Tomorrow (18 May 2011) sees the launch of a shiny new website for SLHT Library & Knowledge Services. The library manager at PRU and myself have been hard at work over the last few weeks and months getting all the pages ship-shape to launch for Knowledge Awareness Week 2011. We have been fortunate in that we only had to adapt an already-existing website but has still been quite a challenge deciding what to keep, what to get rid of, how the whole thing should be organised and how to make it visually appealing!
The website is run on the open source content management program Joomla! , which I had no experience of previously but I found it pretty easy to use. We decided quite early on that we didn't want just text and had the idea of using blue textboxes of varying hues for people navigate round the site. One of the trickiest parts was trying to get these boxes all the same width and height as they are all dependent on each other.
We also had to agree on the language used across the site and ensure everything was consistent across all the pages, like what pages should open in a new window and having hover-text over links. It's always the small things that take the longest!
However the last documents were uploaded today and linked in so it looks as though we have ourselves a website! I am pleased with it and really glad to have something decent to present to our users that they can use on and off-site. Now we just have to make sure everyone knows about it!
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Sunday, 24 October 2010
An Information Revolution...without libraries?
The Department of Health’s Liberating the NHS: An Information Revolution consultation document was published on Monday this week (18 Oct 2010) and lays out a strategy for the way the NHS should manage information in the future. As Andrew Lansley quite rightly states in the Foreward of the document, “we must not lose sight of the primary purpose of information in the health and care system: to ensure that every patient and service user receives high quality care” (p3). All well and good but the term “information” in this document is somewhat nebulous, used as an umbrella term for everything from patient records to health websites to audit to evidence. Furthermore there is no mention of libraries or library services anywhere in the document apart from a reference to the “Indicators for Quality Improvement library” (p36) which I for one have never heard of.
While the bulk of An Information Revolution is concerned with patient records and the flow of medical data there are certainly a number of areas where libraries are involved or could be involved. Section 4.6 states “in order to grasp the opportunities offered by the information revolution, clinicians and care professionals need to be able to access the best evidence (including international evidence) of outcomes, interventions and risks. Evidence needs to be user-friendly, up-to-date and available at the point of care, to inform discussions with patients and service users…Individual professionals, teams and organisations need to be supported to access information of this kind, which can make all the difference in ensuring safety and effective outcomes” (p36) Ummm, yes – do they not realise that this information is already being provided by hundreds of NHS medical libraries across the country every day? There is a short paragraph dedicated to NHS Evidence, described as a service which “is an important addition to commercially provided data services (which are often subscription-based and aimed at particular specialist audiences)” again ignoring the fact that such subscriptions are usually paid for by NHS library services on behalf of their users.
The document strongly supports better access to medical information for patients, which of course is laudable, but takes a rather simplistic view of what is a very complex subject. The emphasis on the internet as a channel for medical information is very obvious but is fairly silent on the subject of information literacy and evidence-based medicine. The three criteria for effective information is that it should be:
- informing, so that they know it is comprehensive and can be trusted;
- engaging, so that they are willing and able to use it; and
- empowering, so that they know how it can make a difference (p11)
How about authoritative, evidence-based, reliable?
The document states that “for some time now, people have been using the internet to explore a diagnosis after (or before) they visit their doctor” (p10) quoting a study of patient use of the internet which showed 11% of patients for neurology outpatients at the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Liverpool in 2001-5 accessing the internet prior to clinic attendance. 11%?! It’s hardly statistically significant is it? The document also mentions “the role of websites such as ‘Mumsnet’ in generating new ways of sharing insights and information – including health information – is having a lasting effect on our society. Carers, patients, service users, care workers and clinicians are increasingly able to access forums to discuss the issues that matter to them, and offer support from others with experience of their condition” (p10) and exhorts that “the NHS, local authorities and care providers should be responding to and supporting these new approaches” (p11). Now I have been on a few of these forums in my time and have found them pretty useless to be honest, mainly involving somebody complaining they have a strange rash, followed by a slew of respondents all saying they have something similar but nobody knowing exactly what it is or how it should be treated.
