Virginia Henderson International Nursing Library

International Library of Nursing By Virginia Henderson

Goals and Objectives of Library,Title of Library,Library Resources,Online Journals and Knowledge,Communication Services,Health Issues and Vulnerable Populations

Nursing Library 

    The Virginia Henderson International Nursing Library is an electronic library whose resources are digital, not physical. It is supported by Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), the international honor society of nursing, and is housed at the Center for Nursing Scholarship, international headquarters of STTI in Indianapolis, Indiana. The holdings are distributed worldwide via the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW).

Goals and Objectives of Library 

    The goal for the Virginia Henderson Library is encompassed in the mission statement of STTI: “to improve the health of people worldwide by improving nursing scholarship.” Three of four objectives for achieving this mission speak directly to nursing knowledge: knowledge development, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge utilization. 

    Of all the nursing organizations in the United States, only the International Nursing Library and Sigma Theta Tau together have the unique mission of nursing scholarship. 

    The Virginia Henderson Library began early in the 1980s under the sponsorship of STTI in response to continuing dissatisfaction with the limitations of extant bibliographic services to locate nursing literature, particularly nursing research and theory. 

    Bibliographic services distribute information about where knowledge might be found, not the knowledge itself (see Bibliographic Retrieval Systems). 

    Addressing this identified need, the library was envisioned as a repository of nursing research, and collection of biographical data and summary information about nurse researchers began almost immediately, forming the core resource of the library. The first Directory of Nurse Researchers was printed in 1983.

Title of Library 

    In 1989 the library was named for one of the most respected nurse leaders, Virginia Henderson, who developed the first nursing research classification system (see Nursing Research Classification Systems). In that same year, the library became a computer based electronic resource. 

    Over the next decade, the Directory of Nurse Researchers evolved into the Registry of Nursing Research, changing in intent from the net working and location of other nurse researchers to the intent of registering all nurse researchers and nursing research, including findings.

 Library Resources

    The Virginia Henderson Library now has many resources, including data, information, and knowledge, which are designed to serve the scholarship and knowledge mission of STTI. Data services include archived nursing research data sets contributed by various researchers. 

    Although these research data sets may be used for teaching research, their primary purpose is for generating knowledge via secondary analysis by qualified students and researchers. 

    Information services include the STTI International Book Service, which provides peer reviews of newly published nursing books in partnership with Doody Publishing, Inc., a leading independent reviewer of health science books. Knowledge services include the Registry of Nursing Research and the Online Journal of Knowledge Synthesis for Nursing (OJKSN). 

    The Registry of Nursing Research is the premier resource of the Virginia Henderson Library to such an extent that library and Registry are sometimes used synonymously, though incorrectly. 

    Both published and fugitive research is sought for the Registry. Rather than the narrative reporting of knowledge as in published scientific journals, the Registry presents research knowledge as data describing researchers, their studies, and the findings generated by the studies. 

    The database of the Registry is organized by the STTI Nursing Research Classification System, third edition. The knowledge (findings) is indexed directly by variable name. Data for the Registry is submitted by researchers with a special registration form on the WWW or on disks for Macintosh and Windows. 

    Minimum information required is biographical data about the researcher and a structured abstract of each study. More data about the study and findings are required from registrants whose work is funded by STTI. In addition, detailed data are requested from researchers who work in a domain that has been identified as a primary focus area by the STTI research and library committees.

Online Journals and Knowledge 

    The Online Journal of Knowledge Synthesis for Nursing provides critical reviews (ie narrative meta analysis, integrative review, qualitative knowledge synthesis) of research relevant to clinical nursing practice problems. 

    Author teams composed of a clinical specialist and a clinical researcher provide the reviews in an area of expertise and are expected to update the review when required by new knowledge in the area. A traditional peer review process is used. 

    A major difference in the electronic publication format is that distribution takes place within hours of acceptance, rather than the months required bringing a print version of a publication to subscribers. Articles can be printed at the user's local printer or ordered from a document delivery service. 

    In addition to being able to browse the articles, a user can search for a keyword of interest. Such a search produces all articles that contain the keyword. It is anticipated that the Online Journal of Knowledge Synthesis for Nursing is only the first of many electronic publications that will be offered by the Virginia Henderson Library.

Communication Services 

    Communication services offer an electronic conferencing/bulletin board service for networking, group publishing, group bibliographic citation management, and conducting multisite research. These services are all in the support of knowledge development, dissemination, and utilization goals of STTI.

Digital Sources of Library

    The Henderson International Library is not the only major nursing library in the world; however, it is the only major nursing library that is completely electronic. It is the only library to record details of nursing research and findings. 

    The Registry can be searched by researcher name, keywords, and research variable or concept names. It is the only known library in the world to index research knowledge by variables studied together.