Evaluating the NIH Library Editing Service: Pilot Study Used to Analyze Service Impact

Evidence-based librarianship drives initiatives and priorities in today's research centers. To evaluate the effectiveness of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library's Editing Service, librarians conducted a pilot study comparing edited manuscripts with the published versions. Using a random number generator, five published journal articles were chosen for evaluation from a pool of NIH manuscripts (n=147) edited between January 2008 and February 2012. A rubric delineating categories of frequently-checked writing elements was used to facilitate quantitative analysis. Findings showed that 84% of editors' suggestions were accepted for three of the published papers that were submitted to the originally intended journal.