Libraries, both medical and public, are extremely well-placed to provide authoritative, reliable information to patients. Many libraries already do and even more would be willing to do so. Why is this not mentioned in An Information Revolution? It may well be that “information cannot be seen as something that is the sole responsibility of the specialist” (p39) but why not harness the knowledge and experience of information specialists such as librarians and avoid reinventing the proverbial wheel?
Finally, I did have to laugh at the statement on page 14: “Whilst any associated costs will need to be met within the Department of Health’s Spending Review settlement, there will be no additional central funding to pay for the information revolution…Whilst there will inevitably be costs, which could fall centrally and/or locally, the information revolution should, ultimately, pay for itself.” Not surprising really that the government thinks good quality information can be produced on the cheap, but it makes the whole document ring rather hollow.
I shall definitely be responding to this consultation document and hope many other medical librarians will as well. After all, there is not going to be an Information Revolution in the NHS without us!
While the bulk of An Information Revolution is concerned with patient records and the flow of medical data there are certainly a number of areas where libraries are involved or could be involved. Section 4.6 states “in order to grasp the opportunities offered by the information revolution, clinicians and care professionals need to be able to access the best evidence (including international evidence) of outcomes, interventions and risks. Evidence needs to be user-friendly, up-to-date and available at the point of care, to inform discussions with patients and service users…Individual professionals, teams and organisations need to be supported to access information of this kind, which can make all the difference in ensuring safety and effective outcomes” (p36) Ummm, yes – do they not realise that this information is already being provided by hundreds of NHS medical libraries across the country every day? There is a short paragraph dedicated to NHS Evidence, described as a service which “is an important addition to commercially provided data services (which are often subscription-based and aimed at particular specialist audiences)” again ignoring the fact that such subscriptions are usually paid for by NHS library services on behalf of their users.
The document strongly supports better access to medical information for patients, which of course is laudable, but takes a rather simplistic view of what is a very complex subject. The emphasis on the internet as a channel for medical information is very obvious but is fairly silent on the subject of information literacy and evidence-based medicine. The three criteria for effective information is that it should be:
- informing, so that they know it is comprehensive and can be trusted;
- engaging, so that they are willing and able to use it; and
- empowering, so that they know how it can make a difference (p11)
How about authoritative, evidence-based, reliable?
The document states that “for some time now, people have been using the internet to explore a diagnosis after (or before) they visit their doctor” (p10) quoting a study of patient use of the internet which showed 11% of patients for neurology outpatients at the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Liverpool in 2001-5 accessing the internet prior to clinic attendance. 11%?! It’s hardly statistically significant is it? The document also mentions “the role of websites such as ‘Mumsnet’ in generating new ways of sharing insights and information – including health information – is having a lasting effect on our society. Carers, patients, service users, care workers and clinicians are increasingly able to access forums to discuss the issues that matter to them, and offer support from others with experience of their condition” (p10) and exhorts that “the NHS, local authorities and care providers should be responding to and supporting these new approaches” (p11). Now I have been on a few of these forums in my time and have found them pretty useless to be honest, mainly involving somebody complaining they have a strange rash, followed by a slew of respondents all saying they have something similar but nobody knowing exactly what it is or how it should be treated.
Libraries, both medical and public, are extremely well-placed to provide authoritative, reliable information to patients. Many libraries already do and even more would be willing to do so. Why is this not mentioned in An Information Revolution? It may well be that “information cannot be seen as something that is the sole responsibility of the specialist” (p39) but why not harness the knowledge and experience of information specialists such as librarians and avoid reinventing the proverbial wheel?
Finally, I did have to laugh at the statement on page 14: “Whilst any associated costs will need to be met within the Department of Health’s Spending Review settlement, there will be no additional central funding to pay for the information revolution…Whilst there will inevitably be costs, which could fall centrally and/or locally, the information revolution should, ultimately, pay for itself.” Not surprising really that the government thinks good quality information can be produced on the cheap, but it makes the whole document ring rather hollow.
