Sunday 21 March 2010

An Introduction

I am a librarian.
A few people are surprised when I tell them what I do for a living - "do librarians still exist?!" but more people are surprised when I tell them I work in a hospital library - "what do doctors need libraries for?!"
I am increasingly suspicious that some of our medical students are asking the same question actually, judging from the number of times I've seen the 'Wikipedia' page up on our library PCs recently.
Yes that Wikipedia - the one where 'facts' can be altered at the touch of a button.
By anyone, anywhere.
And yes, they are using it to look up medical information.
Yes, my heart is sinking too....
In any case I have decided to start this blog not only as a means to reflect on my work (the good and the bad) but to give a little insight into the role of medical libraries and librarians. It isn't always pretty but I love my job and feel librarians are needed more than ever in this era of free electronic information, especially in health and medicine.
My resolution is to write at least one post a week but I am terrible at sticking to resolutions so we'll just have to see.... It would be great if other people read this blog and have something to say about it but even if it just offers a chance to offload some of the pressures of the job, it will have fulfilled it's purpose.
By the way, the first sentence of this post is a lie.
I am actually an information skills trainer.
But nobody knows what the hell that is.

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