Chameleon or health librarian? Changing roles of health librarians in Ireland:findings from the SHeLLI project

This paper outlines ways in which health librarian roles are changing in response to evolving healthcare paradigms at a time of economic stringency. It is based on the findings of a project commissioned by the Health Sciences Libraries Group of the Library Association of Ireland to investigate the status of health libraries and librarianship in Ireland in 2010-11, undertaken by the Department of Information Science and the Library, Information and Statistics Unit (LISU) at Loughborough University, UK.

A mixed methods approach including a questionnaire, one-to-one interviews, and a focus group was used to scope the Irish health libraries’ environment, taking views from both stakeholders and practitioners.

The research found the Irish health library environment to be professionally run, and librarians dedicated and determined. Health libraries and librarians were perceived to be under immense pressure at a time of shrinking budgets for health care. In both the academic and hospital settings health libraries were aware of a need to show value for money and to demonstrate importance of their services. The health care environment across the world is forever changing, so that health librarians are forced to assess and re-assess skills and services.  Roles such as ‘clinical informationist’, and ‘clinical librarian’ appeared relatively under-developed in Irish health libraries when compared to other parts of the world. There was also felt to be a need for development of more corporate skills, to effectively engage with senior managers in the wider health service,

Recommendations were made to facilitate changes in health librarianship in Ireland to meet the new demands of economic climate and to align the profession with international standards, including in the areas of training/CPD and marketing of expertise as well as in developing new ways of working suggested by international examples of good practice.