I shall definitely be responding to this consultation document and hope many other medical librarians will as well. After all, there is not going to be an Information Revolution in the NHS without us!
Friday, 14 May 2010
Another higgeldy-piggeldy week
This week has all been a bit higgledy-piggeldy with assorted training sessions, meetings and planning for Learning Awareness Week (with the very scary-sounding acronym of LAW) which runs all next week.
Monday started well with a slot on the staff induction, thanks to our friends in high places. My inductees weren't the keenest I've ever seen but two full days of IT, clinical governance, fire safety awareness and child protection is enough to put anyone off. Tuesday was my second critical appraisal: quantitative research course, which I was really nervous about as I'm still not convinced I entirely understand confidence intervals, p-values and odds-ratio diagrams enough to explain them to others by my little group of three were lovely and I felt the session was very positive.
Wednesday was spent mostly in town at a meeting at the Deanery to discuss a user needs analysis survey we are carrying out. I felt slightly intimidated being a lowly information skills trainer with barely a year's experience among the great and good of the London Deanery e-Kat team but they were all very nice and the meeting was constructive. We are using the JISC Strategic Content Alliance's materials to run the survey and came up with some good questions to ask our users.
Thursday was a 'bitty' day - preparing materials for my Systematic Reviews course next week, getting some ideas of activities for LAW and general library bits and bobs. And today was just mad. I think I mentioned in a previous blog about having to recruit volunteers to carry out the training session I planned for my FILE course. Well I managed to get 4 volunteers using the bribe of coffee and donuts but alas owing to various clinical commitments and suchlike they couldn't come all at once. So I had three dropping in through various times of the day which was all a bit higgeldy-piggeldy in terms of finding a free computer to train on, making sure I had all my various bits and pieces and doing it all in 20 mins!
But, it's all done now so I just need to get one feedback form back from one trainee then I can write it up, send it off and be finally done with FILE! Next week: systematic review course, MA graduation and adventures with LAW....
Monday started well with a slot on the staff induction, thanks to our friends in high places. My inductees weren't the keenest I've ever seen but two full days of IT, clinical governance, fire safety awareness and child protection is enough to put anyone off. Tuesday was my second critical appraisal: quantitative research course, which I was really nervous about as I'm still not convinced I entirely understand confidence intervals, p-values and odds-ratio diagrams enough to explain them to others by my little group of three were lovely and I felt the session was very positive.
Wednesday was spent mostly in town at a meeting at the Deanery to discuss a user needs analysis survey we are carrying out. I felt slightly intimidated being a lowly information skills trainer with barely a year's experience among the great and good of the London Deanery e-Kat team but they were all very nice and the meeting was constructive. We are using the JISC Strategic Content Alliance's materials to run the survey and came up with some good questions to ask our users.
Thursday was a 'bitty' day - preparing materials for my Systematic Reviews course next week, getting some ideas of activities for LAW and general library bits and bobs. And today was just mad. I think I mentioned in a previous blog about having to recruit volunteers to carry out the training session I planned for my FILE course. Well I managed to get 4 volunteers using the bribe of coffee and donuts but alas owing to various clinical commitments and suchlike they couldn't come all at once. So I had three dropping in through various times of the day which was all a bit higgeldy-piggeldy in terms of finding a free computer to train on, making sure I had all my various bits and pieces and doing it all in 20 mins!
But, it's all done now so I just need to get one feedback form back from one trainee then I can write it up, send it off and be finally done with FILE! Next week: systematic review course, MA graduation and adventures with LAW....
Library for Sale!
I'm afraid it's been a few weeks since my last post. Has been a bit of a rough few weeks really, mostly to do with job uncertainty and general fed-upness but I won't go into details as it's all a bit boring but it has made me reflect on the question of why are libraries, (or the concept of 'the library') so darn difficult to 'sell'?
