.

While the deadline for submitting abstracts has passed, you may still be working on putting your poster together. Himmelfarb Library can help! Our GW Research Day Resources Guide has helpful resources and tips that can help make your poster stand out. The Creating Effective Posters page has poster templates, official GW logos, and the official GW Color palette to help you stay consistent with GW’s brand. If you are creating your poster using PowerPoint, the video below on Designing an Effective Poster Using PowerPoint has useful tips on size, color selection, font choices, and including graphs, charts, and photographs in your poster.

The Poster Design and Layout page also has great tips on selecting the right font, resizing images, and getting posters printed. When choosing fonts, it’s best to keep things simple and use familiar fonts like Times New Roman or Arial. Images should be 300 dpi JPEG files or full-size PDF files. If you need to resize an image, make sure that you keep the proper proportions so the image doesn’t appear distorted and “squishy” looking on your poster. 

Once your poster is ready, it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll impress the judges. Here are some great videos that can help you prepare for giving your poster presentation:

The GW School of Public Health (GWSPH) Research Day was yesterday, April 9, 2024. If you participated in the GWSPH Research Day, don’t forget to submit your poster to Himmelfarb’s institutional repository, the Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC). Archiving your poster in the HSRC is a great way to ensure that your poster is available to the global community of scholars! Archiving your work in the HSRC has several advantages:

  • Your poster will have a unique URL that you can include in your CV and use to promote your research. This unique URL will remain active even after you graduate from GW.
  • The HSRC is indexed in Google Scholar, which allows other researchers to find your work through Google Scholar searches. 

Submitting your poster to the Health Sciences Research Commons is easy! Simply email hsrc@gwu.edu to submit your poster directly or to ask for more information.

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Home

Last month, European researchers launched a program to identify errors within scientific literature. With an initial fund of 250,000 Swiss francs - roughly 285,000 USD - team leaders Malte Elson and Ruben C. Arslan are seeking experts to investigate and discover errors in scientific literature, beginning with psychological papers. 

Here’s them in their own words: 

ERROR is a comprehensive program to systematically detect and report errors in scientific publications, modeled after bug bounty programs in the technology industry. Investigators are paid for discovering errors in the scientific literature: The more severe the error, the larger the payout. In ERROR, we leverage, survey, document, and increase accessibility to error detection tools. Our goal is to foster a culture that is open to the possibility of error in science to embrace a new discourse norm of constructive criticism.

(Elson, 2024)

Their program follows a growing awareness of what researchers in the early 2010s called “the replication crisis:” the inability to reproduce large amounts of scientific findings. For example, the former head of cancer research at the biotechnology company Amgen, C. Glenn Begley, investigated 53 of his company’s most promising publications (pieces that would lead to groundbreaking discoveries). Of those 53, his team could only reproduce 6 (Hawkes, 2012). While 53 is not a large sample size, Nature surveyed 1,576 researchers and more than 70% reported trying and failing to reproduce published experiments (Baker, 2016).

ERROR founders Malte Elson and Ruben C. Arslan point to a poor incentive structure: “error detection as a scientific activity is relatively unappealing as there is little to gain and much to lose for both the researchers whose work is being scrutinized (making cooperation unlikely)” (Elson, 2024). 

Nature concurs. Journals, they report, are less likely to publish verification of older work or work simply reporting negative findings (Baker, 2016). Reproduction gets deferred, because reproduction requires more time and money (Ibid). 

Not to mention that even in science, biases can crop up - the siren call of new discoveries can lead people to publishing versus confirming results. In a noteworthy example, Begley - the aforementioned Amgen researcher - approached a scientist and explained that he tried - and failed - 50 times to reproduce the results of his experiments. The scientist answered that “they had done it six times and got this result once but put it in the paper because it made the best story” (Hawkes, 2012, emphasis added). 

Bearing these issues in mind, the ERROR program hopes to incentivize error-detection and change the publication culture: opening the perception of negative results as useful data (Elson, 2024). To foster a positive environment, authors must agree to be reviewed, and hopefully, these authors can even benefit from the verification (Lee, 2024). 

Since at least 2005, researchers have called for attempts to address the replication crisis (Pashler, 2012; Loaandis, 2005). While time will decide whether the ERROR program makes a difference, it provides an interesting answer to that call. 

REFERENCES

Baker, M. (2016). 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature 533, 452–454. https://www.nature.com/articles/533452a.

Elson, M. (2024). ERROR: A Bug Bounty Program for Science. https://error.reviews/

Hawkes, N. (2012). Most laboratory cancer studies cannot be replicated, study shows. BMJ 344. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e2555 (Published 04 April 2012)

Lee, S. (2024). Wanted: Scientific Errors. Cash Reward. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/wanted-scientific-errors-cash-reward

Loannidis, J. (2005). Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. Plos Medicine 19(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004085

Pashler, H., Harris, C. (2012). Is the Replicability Crisis Overblown? Three Arguments Examined. Perspectives on Psychological Science, Volume 7 (6). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691612463401

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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Health Sciences Research Commons

Did you recently present at a conference or during a workshop? Would you like to share your conference poster with other scholars? Are you interested in archiving your research in a central location? The Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC) is Himmelfarb Library’s online institutional repository and allows researchers to store their research in a reliable location so it may be accessed by other researchers. 

Here are a few benefits to storing your research in the HSRC:

  1. Your conference poster will be placed in a permanent collection with a consistent link. This link may be embedded in your resume/CV or on your researcher’s website. It may also be shared with your peers and connect them with your conference poster. 
  2. Your work is archived according to your departmental affiliation, so your work is situated among the collective output of your colleagues. 
  3. Your research is discoverable via search engines such as Google Scholar, thus allowing your work to reach a broader audience. 
  4. Lastly, you can measure the impact and reach of your research through PlumX metrics and Altmetrics data. 

