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Cindy Sheffield

Informationist

Cindy began her library career at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions with a focus on Evidenced Based Medicine. She progressed in roles while serving the Welch Medical Library, leaving Hopkins as the Associate Director of Education Services. Cindy went on to work at several federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Health and Human Services. Cindy has worked with both the National Institutes of Health and the Federal Drug Administration.  In each instance whether establishing a specialized collection, or working on a full institutional library system, she worked to identify the scope of content, determine the most relevant information for users, and organized the content to enable its discoverability. 

One project, The Alzheimer’s Preclinical Efficacy Database (AlzPED), which was established and is supported by the National Institute on Aging, examines the rigor of reporting in key elements of animal model studies. The aim of this repository is to promote better practices in reproducibility of those experiments. Cindy helped establish the database, with a focus on the organization and presentation of the interface design. AlzPED points out the urgent need for more detailed reporting of experiments and the ability to share those reports. This experience inspired an interest in the need for documentation of experimental design, from inception, through the curation and sharing of experiments and result sets, for all domains of research.

 

Education

MLS, Syracuse University

MBA, Johns Hopkins University

MS, Johns Hopkins University

 

Selected Publications, Papers, Presentations

Sheffield CL, Chakroborty S, Martin Z, Petanceska S, Refolo LM (2019) Evaluating Text Mining Tools to Help Improve Rigor in Research, Special Libraries Association, Cleveland, OH.

Sheffield CL, Refolo LM, Petanceska SS, King RJ (2017) A Librarian’s Role in Improving Rigor in Research – AlzPED: Alzheimer’s Disease Preclinical Efficacy Database, Science & Technology Libraries, 36 (3): 296-308, June 2017.

Sheffield CL (2017) AlzPED – Rigor, Reproducibility, Transparency, Special Libraries Association, Phoenix, AZ.

Sheffield CL, Refolo LM, Petanceska SS, King RJ (2016) Leading the Path Forward in Translational Studies, Mid-Atlantic Chapter, Medical Library Association, Philadelphia, PA.

Sheffield, Cindy, Burns, Bridget, Patel, Sanjay (2016) AlzPED: Creating Tools for the Scientific Community. Paper presented at the Computers in Libraries, Washington, DC.

Sheffield CL, Refolo LM, Petanceska SS, King RJ (2015) Preclinical Research: The Information Professionals’ Role in Inspiring Preclinical Efficacy and Improved Outcomes, Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association, Asheville, NC.