It is Adult Learners Week / Knowledge Awareness next week so of course we in the Healthcare Library are keen to get involved to promote our role in encouraging learning. But it has been beset with difficulties - even getting an all staff email out to advertise our activities has been denied and we have been relegated to the fourth or fifth piece down in the staff weekly bulletin. I sent my training courses dates out three weeks ago and still only have a few takers. We are still fighting to get a slot on the bi-monthly staff induction as well and although there has been a breakthrough at our site owing to good contacts, my manager is getting nowhere with the other site where he works two days a week. And just sometimes it feels no matter how much you provide, how well you deliver a service the users just want more, more, more....
Okay so I realise I am moaning on a bit but just what is it about libraries that is so hard to sell to our users? Is it the stuffy old Victorian image that still lurks around us wraithlike, despite our Twitter accounts, e-journals and the ability to convert your essay from single to double-spacing in seconds? Do our users harken back to bad run-ins with libraries from childhood - the scary librarian shhhhing them into oblivion? Or is going to the library an intimidating experience, reminding them of all the things they don't know? The classic excuse (especially for our busy doctors and nurses) is that there isn't enough time to go to the library. But I'm not sold on that one. Our job is to give the clinicians more time - we can run literature searches for them, track down the articles they need, point them in the right direction to find a piece of information to save them trawling through millions of Google results.
Free, high-quality information, when and where you need it. What is so hard to sell about that? And yet I'm starting to wonder maybe that's where the problem lies. You don't need to sell something that is free.
Now all of us working in libraries know our services aren't free - they cost a lot in terms of work, dedication and time as well as money. But our users might not always see that. They are getting something that costs them nothing. And although everyone likes a bargain, people tend to devalue things that don't cost them anything - it's just human nature.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this really - it's just a kernel of an idea forming in my head and I wanted to get it down before I forgot it. I'm by no means suggesting we should start charging for library services or make our users feel guilty by reminding them how much their service costs every time they come to the library desk but I think it may provide some kind of hint or clue into promoting and marketing our services. Defintely something to ponder on and may well become a running thread throughout my blog in future....
It is Adult Learners Week / Knowledge Awareness next week so of course we in the Healthcare Library are keen to get involved to promote our role in encouraging learning. But it has been beset with difficulties - even getting an all staff email out to advertise our activities has been denied and we have been relegated to the fourth or fifth piece down in the staff weekly bulletin. I sent my training courses dates out three weeks ago and still only have a few takers. We are still fighting to get a slot on the bi-monthly staff induction as well and although there has been a breakthrough at our site owing to good contacts, my manager is getting nowhere with the other site where he works two days a week. And just sometimes it feels no matter how much you provide, how well you deliver a service the users just want more, more, more....
Okay so I realise I am moaning on a bit but just what is it about libraries that is so hard to sell to our users? Is it the stuffy old Victorian image that still lurks around us wraithlike, despite our Twitter accounts, e-journals and the ability to convert your essay from single to double-spacing in seconds? Do our users harken back to bad run-ins with libraries from childhood - the scary librarian shhhhing them into oblivion? Or is going to the library an intimidating experience, reminding them of all the things they don't know? The classic excuse (especially for our busy doctors and nurses) is that there isn't enough time to go to the library. But I'm not sold on that one. Our job is to give the clinicians more time - we can run literature searches for them, track down the articles they need, point them in the right direction to find a piece of information to save them trawling through millions of Google results.
Free, high-quality information, when and where you need it. What is so hard to sell about that? And yet I'm starting to wonder maybe that's where the problem lies. You don't need to sell something that is free.
Now all of us working in libraries know our services aren't free - they cost a lot in terms of work, dedication and time as well as money. But our users might not always see that. They are getting something that costs them nothing. And although everyone likes a bargain, people tend to devalue things that don't cost them anything - it's just human nature.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this really - it's just a kernel of an idea forming in my head and I wanted to get it down before I forgot it. I'm by no means suggesting we should start charging for library services or make our users feel guilty by reminding them how much their service costs every time they come to the library desk but I think it may provide some kind of hint or clue into promoting and marketing our services. Defintely something to ponder on and may well become a running thread throughout my blog in future....
