Imagine! EAHIL 2025 workshop – perceptions from two Finnish librarians

By Tuulevi Ovaska, Special Information Specialist and Taisa Sallinen
Information Specialist from University of Eastern Finland

European health library and information professionals gather each year for a professional EAHIL event — alternately a conference and a workshop — across Europe. We participated EAHIL 2025 workshop in Łódź, Poland, on 10-13 June 2025. The themes of the workshop “Inform, Manage, A.I., Grow, Integrate, Network, Explore” were summarized with the word “Imagine”. After a little digesting, we asked ourselves questions related to our experiences in Łódź.

As a member of the International Program Committee (IPC) of the EAHIL 2025 Workshop, could you tell about the invention of the theme and the selection of performances and workshops? Is there anything you want to say about chairing a session?

Taisa:

It was great to be invited to join IPC at the beginning of 2024. The planning of EAHIL events starts a few years earlier, which of course makes sense. The theme IMAGINE that was mentioned at the beginning, had already been invented by the local organizing committee before I joined in and was very creatively invented by them. We reviewed and evaluated the abstracts of the presentations and the workshop together with the other members of the IPC and through a common consensus, i.e. online meetings, created a good programme for the workshop in Łódź. It was great to be part of the IPC! I got to be a chairwoman in one session, which was also exciting, but rewarding! As long as I just prepared beforehand by finding out the background of the performers of the session, everything went well with the help of active audience.

What was the best thing about the EAHIL 2025 workshop? And was there something you didn’t like?

Taisa:

There is always a warm and immediate atmosphere at the EAHIL events and that was the case this time as well. It is quite amusing to have to go all the way abroad to meet Finnish colleagues but it was perhaps the best part that I got to meet new Finnish colleagues, not forgetting, of course, all the international colleagues with whom the discussions continued from where it had left off a year ago. The best part was also the practical tools and ideas that I got for my own work from the presentations and workshops! Ask me more if you are interested. By the way, these tools are related to information retrieval in health sciences and artificial intelligence.

Tuulevi:

The best thing was, as always, to exchange views and experiences with colleagues in Europe, and a few from afar, both in workshops and during breaks. The discussion was also lively after many oral presentations, which is gratifying and rewarding. The atmosphere was convivial and friendly. Not only did I get to hear interesting presentations and participate in rewarding workshops, but I had a chance to meet many old acquaintances again and also got to know new people — new to the field, the organization and me.

If something negative has to be mentioned, it was at times (surprisingly for a conference hotel) the occasionally not so good sound system in the large hall where the plenary sessions were held. The smaller halls did not have this problem because there the presenters did not use microphones.

How was your presentation?

Taisa:

My presentation with Katri Larmo, information specialist at the University of Helsinki Library went very well. We had rehearsed the presentation with the time counter through Teams so that we wouldn’t exceed our time and that goal was achieved. This left us with plenty of time for discussion and we got some good comments and questions on our topic, which was “Open gamified learning material about information retrieval in health sciences”. In the presentation we discussed how the collaboration between the two universities and how the open learning material publishing process succeeded.

How was your workshop?

Tuulevi:

I held a 75-minute workshop on Thursday titled “Slogans for libraries – What, Why, Where, and How?” The topic was related to communication, because my main task in the library is to coordinate and develop the library’s communication. The workshop was attended by 14 active colleagues who created 14 great slogans. I used Mentimeter in the presentation and activation of the participants, which worked really well in this workshop. Fortunately, we have a paid version where you can do more than a few slides! In addition to Mentimeter, the participants worked in pairs with pen and paper. I felt the workshop was successful and apparently the participants and someone from the evaluation committee agreed, as I got a mention at the final ceremony on Friday, although not an award. Each year, EAHIL awards the winner in different categories (oral performance, short presentation, workshop and poster, which did not exist this time) as well as the best first timer. For the most part, the awards are based on the assessments of the evaluation committee and for a small part, on the assessments of all willing participants.

Did one of the keynote presentations leave a memorable track?

Tuulevi:

There were two keynote speeches, one to start and another to end the workshop. The lively, informative and funny edutainment-type presentation by statistician Janina Bąk entitled “How to fight fake news, disinformation and misinformation with the use of mathematical thinking” launched the event. Combating fake news, disinformation and misinformation, and promoting all kinds of literacy, including information literacy, media literacy and AI literacy, are among the tasks of library and information professionals. One of Bąk’s examples of a conspiracy theory was about pigeons and drones, and we joked about the subject throughout the week, as there were a lot of pigeons in Łódź.