Archiving your poster in the HSRC is a reliable alternative to conference websites which may not be maintained once the conference ends. The HSRC is able to accept most file formats and you may upload a full image of your poster. Library staff members maintain the repository and will archive your research for you. Send an email hsrc@gwu.edu and a Himmelfarb Library staff member will respond to collect more information. 

Are you interested in  a preview of how your poster will appear in the institutional repository? Visit the 2023 Research Days Posters collection or any of the other collections in the repository.

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Black and white photograph of young woman standing up through a sun roof on a car waving a white shirt and smiling with eyes closed in celebration of Biden being elected President.
“Biden Victory Celebration - Harvard Square” by Dylan Parsons (35mm film photo)

The Himmelfarb Library 34th Annual Art Show made its return this year! We hope you’ve had time to come check out the wonderful submissions in-person. The in-person art show is drawing to a close this week. You have until Friday, May 6th to  view submissions on the library’s first floor. Come support your colleagues in their artistic endeavors and get one last peek at these fantastic pieces!

Can’t make it to Himmelfarb in-person to view this year’s submissions? No problem. You can view this year’s submissions to both the in-person and virtual art show in the Himmelfarb Library Annual Art Show 2022 collection of our institutional repository, the Health Sciences Research Commons. 

This is also a perfect time to brainstorm what you might like to submit to next year’s art show! Do you enjoy photography, knitting, crochet, needlework, painting, stained glass, pottery, drawing, or mixed media art? You have a whole year to work on possible submissions to next year's art show! Whether you’re looking for inspiration for your own creativity, or you just appreciate beautiful artwork, stop in and see this year’s art show before it ends on Friday, May 6th! We can’t wait to see you!

In the meantime, enjoy the following selection of submissions!

Photograph of a 3D printed knee joint with dark red sealing wax mimicking blood dripping from the joint.
“Bad Joints” by Sair Lazzaro (3D print, sealing wax)
Abstract painting
“Discolouration” by Chrisopher Aduwari (Acrylic on canvas)
Photograph of the National Archives building in Washington DC with golden sunlight hitting the top third of the building and the bottom third of the image is in shadows.
“Archives” by Wesley Baker (Architectural Photography)
Photograph of the Lincoln Memorial at dusk.
“Warm Evening by the Memorial” by Bilal Ahmed (Digital photography)
Colored pencil sketch of a human heart with DNA strands throughout.
“Heart of Genomics” by Zach Falk (Colored pencil sketch on paper)

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Photo of a woman presenting her research poster to another woman.
"2018 Earth Science Applications Showcase (NHQ201808010017)" by NASA HQ PHOTO is marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

With the GW Research Showcase (April 11th-14th) and the SMHS Medical Student Research Day (April 28th) just around the corner, it’s time to put the final touches on your poster! Himmelfarb Library can help! Our GW Research Day Resources Guide is filled with helpful resources that can help you make your poster stand out.

The Creating Effective Posters page has poster templates, official GW logos, and official GW color palette to help you stay consistent with GW’s brand. Are you creating your poster using PowerPoint? Watch Barbara McGowan’s video (below) on Designing an Effective Poster Using PowerPoint for tips on size, color selection, font choices, and content choices including using graphs, charts, and photographs. 

Check out the Poster Design and Layout tab for helpful tips on choosing fonts, resizing images and getting posters printed. When it comes to fonts, keep it simple and choose standard fonts like Times New Roman or Arial. Images should be 300 dpi JPEG files or full-size PDF files. If you need to resize an image, be sure to keep the proper proportions so the image isn’t distorted and “squishy” looking. For more tips on Optimizing Your Post Design and Layout, watch a recorded session led by Barbara McGowan and Himmelfarb’s own Catherine Sluder (access is restricted to members of the GW community). 

Want to know more about what judges are looking for in poster presentations? We have videos that cover that too! Learn how to impress the judges by watching the How to Present Your Poster and Wow the Judges video (access is restricted to members of the GW community). Learn more about Giving Effective Poster Presentations and Poster Presentation Practice and Feedback in these videos.

Once your poster is finished, don’t forget to archive your poster in the Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC), Himmelfarb’s institutional repository! You can view posters from past years in the HSRC if you need some inspiration or just want to see examples of past posters. To find out more or to submit your poster to the HSRC, contact Sara Hoover at shoover@gwu.edu. 

All of us here at Himmelfarb Library wish you the best of luck at GW Research Showcase and SMHS Medical Student Research Day!

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Himmelfarb Library extends congratulations to all the GW Research Showcase prize winners, and the residents and students who participated in this year’s event! Formerly GW Research Days, the Showcase highlights research and innovations across all GW disciplines. This year’s presentations were held via Zoom April 12th-14th.

If you participated and would like to provide a way for those who couldn’t Zoom in to see your poster/presentation, consider making it available in Himmelfarb’s Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC). The HSRC has a space dedicated to Research Days/Showcase content and will make presentations searchable not only within HSRC, but also in Google Scholar.

HSRC record of a 2017 GW Research Days poster

Depositing presentations in a searchable, open access archive helps you build a CV and easily share and promote your work. Posters and presented papers are great candidates for HSRC as they are often not published in other sources. If you have published posters, presentations, or research articles, it can still be advantageous to include them in HSRC. Many publishers allow pre-prints of works to be archived for sharing. Even if this is not allowed, having citations linking to your works in one centralized space provides a unified online CV where others can see all of your research activities and interests.

Information on how to contribute works to HSRC is in the Author FAQ. If you have additional questions, please contact Sara Hoover, Metadata and Scholarly Publishing Librarian at shoover@gwu.edu.

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