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Ash clouds and critical appraisal
Well there was a bit of drama in the Healthcare Library this week when my manager was caught up in the ash cloud mayhem and ended up being stuck in South Africa for over a week when he was only supposed to be there for 5 days. I think he's getting a flight out tomorrow and should be back with us on Tuesday, a week later than expected. To make things even harder on himself he's planning on flying out again on Friday, this time to Bulgaria! I bet you never thought librarians had such a jet-setting lifestyle....
I on the other hand had my feet firmly on the ground this week and had two group training sessions - one on Finding High Quality Websites (thinking I need a more catchy title...) and Critical Appraisal: Qualitative. The websites session ended up being a one-to-one as I didn't get many takers but there were four at the Critical Appraisal. I'd already run one of these back in early March so was feeling fairly confident but this one didn't go as well. The group was very quiet and then at some point one of attendees suddenly burst out complaining how qualitative research was all rubbish anyway as it was really down to personal opinion etc etc and although I tried very hard to steer it all back to the critical appraisal checklist it really never got back on track. At the beginning of every critical appraisal session I ask everyone how they would rate the article before appraising it and give them a choice of happy face, middling face and sad face. Weirdly the same guy who complained about qual research gave the article a middling face at the beginning and a happy face at the end! Maybe he was feeling bad about giving me such a hard time but it just made me even more confused...
Quite a few one-to-ones this week and one exciting outcome from one was the potential of being asked along to the Microbiology journal club to give a little talk on critical appraisal. I have also been trying to put together my dates for group training for the next 3 months - always very frustrating as I feel I'm picking dates and times out of the air and have no idea whether they fit in with people's work schedules. We also had a very inspiring talk on Map of Medicine at the London trainer's (CLIST) meeting on Thursday so am planning on sending out an email tomorrow encouraging people in the trust to give it a go.
Also coming up this week - another critical appraisal session, quantitative this time. Which I'm dreading even more now considering what happened this week. I also may be spending a bit of time out on the front desk as our library assistant is on holiday and I really must get my new dates out and do a bit of publicity this week. And apparently the D-Day for HLG conference bursaries is on Thursday so I will have my fingers and toes crossed for that. Oh and I really need to start thinking about thr the article I have been asked to write on Twitter for the Libraries for Nursing bulletin as copy must be in by mid-May! Looks like it's gonna be another busy one....
I on the other hand had my feet firmly on the ground this week and had two group training sessions - one on Finding High Quality Websites (thinking I need a more catchy title...) and Critical Appraisal: Qualitative. The websites session ended up being a one-to-one as I didn't get many takers but there were four at the Critical Appraisal. I'd already run one of these back in early March so was feeling fairly confident but this one didn't go as well. The group was very quiet and then at some point one of attendees suddenly burst out complaining how qualitative research was all rubbish anyway as it was really down to personal opinion etc etc and although I tried very hard to steer it all back to the critical appraisal checklist it really never got back on track. At the beginning of every critical appraisal session I ask everyone how they would rate the article before appraising it and give them a choice of happy face, middling face and sad face. Weirdly the same guy who complained about qual research gave the article a middling face at the beginning and a happy face at the end! Maybe he was feeling bad about giving me such a hard time but it just made me even more confused...
Quite a few one-to-ones this week and one exciting outcome from one was the potential of being asked along to the Microbiology journal club to give a little talk on critical appraisal. I have also been trying to put together my dates for group training for the next 3 months - always very frustrating as I feel I'm picking dates and times out of the air and have no idea whether they fit in with people's work schedules. We also had a very inspiring talk on Map of Medicine at the London trainer's (CLIST) meeting on Thursday so am planning on sending out an email tomorrow encouraging people in the trust to give it a go.