Taisa:

I absolutely agree with Tuulevi that the keynote speech given by Janina Bąk in the beginning was of most memorable and inspiring. I think there might be drone pigeons in Finland too. 🙂

What other presentations were particularly memorable?

Tuulevi:

Remy van Alebeek‘s topic “Smart searches on a Budget: Truncation in Proximity Made Possible in PubMed” was not only really interesting but also well executed. The topic directly hits the core of our work as information specialists in health sciences, in teaching and guidance as well as systematic searches. I’m excited to wait for the next step, i.e. access to the testing of the presented tool, of which further information should be available in the near future.

I also mention the “Board game nights as a tool for student well-being and engagement” by our Turku colleagues Leeni Lehtiö and Nea Pälä. The University of Turku Teutori Library has promoted student well-being by organising board game evenings, which have been very popular. The same is planned to be implemented in other library units after a successful pilot. Perhaps we could try something similar as well? Good practices should be shared!

Taisa:

I agree that Remy van Alebeek from Maastricht University gave an amazing presentation and from there I got the information retrieval tool for my own work that I mentioned at the beginning.

In addition, I was amazed by two presentations of Eli Harriss on promoting the well-being of library staff and explaining the popularity of information retrieval trainings. Eli’s performances were titled “Wellbeing ideas for a medical library service” and “Shaking it up: A research project to determine why our information skills training sessions are so popular”. In addition to interesting topics, Eli is a good presenter and what’s the most interesting they have both daytime walks at their library at the University of Oxford and social evenings with colleagues, which sounds great.

Do you want to mention any 3-minute presentations in particular?

Taisa:

One presentation was memorable in that the presenter had made a three-minute video of his slide show, in which the slides changed, and he only produced the sound himself on top of the slides. In this way, he probably thought he would not exceed the three-minute time limit, but it was interesting to notice that the slides changed too slowly compared to his speech, i.e. there were small quiet breaks. Which, on the other hand, was refreshing in comparison to other presentations. This speaker was called Raphaël Grolimund, from the Lausanne University Hospital Library and his topic was utilizing Zotero for systematic reviews. However, perhaps Zotero will not replace programs such as Covidence, which we have at UEF to help researchers with systematic reviews. When writing a manuscript, Zotero is the most useful tool there is.

Tuulevi:

I would like to mention Marta Nadraga‘s presentation “The Libraries in Times of Russian-Ukrainian War: Analyzing the Operational Experience of the Danylo Halytskyi Lviv National Medical University Scientific Library” not only because of the exceptional subject — the most of us don’t work in countries where there is war or don’t often have to focus especially on military medicine — but also due to the long applause, expressing support, she received.

Which interactive workshops did you participate in? How were they?

Tuulevi:

I participated in three interactive workshops (in addition to my own). In Mala Mann‘s workshop “Evaluating the accuracy of a search strategy for optimal result retrieval”, we used a practical example to assess the functionality of the search strategy for optimal results, both apt and comprehensive. We received tips and shared experiences of the skills at the heart of our work.

In Irma Klerings and Mala Mann‘s workshop “Informing the systematic search process: How to improve communication between information specialists/librarians and researchers” there were lively group discussions on how researchers’ often very broad and sometimes somewhat ambiguous search topics can be achieved by speaking together on the topic and deconstructing it into concepts to make it so. Very different ideas were shared among the participants, due to the practices of different countries and organisations, as to whether it is easier, faster or otherwise better for the information specialist to do the searches (in which case he belongs to the research group and is one of the authors of the article) or for the information specialist to teach, guide and advise the researchers to do the searches themselves. The authors noted that an article co-authored by a librarian is often higher quality than one without an information specialist’s involvement in reporting the searches. (See e.g., Librarian co-authors correlated with higher quality reported search strategies in general internal medicine systematic reviews.) Increasingly, information specialists function as peer reviewers of search strategies. Possibly the level of Finnish science could also be influenced by resourcing research groups with the input of information retrieval professionals.

