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The purpose of this paper is to examine healthcare professionals’ own health literacy through the lenses of information behavior and evidence-based practice. These practitioners’ health information literacy is critical to client care.

This conceptual paper applies general and professional-specific models of information behavior and issues of bias to methods in which healthcare practitioners seek, evaluate and use research information within professional practice.

Case examples from library, medical and the broader healthcare literature are used to explore ways in which care professionals’ information behaviors align with or deviate from information behavior models and the role of different types of bias in their information behavior. Adaption of evidence-based practice precepts, already familiar to healthcare professionals, is proposed as a method to improve practitioners’ health information literacy.

Explorations of “health literacy” have primarily focused on healthcare consumers’ interactions with basic health information and services. The health literacy (and health information literacy) of care practitioners has received much less attention. By gaining a greater understanding of how information behaviors intersect with healthcare practitioners’ own health literacy, the librarians and educators who serve future and current care professionals can offer more informed information literacy instruction, enabling practitioners to provide improved patient care.

The idiom “sacred cow” is problematic due to its inaccuracy and cultural insensitivity. The purpose of this paper is to examine the term’s meaning within the nursing literature, describe connotations in religious contexts, explore subject headings applied to research using the phrase, and discuss alternative terminology.

This paper employs Rodgers’ evolutionary concept analysis methodology to identify the concept “sacred cow” and surrogate terms, collect and analyze sample articles and headings, explore an exemplary case, and look for concept implications.

The term “sacred cow” appears frequently in the healthcare literature, particularly within the nursing literature. Its meaning within this literature pertains primarily to practices not supported by empirical evidence and performed to maintain a status quo. Headings applied to the relevant literature do not describe this concept, and more accurate headings could not be found within widely used controlled vocabularies.

“Sacred cow” is an inaccurate descriptor for practices not supported by evidence as these practices do not usually apply to holiness or cattle. The term’s implied meaning comes only when viewed within a context satirizing beliefs considered as “other.”

This paper appears to be the first to methodically explore the concept of “sacred cow” within the nursing literature. The paper breaks ground in proposing solutions for the lack of applicable controlled vocabulary. By exploring these topics, it is hoped future authors use more accurate, culturally neutral terminology when discussing non-evidence-based practices and indexers increase discoverability by using more descriptive headings.

This paper seeks to provide support and direction for academic libraries collecting popular materials.

This paper offers a case study format supplemented by statistical and descriptive analyses.

The paper presents literature and case history‐based information on the debate surrounding popular materials collection in academic libraries. The case study provides concrete, cost‐effective steps for academic libraries to use in building popular materials collections.

The authors make the case for support of popular materials collections through detailed evaluation of circulation records.

This paper offers a level of statistical analysis of circulation records unique to the library literature on popular materials collection. It also provides a distinctive case history of the evolution of a successful collection and includes easily adaptable steps.

This paper discusses efforts to produce instructional support objects for undergraduate students engaged in creating infographics, an alternative assignment growing in popularity at the authors' university.

The authors examined scholarly, professional, trade and open-web sources to identify best practices for design and data visualization for this type of assignment. They categorized their findings and used a preponderance-of-evidence method for final selection of relevant practices. The authors detail the creation of their support products (instructional checklists and example infographics) and offer recommendations for librarians engaged in similar efforts.

Despite the growing popularity of alternative assignments, guidance for best practices in data and design as they relate to student-created infographics is nascent, and best practices for design and data visualization in this context have yet to be concretely identified. Without extant guidance for student-created infographics, the authors developed a checklist of potential best practices for design and data visualization.

The use of alternative projects assigned in lieu of traditional research papers is growing. Additional guidance may be required for students creating non-traditional works as standards and best practices for these projects are under-developed in the academic setting. Librarians will want to consider their role in supporting students assigned to create an alternative project.

A consideration of best practices for data and design visualization for students designing research infographics has not yet been written.