This is a brief report of a qualitative study of health sciences liaison librarians geared towards understanding how they learn the content in their schools. The overarching research question I sought to answer was, "How do health science liaison librarians acquire knowledge and expertise in their content field?" The study also answers three sub questions: (1) What factors are helpful in learning the concepts and how to communicate effectively with the different professionals in their assigned schools; (2) How does a librarian’s undergraduate education, professional development and other previous training help in the acquisition of knowledge; and (3) How does the environment in the schools or their relationships with the professionals in their schools influence their knowledge acquisition and expertise?

Background

Organizations and people who work in them tend to evolve over time, and health science libraries and health sciences librarians are no different. A number of factors have prompted health sciences libraries to change with the times as traffic in most academic libraries, especially health sciences libraries, has decreased (Lubker, Henderson, Canevari & Wright, 2010; Murphy, Peterson, Vines, Isenburg & Berney, 2008). First, the proliferation of the internet starting in the 1990s saw library materials become increasingly available online, a welcome development as biomedical information tends to go obsolete quickly, necessitating frequent updates of collections (Tagawa, 2008; Wahl, Mazure & Dents, 2016). In fact, "the doubling time of medical knowledge in 1950 was 50 years; in 1980, 7 years; and in 2010, 3.5 years; in 2020 it is projected to be 0.2 years -- just 73 days" Densen (2011, p.50). Students, residents and faculty in the health sciences are increasingly choosing to read materials online as this gives them convenient remote access and can be discoverable through course management systems, catalogues, and search engines such as Google, and can be loaded on mobile devices (Pickett, 2016).

With these changes, there continue to be new roles and new horizons for health sciences librarians and libraries (Henderson, 2014). Libraries and librarians have reinvented themselves to meet their users in venues other than the libraries as they teach more, conduct research, manage data, design web pages, and engage in outreach through liaison initiatives, in addition to providing traditional library duties (Cooke, 2010; Lubker, Henderson, Canevari, & Wright, 2010; Scherrer, 2004). As a result, many health sciences libraries have relocated their research and education librarians into the different professional schools/colleges as library liaisons. These library liaisons have responsibilities for specific professional schools/colleges or programs, which necessitates learning networking skills and content that they may not be familiar with as librarians. Unfortunately, it is unclear if library training adequately prepares or equips liaison librarians for the challenges of learning to work with health science professionals in the different schools.

Study Participants, Data Collection, and Analysis

To answer all these questions, I collected data through interviewing 21 health sciences liaison librarians from the United States and Canada. Additionally, I kept memos and observed some of the librarians as they worked. The study participants’ liaison duties were in the professions of allied health, basic sciences, biomedical research, dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health sciences. The diversity of the different health sciences professional schools/colleges and the diverse demographics of the liaison librarians helped show the underlying factors that influence knowledge and expertise. The data were analyzed using the qualitative data analysis software, ATLAS.ti (version 7.5.4.0).

Results and Conclusions

The findings indicated that among the factors that enable librarians acquire specialized knowledge in their content areas are specific personal attributes such as being self-directed, librarian previous training, librarian thirst for knowledge, and ability to communicate the willingness to learn. Gender, race, and age had no bearing on their ability to learn, and all undergraduate education before library school was helpful. The environment in the different schools/programs also affects the way and how much the librarian learns. More importantly, networking and participation in nonlibrarian professional conferences/programs enhances librarians’ learning about health professions. Last but not surprisingly, librarians overwhelmingly recommended lifelong learning skills as an important addition to library school curriculum.

The findings of the study may help in illuminating issues that health sciences liaison librarians face in the course of their duties and may lead us towards some solutions. Additionally, some of the information can be used as best practices for organizing orientation material for new health sciences liaison librarians as well as enhance professional development for librarians.

A full paper reporting this research will be published in the next few months.

References

Cooke, N. A. (2010) Becoming an Andragogical Librarian: Using Library Instruction as a Tool to Combat Library Anxiety and Empower Adult Learners. New Review of Academic Librarianship 16: 208-227.

Densen, P. (2011). Challenges and opportunities facing medical education. Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, 122, 48-58.

Henderson, M. 2014. New Roles and New Horizons for Health Sciences Librarians and Libraries. In M.S. Wood, (ed.), Health Sciences Librarianship (405-420). Chicago: Rowman & Littlefield and the Medical Library Association.

Lubker, I. M., Henderson, M. E., Canevari, C. S., & Wright, B. A. (2010). Refocusing reference services outside the library building: One library's experience. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 29(3), 218-228. doi:10.1080/02763869.2010.494478 [doi]

Murphy, B., Peterson , R.A., Vines, H., Isenburg, M., Berney, E., James, R.,…Thibodeau, P. (2008). Revolution at the Library Service Desk. Medical Reference Service Quarterly 27, (4), 379 – 93.

Pickett, K. M. (2016). Reference librarians' perceptions of the issues they medical curriculum. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 104(3), 193-196. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.104.3.003

Scherrer, C. S. (2004). Reference librarians' perceptions of the issues they face as academic health information professionals. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 92(2), 226.

Tagawa, M. (2008). Physician self- directed learning and education. Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences, 24(7), 380-385. doi:10.1016/S1607-551X(08)70136-0