In the workshop “Enhancing your Systematic Search Strategy with Generative AI: A Workshop on Prompting Techniques for Information Specialists” led by Remy van Alebeek and Floor Ruiter, we got to try the technique of prompting for systematic information searches in groups or pairs. We were instructed to use ChatGPT, but me and my British partner, who had never used either, used Copilot. We learned that when writing prompts for a good outcome, it is essential to tell as accurately as possible step by step what you want AI to do. Attention was also paid to the risks and ethics of using artificial intelligence (no sensitive data, copyright issues considered, bias and discrimination to be prevented, responsibility always on humans). A fun workshop where time flew by.

Taisa:

I attended two workshops because I wanted to see more oral presentations this time. Tuulevi has already summarized the workshops run by Mala Mann and the Dutch, which I also participated in. Let it be said that we were in different groups in the workshops, which gave us our own experiences of participation and did not just talk to each other.

In this section, I could mention the Continuing Education Course (CEC) that I attended before the beginning of the EAHIL Workshop. Each year, these CECs are held in conjunction with the EAHIL event to help develop hie/her expertise in one’s own work. This time I took a course called “Create Data Management Plans more effectively” and it was conducted by Jakub Rusakow from Poland. Jakub presented us with a self-made, structured and dynamic DMP, or data management plan template, which he uses in his work with researchers in data support. We were able to fill in and try the template ourselves and it worked fine, but the only challenging thing was that when DMP downloaded as a docx version out of the system, the number of pages was up to five times higher than when there were only free text fields in DMP. The number of pages is a challenge, especially for those DMPs that are intended for funders, because they usually have precise page limits that must not be exceeded.

Was there anything that you would have preferred to replace with something else?

Tuulevi:

I think I managed to choose the sessions that were the right ones for me. On the other hand, I don’t know what I missed. My program had an appropriate ratio of listening to oral presentations and more active participation in workshops. Maybe Taisa and I could have better coordinated our choices, because now we hit some same ones.

Taisa:

I had already decided after the previous year that I would now listen to more oral presentations, so I chose first those sessions based on the presentation topics and then the workshops that I had time to attend. Tuulevi and I attended the same workshops, but I’m sure we both got good insights and inspiration for our work as separate individuals.

Do you want to mention something about the social program?

Tuulevi:

Łódź is an old textile industrial town with many large red brick factory buildings that are now in other use or empty. Such is also the Andels Vienna House, where a workshop was held in the conference section, and where many participants stayed (we did not). On Wednesday, the welcome reception, however, took place in a factory plastered white, unlike the others, which is now a textile museum and called the White Factory. We got a chance to mingle and could participate in a guided tour of the museum or explore it on our own.

Taisa:

The social program was, once again, nicely constructed. The only thing to consider on Thursday was whether it was worth taking a guided city tour, as it was just before gala dinner. We didn’t take the tour because we wouldn’t have time to swoon before dinner at all. The gala dinner itself was held in the same large Ball Room Hall as e.g. keynote presentations. The hall had been transformed with dinner tables and with great atmosphere and, most importantly, with a dance floor and a place for a DJ. Although the food was delicious, the wait was rewarded when we got to dance together and have fun at the end of dinner. The Dutch seemed to have the most representatives on the dance floor and the DJ knew how to keep the audience happy while playing the famous Dutch Eurovision song Europapa. Of course, not everyone cares so much about dancing, but I would argue that it is quite nice to follow us dancers from the table as well. (Tuulevi cofirms this.)

What else would you like to tell?

Taisa:

Łódź is a beautiful and somewhat contradictory city. And here I mean contradictory in a positive way. Next to each other there may be new and old buildings and on the other hand the old buildings have been nicely restored. Wall murals adorn the streetscape and between houses you may suddenly get to admire the fine floral arrangements or the mirror house or see when a local TV company shoots an advertisement in which Vikings travel by taxi. It should also be mentioned that the statue of Miś Uszatek (a cartoon of a teddy bear) brought up nostalgic childhood memories.

Tuulevi:

I would like to mention that the Finnish representation was excellent. A total of nine Finns participated in the workshop: in addition to us, two from the Turku University Library, one from the Helsinki University Library, one from the Diakonia University of Applied Sciences Library, one from Orion Pharma Pharmaceutical Information Centre and two from the company Sotevirtuaalikirjasto. Personally, I would like to thank Suomen Kirjastosäätiö (Finnish Library Foundation) for the grant, which covered part of my costs, and the employer for allowing us members of the “other staff” to participate in such international trainings and encounters.