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8 - Leading Change in Medical Libraries in Sweden
- Edited by Margaret Weaver, Brunel University, Leo Appleton, Goldsmiths, University of London
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- Book:
- Bold Minds
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 15 December 2020
- Print publication:
- 29 October 2020, pp 149-160
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to discuss the changing landscape of medical libraries in Sweden and how library leaders work to meet the challenges, describing the Swedish library workforce, as well as providing an overview of the Swedish leadership style, and how it affects the possibilities to develop library services. By medical libraries we mean libraries that are found in hospitals and universities that educate health related professionals and conduct research in the medical field.
The information environment related to the work done in the medical libraries is changing rapidly (Roos et al., 2008). There are many more or less connected factors behind these changes. Among these are the developments that have taken place in information technologies. This progression has changed the work of medical professionals in general and of biomedical researchers in particular. Internationally, scholarly communications systems have been through a drastic change. The process of creating and dis - seminating scientific knowledge has gone through a radical transformation because of digitisation and the possibilities that web-technologies have enabled for sharing research results in electronic formats. The demands of opening up the whole scientific process, open science (OS), has had an important effect on research work in all scientific domains. New infra - structures and processes have been created to support researchers’ opportunities to share research data, publications and tools with the research community. The traditional model of the scholarly communications system, where users pay for reading, is constantly subject to transformation, which consequently has economic impact, as well as affecting the research work processes within the organisations.
Because of this transformation, medical libraries have faced significant changes too. The rapid change of collection format, from print to electronic, has resulted in the re-purposing or even diminishing of the physical library space. New, intelligent search tools and advances in collecting, storing and analysing huge amounts of data also pose new challenges to the services that medical libraries offer. Similarly, developments in educational technology offer possibilities for radical enhancements in the teaching of information related practices. The need to integrate various information objects, for example publications, videos, research data and various tools has forced medical libraries to focus on the whole information environment instead of traditional journal publications.
11 - Health libraries
- from PART 2 - EBLIP IN ACTION
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- By Jonathan D. Eldredge, Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico., Joanne Gard Marshall, MLS MHSc PhD spent 16 years as a medical librarian before becoming a faculty member at the University of Toronto in 1987., Alison Brettle, Reader in Evidence Based Practice and Director of Post Graduate Research in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work Research at the University of Salford, UK., Heather N. Holmes, MLIS AHIP is the Associate Director of Libraries with a faculty appointment of Associate Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, Lotta Haglund, MLIS is Head of Library and Archive at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden since 2012, Rick Wallace, Professor and Associate Director at the Quillen College of Medicine Library at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee.
- Edited by Allison Brettle, Denise Koufogiannakis
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- Book:
- Being Evidence Based in Library and Information Practice
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 08 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 31 August 2016, pp 121-132
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
The historical evidence suggests that the health professions might never have developed EBP had it not been for the development of sophisticated research tools such as PubMed/MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library for identifying authoritative evidence (Eldredge, 2008a). By working with health professionals in using these tools, health librarians were pivotal figures in the development of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and the broader EBP movement. From supporting health professionals in EBP, health librarians have gone on to develop and use evidence within their professional practices – EBLIP. This chapter will provide a context for health librarian's work, describe EBLIP within the health library field and the state of the evidence base, and discuss the types of evidence used by health librarians. Two case studies show how EBLIP has been translated into practice and demonstrate how health librarians continue to push the boundaries of EBLIP. Finally, the future directions for research and EBLIP practice will be considered within a health library context.
The health library context
Health librarians often collaborate with other health professionals in a fast-paced environment that demands high levels of accountability for the accuracy of their work. Any mistakes can result in missed diagnoses, inappropriate treatments, incorrectly trained health professionals (Maggio et al., 2015) or misguided research projects. Many health librarians take years to establish credibility for their expert skills among other health professionals (Hannigan and Eldredge, 2014). With increasing frequency, health librarians work outside of physical libraries in roles as embedded colleagues, liaisons, clinical librarians, informaticists and informaticians; therefore, throughout this chapter the term health librarian will be used to describe all of these roles.
The context in which health librarians work is continuing to change (Funk, 2013). At one time, the majority of health librarians worked in hospital libraries. Now, in the USA many librarians work in centralized academic health-science centre libraries that co-ordinate access to electronic databases for their users, including health professionals and staff in affiliated hospitals. The National Library of Medicine in the USA coordinates outreach and other centralized functions. In the UK, health librarians work in hospitals, academic institutions and, increasingly, throughout other NHS organizations. Collections for NHS staff are centralized and health libraries are monitored and supported by a national Library and Knowledge Service.