Embedded academic librarians

Is the future of educating health professionals, even doctors in advanced fields, intricately linked to the future of librarians in academics? Before this week’s course, I would not have thought that a librarian would be a very active role in the life learning educational practice of post-graduate medical students on their way to becoming world-class neurosurgeons, however, this week’s focus on the more active role in which a librarian can take in a university’s educational program has given me reasons to re-think the role of librarian in the academic setting.

As an undergraduate at Slippery Rock University, the library was a rather under-utilized resource for myself and many other students. It did serve as a hub for social interaction and one place on campus for liberal arts majors to refill on caffeine, however, the actual intellectual resources were not very well advertised or made explicitly known.  I did have a tendency to roam the stacks, usually on full out zombie-mode, mindlessly pursuing some brain-food in the philosophy sections, but I seldom appreciated the opportunity to gain a more thorough understanding of information literacy that the library provided.

In terms of outreach programs at the university, there was only one class on advanced research in which research habits were even discussed to any great detail. Sadly, this class was an upper-level class and was typically taken as part of the last semester course load.  Reflecting on the lessons from this module, I would strongly recommend that class be made mandatory for all freshmen.  This was the only class in which a librarian from the Slippery Rock University Library would actually address students. However, rather than giving a more individual approach to how librarians can teach better search strategies, and how those strategies can have an enormous impact on research outcomes, the librarian instead addressed the class at large, giving a brief history of information literacy in the time of computers. It was a nice attempt at getting students to think about searching strategies and database technology in research, but it did not offer practical solutions or a chance for students to gain any personal understanding of the advantageous and limits of these technologies.

Meanwhile, the Australian School of Advanced Medicine (ASAM) has recently spent a great deal of effort to address the issue of information literacy in post-graduate medical study.  ASAM offers a cutting edge program in terms of evidence based medicine that is truly based on actual patient care and outcomes.  An essay examining the role of the librarian in the program of ASAM describes ASAM’s goal as being one designed to effectively practice evidence-based medicine and to create lifelong learners by demonstrating effective independent research, based on clinical practice, that is conducted in a team based environment (Simons, Morgan, & Davidson, 2012, pp. 291).

Access to evidence-based literature is considered an absolute key to competency goals in the curriculum at ASAM, as described by the authors “gaining access to, and making use of, this literature is where information literacy becomes an important skill for learners to master” (2012, pp. 291).  After it was discovered that many of the scholars at ASAM lacked the necessary information literacy skills to show competence in this area of evidence based learning, it became a priority to incorporate librarians in developing an efficient model to improve scholar awareness and mastery of medical databases and searching the required literature.

Initial steps taken to educate scholars on information literacy included, journal meetings conducted in small groups with experts present, short personalized training sessions with librarians, and a variety of different tools on the library web site that served as tutorials for using different databases (pp. 292).  When these steps were found to be insufficient addressing specific concerns that the school had, ASAM took the steps to involve librarians more closely in the educational process.   Neurosurgeons began to set up evidence based surgery meetings with groups of scholars and advanced scholars that aimed at the scholars delivering presentations where they would discuss patient history, relevant pathology, and a literature search that must lead to a clinical conclusion based on available evidence (pp. 292-3).  University librarians were utilized in order to create performance elements in which to evaluate the development of search strategies from the start of the process to the end, including ways in which the scholar used the available functionality of the databases in order to refine the search strategy, and the effectiveness of using MeSH terminology in conjunction with keywords specific to the patient (pp. 292).

In addition to helping to develop the competency criteria for this part of scholarship, the scholar would also be required to meet with the librarian throughout the process in order to develop an understanding of information literacy.  This process was repeated until the scholar showed full competency in information literacy that “went beyond merely performing the steps” (pp. 293; 295).

If this concept of embedded librarians can be utilized to educate post-graduate advanced medical students, then there is no reason to believe that it could not be utilized in any other area of academics.  The article on embedded librarians in Capella University also makes a strong argument for the advantages of having a more integrated and involved librarian in the academic setting.  In their research, Erika Bennett and Jennie Simning (2010), found that an increased presence of a librarian early on in the student’s undergraduate work actually increases the number of reference questions received by the library (2010, pp 445-6).  Not only did they find that calls and e-mails to the reference desk were on the rise, but also the quality of questions asked were shown to be more sophisticated as students were able to complete the simpler parts of research independently and then involved a librarian when complexity arose in their research (pp. 449-50).

These studies show how librarians can be made as an integral part of the academic setting.  The initial introduction to the library as a whole, in addition to a more personal introduction to the librarians, are important steps in getting a student comfortable with approaching the reference desk in the first place.  In addition, closer, more individualized instruction can result in students mastering the tools of information literacy that are required to become lifelong learners in a complicated electronic environment, regardless of the complexity and specialization of their discipline.  The reality is that even an advanced medical student, specializing in neurology, is entering a field in which the kind of research being conducted is in many ways far removed from what they learning as a practicing doctor.  In other words, using electronic databases is not something that comes naturally to anyone and a librarian is someone who is well trained to offer lessons in this area.

Bennett, E., & Simning, J. (2010). Embedded librarians and reference traffic:  A quantitative analysis. Journal of Library Administration, 50. pp. 443-457. doi 10.1080/01930826.2010.491437

Simmons, R. M., Morgan, K. M., & Davidson, S. A. (2012). Time to rethink the role of the library in educating doctors: Driving information literacy in the clinical environment. Journal of the Medical Library Association. Oct 2012; 100(4): 291-296 doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.100.4.011
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484954/