The Health Libraries Group Conference was held 14th
and 15th of June at Keele University. As it was in my backyard I
applied to attend. This was the first library conference I attended, although
not my first conference. I decided to make sure that as well as attending
sessions I also built in some time to sit, think and reflect – I was worn out
by the first conference I attended.
Here are my comments on the sessions I attended:
Library Statistics –
why you do that thing you do
This session was presented by the task and finish group
looking at the collection of statistical data within libraries. They presented
the work that they had completed so far and then asked the group for ideas
about what should go into the toolkit they were developing.
Some ideas presented were: templates, be modular, dashboard,
guidance on gathering qualitative data to “flesh out” what the statistics might
mean, guidance on factors that might be impacting on statistics, ability to
benchmark.
I think the abstract for this session possibly over-sold it
a little as I was hoping (and I’m sure some others were too) to have some
take-home points. It looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer for the
toolkit.
Working
Collaboratively with your Non-Library Colleagues
Mary Hill explained how her library service had worked with
event organisers and clinical staff on 2 different projects to present
information via a blog. She worked with her trust’s conference event staff to
develop a “reading list” type information source relating to study days /
conference events held within the trust. She also worked with clinical staff to
produce a “Medical Oncology Update” blog based on the selection and appraisal
of current research papers.
These projects have allowed the librarian team to work with
different departments within the trust, where not only do the resources relate to
the teams but the blog posts also help to promote the trust’s events.
This was a really interesting presentation, demonstrating the
potential of the library service to enhance other trust activities.
The
Multi-Disciplinary Clinical Innovations Database at RBHT
Samantha Unamboowe presented the development of an
Innovations Database at her trust, on the trust intranet. This is intended to
help staff learn about activities within the trust and to keep a record of what
is happening, creating an “institutional memory”. Her idea was developed from
an awareness of trust activities generated from the literature searches
completed. The database is manged by library staff, although contributions come
from many different staff. The content recorded includes: service improvement
projects, quality improvement projects, research, conference presentations,
educational lectures, posters.
Although Samantha was not able to provide any details of
analytics or impact yet, this did look like an interesting project.
Service Oriented
Libraries: changing the conversation by design
In this presentation Kate Kelly shared how the library
service for the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) was created in a
new build. The building also included educational elements such as a lecture
theatre and clinical skills rooms, as well as leisure facilities such as a gym.
This talk wasn’t quite what I expected, but was interesting
none-the-less. Kate seemed to be trying to steer us into thinking about the
library as a range of services, moving away from the physical space. So even
the space is a service to allow users to “do something”, rather than a space
the library occupies.
I think this is a helpful way to look at the library
service, to try to move our marketing messages to be more about what the users
can do here, rather than what we have here. So I am thinking of re-doing my
“What’s at the Library…” information cards to be more “What can the library do
for you?”
Social Media and
Collaborative Tools Knowledge Café
This session was held as a discussion session. It seemed to
be more concerned about the process of the session – a Knowledge Café – rather
than the topic of social media.
So what is a knowledge café? There was a main question to
discuss and there were several topics relating to the question. We were put
into groups, each group was to discuss a topic – in this case a social media
tool. The group was to write / express their thoughts on the question and the
topic on a piece of paper. After 5-10 minutes of discussion the groups changed.
One member of the group remained to be able to explain the content of the piece
of paper but the other members all moved to a different topic. This occurs
several times so that you get a chance to participate in a few of the topics.
I think the idea is that you learn from your peers rather
than from a presenter. Of course this only works if the members of the group
know something about the question / topics. There wasn’t any “show and tell” at
the end so I missed a couple of topics and didn’t get to see what everyone had
added to the papers.
In terms of what I can take away – use local #tags on
twitter
Collecting Meaningful
Feedback on Information Literacy Training: results of a project to evaluate
feedback methods
This was another session where I was expecting more. Zoe
Thomas presented the results of a project carried out by her predecessors which
looked into gathering effective feedback from training sessions. However the
results seemed to be only about the type of method most effective for gathering
feedback, rather than about the quality of the actual feedback.
I think that we need to improve how and what we gather as
feedback for our etutorials, but this didn’t really help me in this area.
Ready from Day One:
developing evidence-based practitioners
This was probably my favourite session. Shirley
Yarwood-Jackman described the information literacy sessions that she delivers
to her group of clinical psychologists. Shirley described the current situation
that I am sure many of us are familiar with – students / staff who don’t
realise what they don’t know and over-estimate their literature searching
skills.
The information literacy sessions are embedded in the
curriculum and use reflection to allow students to explore their own searching
abilities, both on their own and as a group. Shirley emphasised that the
students are required (by their professional code) to become evidence-based
practitioners. This was used with the students to demonstrate how important it
is to develop the right skills to find the evidence easily.
The reflective approach was so successful that Shirley has
also looked at how to use it in library inductions – start with a question,
rather than give a presentation of everything at the library.
This is a problem that we deal with at the library with our
students. They don’t appreciate how specialist their searching needs to be, and
how their skills development or non-development will impact on their
professional career going forward. We have tried to make some headway by
developing our Check Your Skills etutorial, which allows students to think
about their searching behaviour and provides suggested actions if there are
gaps in their knowledge.
I like the idea of asking students / staff whether they want
to be evidence-based practitioners and how they think that they are going to
achieve this.
Expand Journal Access
for Health Professionals with BrowZine
This presentation demonstrated some of the features of
BrowZine and how it has been used at an example library – The Christie NHS
Foundation Trust. BrowZine is available as an app and desktop system. It allows
you to present your A-Z list of journals as an attractive visual interface.
Users can also add journal titles to their own “shelf” and thence get updates
when new issues of their selected titles are released.
This offers a way to present the journals A-Z list in a more
visually appealing way and possibly allows users to set up their own
personalised journal current awareness shelf.
It was reportedly relatively easy to set up. Users found that
it was easier to find content and the library service that it was making their
journal collection more visible.
Have to say that I really like the look of this and think
that it might help to deliver a current awareness service.
Themes that I can
carry forward
Emphasise that students / staff want to be evidence-based
professionals – how can they achieve that?
Stop telling people what we do but show them how we can
help.
