Introduction to CASH

Service Model

Given the explosion of information available via the Internet, the need for an effective current awareness service to support the work of health professionals has never been so great.

CASH aims to keep health professionals up-to-date with new developments for the benefit of patient care and improved decision making. It is a collaborative service provided by librarians from around England who monitor and capture content from across 3 broad sectors - Primary Care, Secondary Care and Mental Health.

The collaborative working model helps to avoid duplication of effort – an important factor as we move into more financially challenging times.

“…the development of alerting and current awareness services should follow the principle of “Do Once and Share”. That is, they should be done once, where they are done best and shared nationally” (Hill Report, 2008: 30)

CASH provides access to a variety of different information types, ranging from grey literature to published research findings. This content is added to the central CASH database and is made available to search or be streamed as a newsfeed, using RSS technology.

Quality and Development

CASH is run by a Management Board – a team of library managers and information professionals with years of experience in delivering current awareness services. The Board holds bi-monthly meetings to discuss and monitor the progress of the service, and together with the Service Officer, ensure its continued quality and performance.

The Service Officer is responsible for training and support, quality matters, promoting the service at events across the country and overseeing any enhancements to the service infrastructure.

Service Features

• Hosted on The Improvement Network (TIN) website

• Fully searchable online database
• RSS newsfeeds

• Current awareness bulletins

• Netvibes portal complete with email alerts for each of the newsfeeds and bulletins on TIN

• Links to sources of quality health information available via Delicious

• Help and support for end-users, including a range of User Guides.

We need you! In order for CASH to achieve its vision, we need volunteers from health libraries across the country to get involved and contribute to the service.

Contributors enter up to 15 items into the database per month for their chosen category. This takes approximately 2-3 hours, including scouring sources for relevant items of information and entering them into the database. Entries should be made as quickly as possible to ensure currency is maintained.

The role of a contributor is set out in more detail in the Memorandum of Understanding, which each individual is asked to sign before they get started.

By signing up to CASH, contributors receive the following benefits:

• Central infrastructure – the CASH database and RSS newsfeeds are hosted on the TIN website, and provide an established mechanism for the delivery of current awareness services.
• Sharing of information – by entering items into a central and fully searchable online database, the information can be shared and re-used as a supplement to local current awareness initiatives.
• Current awareness tools – http://www.zinepal.com uses the content of RSS newsfeeds and blogs to create PDF bulletins. Content can be pulled from multiple sources, and the individual bulletins edited and reformatted as required. Further guidance on Zinepal is available in the Toolkit. An example Zinepal bulletin is available to download on the TIN website. Please note: Zinepal only works in Internet Explorer 7 and upwards.
• Support network – a major benefit of collaborative working is the sharing of knowledge and expertise.

There are various support materials available via the contributors’ pages on the TIN website. These include:

• Toolkit (including database instructions and editorial guidelines)

• Database Quick Guide

• Frequently asked questions