State of the Art Health Library – serving the scientific community and information literacy

Introduction

Health Sciences - rapidly growing fields, require cooperation from the entire scientific community.  Research outcomes are no longer associated with one country or continent.  Advanced technology permits transmission  of information related to health across the borders. 

There is no doubt that all available scientific information has pros and cons.  The flood of health related information available on different tools, such as commercial or free (Open Access) journals and databases, often creates more confusion than assistance.  The issue still remains the same: how to access and efficiently use the best tools.  Within the constantly changing information environment, the perception of library is shifting and the librarian’s role is growing. 

Objectives

The model of state of the art library is not only modern facilities with advanced technology and access to many different types of resources but first of all “new age” librarians. Scott Plutchak points out that librarians “help people distinguish between what is worthwhile for them and what is not, and that help them get directly to the information resources that they need.” (1) This process requires collaboration  between researchers and librarians since patrons information needs have been changing as well.

The academic medical library plays important role in health system of any country in the world because the health professionals are also trained by librarians. The health librarians role is significant.  They must not only determine and wisely choose the right resources in terms of financial affordability of the organization they work for and efficacy of selected tools but also promote and implement these tools in the end-users’ environment.  Even though every online database is accompanied by a sophisticated manual, not all users read it.  Sometimes they are not aware of it, or they have no time to do it.  Frustration about not being able to find relevant information or getting used to a particular database is common among scientists and students.

The health librarians, a liaison between resource providers and end-users, must be proactive in accommodating their clients’ needs. The librarians are at the forefront of innovations and implementation, and filter resources for the patrons.   First, they need to learn not only about all features of a given resource, but also about its content.  Second, they need to produce the promotional materials that give their users substantial evidence that using this particular resource will benefit their work. Third, they have to play a role of a trainer, a teacher, who shows how to efficiently use all of the available and selected tools.  That would include creating such information as alerts related to their subject of research, user profiles, guides, pamphlets, presentations, and other instructional handouts.  The most important though is they have to be open and adaptable to emerging trends of conducting research. They need to make their presence in patrons professional lives.  It also means to guide scientists thorough new ways of publishing their papers and be a part of international arena in open science and open access.

Methods

The Library of the Medical University of Lodz subscribes to various platforms containing biomedical information such as bibliographical databases and online full text journals.  The Library acquires access to these resources through participation in the Polish national or local consortia, or through institutional subscriptions.  Most of them are internationally recognized and available in the English language only.  As for the Reference librarians, the challenge lies in several areas.  First of all, they have to find the best way to present all relevant resources on the library website - the business card of the library.  They must then go through tutorials or participate in trainings offered by a publisher, learn how to perform a database search, experiment, and demonstrate how the tools of this particular database differ from those of other databases.  Next, they need to prepare the slide show presentations which are  uploaded on the Library’s Moodle -open e-learning platform.  In order to successfully deliver these information packages they need to demonstrate their expertise using Microsoft PowerPoint, Publisher, Moodle, and other tools for creating presentations.

There are two aspects of the librarian’s activity : learning and teaching.  In Medical University of Lodz, we can enumerate some of the main activities of our staff.

Within librarians’ education we are

• Attending workshops organized by database providers such as Thomson Reuters, EBSCO, Ovid, ProQuest whether in-person classes or webinars
• Learning retrieval features from online tutorials offered by database providers or other academic medical institutions
• Participating in domestic and international conferences related to library technology and trends in librarianship to get new ideas such as  “The Menu” concept introduced by Marie Källberg from Karolinska University Hospital Library at EAHIL conference in Lisbon, in 2010 (2)
• Attending workshops on e-learning platform such as Moodle
• Personal contacts with fellow librarians
• Using Web 2.0 tools – social networking: monitoring blogs, facebook profiles  and other postings of librarians who implement innovative strategies in their libraries
• Learning how to use advanced options of the word processors,  programs for preparing presentations, creating images and publishing tools to create leaflets and web presentations

 Teaching and promoting resources among library users included  

• Organizing workshops conducted by representatives of database providers, for example Thomson Reuters on using Web of Science, EndNote Web and Journal Citation Reports
• Producing 33 PowerPoint Presentations on using databases and library catalogues and placing them on e-learning platform Moodle
• Creating our version of the workshops Menu entitled Make friends with the library contained 15 topics with brief descriptions and approximate of duration and publishing it on the library home page.
• Introducing and presenting the menu while attending  faculty meetings in 2010/2011 academic year
• Creating the library training online for freshmen and graduate students and placing it on the library’s e-learning platform.
• Conducting  the 25hrs Scientific Information  course for 75 PhD students
• Offering individual consultations
• Presenting of library services in the Information Bulletin of the Medical University of Lodz. 
• Conducting  workshops and presentations of library services  at the University’s  departments, clinics, institutes.

Discussion

By presenting the poster State of the Art Health Library – serving the scientific community and information literacy we would like to emphasize the important role of medical academic librarians in the fast changing information environment with the use on an example of the Library of the Medical University of Lodz.  Librarians constantly have to increase their knowledge about new technologies following information published in specialistic publications, exchange experiences by participating in national and international conferences and workshops, cooperating with librarians from other institutions.  The most important part, however, is promotion of the new resource among the University’s patrons.  Even though an announcement is usually made through the institutional mail service and the Library web site, many users may not be aware of it. Creating educational materials, attending faculty meetings, scheduling workshops and preparing handouts suited to the clients’ needs must follow.

For the future the librarians will have to face the challenge of convincing the academics of the benefits of open science: submit their work in open repositories and Open Access Journals, participate in local and international open science platforms. Our future task will be  to show how to teach students using open educational resources, how  to prepare, share and re-use them.

The role of modern health librarian has totally changed from traditional image of  “guardian of books”  to professional trainer and marketer.