Also coming up this week - another critical appraisal session, quantitative this time. Which I'm dreading even more now considering what happened this week. I also may be spending a bit of time out on the front desk as our library assistant is on holiday and I really must get my new dates out and do a bit of publicity this week. And apparently the D-Day for HLG conference bursaries is on Thursday so I will have my fingers and toes crossed for that. Oh and I really need to start thinking about thr the article I have been asked to write on Twitter for the Libraries for Nursing bulletin as copy must be in by mid-May! Looks like it's gonna be another busy one....
Friday, 2 April 2010
Managing References and Other Things...
Well this week saw the launch of my new information skills workshop 'Managing Your References', which was very well attended and much lively discussion was generated. Who would have thought managing references would be so controversial? But they are, especially when university degrees are on the line! The workshop started out with thinking about why we might want to manage references in the first place and what we might want to use references for, then moved on to different styles of referencing and managing. It was the referencing styles that seemed to get everybody's goat and where there were the most questions. And I have to ask myself really - just why are there so many styles of referencing? Harvard, Vancouver, Chicago, Turabian, APA, MLA, ACS....the list goes on and on and on. And it's so difficult to get a definitive answer about any of them. My basic advice to my trainees was to find out what style your university or the journal you are writing for prefers and use that, otherwise Harvard is a safe bet. But whatever style you choose or is chosen for you, stick to that one and that one alone.
I then talked a bit about reference management software, which none of my trainees had used before. I had hoped we would have got a subscription to RefWorks before this workshop took place but that seems a dim and distant hope now in our world of NHS budget cuts. We have Reference Manager on all of our library PCs but I find the program is clunky and unwieldly to use. Plus if you don't have it loaded on your own machine you can't use it at home! So for the practical session I got the trainees to register for CiteULike, a lovely little online programme that uploads RIS files, allows manual, URL, ISBN and DOI entries, creates a neat bibliography in a range of different styles and basically does most of the other things a reference management program should do quickly and easily online wherever and whenever you want. Plus there is nothing to download and it's free!
The first task I had set for the trainees (besides setting up a CiteULike account) was to enter a reference manually. I had assumed this would be quite an easy task to ease the trainees into using the site but was surprised how flumoxed they were by entering things like author, title and year into separate fields. I suppose as a librarian I am used to such things from cataloguing books and registering members and it was a sharp lesson on the importance of controlled fields - making sure you have all the fields entered uniformly. Importing references with an ISBN, DOI or URL or even better as an RIS file makes it all so much easier as the hard work has already been done by the database indexers! (Thanks guys....)
The workshop seemed to go down quite well though and it was an interesting topic to present.
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Preparation for that took up the first half of my week and the rest of it was spent getting geared up for the next few weeks which are full of training sessions, inductions and meetings. Looking at my schedule on Wednesday afternoon made me wonder if I might have some sort of mental health death wish. I am hoping to get the majority of my FILE presentation done this weekend so I can concentrate my efforts on the staff training sessions but the next few weeks are definitely going to be hairy....
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And a bit of good news this week was that we finally got the date for library school graduation! May 18th shall see me walking down the gilded aisle at London's Guildhall in my cap and gown to mark the end of a VERY long year!
I then talked a bit about reference management software, which none of my trainees had used before. I had hoped we would have got a subscription to RefWorks before this workshop took place but that seems a dim and distant hope now in our world of NHS budget cuts. We have Reference Manager on all of our library PCs but I find the program is clunky and unwieldly to use. Plus if you don't have it loaded on your own machine you can't use it at home! So for the practical session I got the trainees to register for CiteULike, a lovely little online programme that uploads RIS files, allows manual, URL, ISBN and DOI entries, creates a neat bibliography in a range of different styles and basically does most of the other things a reference management program should do quickly and easily online wherever and whenever you want. Plus there is nothing to download and it's free!
The first task I had set for the trainees (besides setting up a CiteULike account) was to enter a reference manually. I had assumed this would be quite an easy task to ease the trainees into using the site but was surprised how flumoxed they were by entering things like author, title and year into separate fields. I suppose as a librarian I am used to such things from cataloguing books and registering members and it was a sharp lesson on the importance of controlled fields - making sure you have all the fields entered uniformly. Importing references with an ISBN, DOI or URL or even better as an RIS file makes it all so much easier as the hard work has already been done by the database indexers! (Thanks guys....)
