Getting Started – how to start and increase the outreach activity at a hospital library

Introduction

The Medical library at Uppsala university library is a combined library for both Uppsala University and for Uppsala University hospital and the Uppsala County Council. In the past, much of the focus of the library has been towards the university and the needs of the researchers and students. The library and the hospital belong to different organizations, and therefore it has been difficult to get information about their organization, and getting in contact with the right people. Much of our work towards hospital staff, though much appreciated, was done ad hoc and with no evaluation.

Objectives

In January 2010 we started a project to investigate and evaluate new ways to reach the hospital staff, and get a better understanding of their library and information needs. The goal was to have a number of well working methods to incorporate in our normal day-to-day work, based on our deepened knowledge of our users' needs.

Methods

Initially we gathered information and experiences from other hospital libraries, mostly through reading articles and conference presentations. We chose a number of methods suggested in earlier studies, and our approach was to test as many new activities as possible, to see which was right for us.

Our main idea was the "Info-point". It is a portable table that can be set up anywhere, as a way to make the library more visible. This type of activity has been tried at other libraries before, and we thought it would be a good thing to try. We first set up the "Info-point" outside of the hospital restaurant and later at local hospital conferences.(1)

Before starting with the “Info-point” we prepared a small brochure, pens with the library name and e-mail and a roll-up. We also had other information on library resources, lap top with internet connection and candy. With the lap top we got an opportunity to show library website and online resources.  During "Info-point" sessions we also promoted in-library activities such as lunch-time information meetings and our facebook page.

As a part of the project we organized lunch meetings for hospital staff with a free lunch sandwich, on such topics as standards, EBM, reference management and clinical support tools, such as UpToDate.

We re-named our information sessions for clinics "15 minutes", inspired by Karolinska University hospital (2), and set up an easy form on the library web page on the hospital intranet. Unfortunately, the form didn’t work at first, so we haven’t seen the full effect of these changes.

The whole intranet web page was improved and updated, and we also had a Facebook page to reach staff.

One important part of the project was to get more knowledge about the information needs and work situation of hospital staff. In order to get that, we organized small "reference groups" meetings. We invited a few people on key positions, such as the coordinators and educators. In total we met with seven people at two occasions, offering a free lunch sandwich.

Results

After testing many new activities we found a few that worked really well. Our most successful activity was the Info-point which proved to be an easy way to let the library be visible and to connect with the staff. We found that even a brief meeting can be an important to spread a positive image of the library. During the first 8 sessions, we spoke to over 200 users, with a longer talk to 25% of them. Many appreciated to see us outside of the library and many were reminded of questions they “planned to ask”. We will continue to use the Info-point, and especially to look for hospital conferences that could be relevant.

Our reference groups showed that our users are really glad to give their opinions. The meetings gave us a better understanding of their information needs, but also about the organization and names of important key people. We also got detailed tips on changes to the website and other services, like a suggestion to add short instructional films on searching to the website.  A concrete result of these discussions is that the library is now involved in an in-house training program for physical therapists.

Lunch meetings in the library were appreciated, but didn’t get so many attendees as we hoped. The problem was to get out with the information, and we didn’t quite succeed. In the future we will coordinate hospital and university lunch meetings to get a higher attendance rate. Lunch meetings is a good way to get users into the library, and also being able to inform about relevant resources.

The short 15-minutes information sessions haven’t quite taken off yet, but we will continue to use the web form and to increase the marketing. The delay in getting the form to work was due to the fact that the library and hospital are in different organizations. Our university e-mail was not accepted as a recipient of the form. We ended up having to make a separate form on the university web site, with a link from the hospital intranet.

Facebook didn't work well as an information channel; the page got very few followers (mostly librarians) and it was discontinued after the project.

Conclusions

There is a multitude of different ways for libraries to increase outreach activities, but which will suite your library? We decided to try many different methods, and to evaluate which methods were good for us. The project also put the focus on hospital staff and all the different ways we serve them.

The remaining problem for us is to find the right information channels for distributing information about news and events. This is a key issue for us and crucial for succeeding in our outreach ambitions. Our plan is to set up a flow chart with recommended steps when trying to market an event or distribute news. We will also list key people and positions to contact.

After the project we now have a road plan ahead. We have a few functioning and well tested activities to use in the future.  Of course we realize that we haven't taken any giant leaps, but for us the many small steps have taken us a long way.