The workshop seemed to go down quite well though and it was an interesting topic to present.
........................................................................................................
Preparation for that took up the first half of my week and the rest of it was spent getting geared up for the next few weeks which are full of training sessions, inductions and meetings. Looking at my schedule on Wednesday afternoon made me wonder if I might have some sort of mental health death wish. I am hoping to get the majority of my FILE presentation done this weekend so I can concentrate my efforts on the staff training sessions but the next few weeks are definitely going to be hairy....
.........................................................................................................
And a bit of good news this week was that we finally got the date for library school graduation! May 18th shall see me walking down the gilded aisle at London's Guildhall in my cap and gown to mark the end of a VERY long year!
Friday, 26 March 2010
You've only got one chance...
I often think the most tricky part of my job is knowing what our library users want from a library and information service, especially when it comes to training. Even when I do manage to convince someone they could do with a little information skills training I sometimes feel like I only have one chance to win them over and the best way to do this is to find out what they really need in terms of information to carry out their job. Of course the easiest way to find this out is simply to ask but it so easily slips my mind...the other day a GP came in for a refresher session and just before she arrived I had been battling with Reference Manager (which, btw is the most complicated, unwieldy, user unfriendly reference management program I have ever encountered) and no sooner had she sat down then I immediately launched into my usual spiel about accessing the the databases and building search strategies. After a few minutes the poor woman looked at me and said 'actually I wanted to find out about Map of Medicine...'
Of course you did. And if I had actually bothered to ask what you wanted out of the session before launching into automatic pilot I would have known that. Luckily I managed to recover from the mistake and she went away happy but I came away resolved to be much more proactive about finding out what the user needs first, rather than just assuming I know what they need.
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I did my first 'Critical Appraisal: Qualitative Research' course this week and overall I think it went quite well. Most of the attendees had come to the Quantitative course a month earlier and were quite keen to chip in and share their thoughts and opinions. At the end one of the attendees actually expressed an interest in setting up a journal club, to keep the critical appraisal skills fresh and the others seemed interested in this too. I have no experience of setting up and/or facilitating a journal club but I think it would be quite fun and a way to reinvigorate the Trust's evidence-based practice and build upon the research work already taking place. If anyone has any experience of journal clubs I would be very happy to hear them and will keep you posted on any progress made!
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In other news, I had the supreme privilege and delight of being filmed doing a presentation this week then had to watch it in front of my colleagues and get feedback. This was part of the Facilitating Information Literacy Education (FILE) course run by Susie Andretta at London Metropolitan University, which I have been doing since January. I can highly recommend the course and have learned a great deal from it but this was one of the more stressful weeks by far.
The filming bit wasn't so bad - we were put in front of a camera in a pokey little TV studio at the university but my fellow FILEers made up the audience, so after the initial shock of being in front of a camera I forgot it was there and it was just like giving another presentation.
Watching back later on was much harder and I felt a strange, almost out-of-body experience watching myself on the TV. I realised I spend way too much time looking at the screen, rather than the audience and definitely fluffed more than a few of my lines but all-in-all it wasn't too bad. I looked a lot more confident than what I felt and I didn't talk too fast or too quietly, which I am wont to do. I certainly wouldn't want to repeat the experience but I've definitely learned a lot about my presentation style and will work on my weak spots in future sessions.
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Luckily I had Thursday and Friday off to recover from the trauma. This has been very pleasant but I am rather worried about my reference management training workshop next week, of which I have done barely any preparation for yet...oops! Will report back on how it goes (or doesn't go) next week.
Of course you did. And if I had actually bothered to ask what you wanted out of the session before launching into automatic pilot I would have known that. Luckily I managed to recover from the mistake and she went away happy but I came away resolved to be much more proactive about finding out what the user needs first, rather than just assuming I know what they need.
....................................................................................
I did my first 'Critical Appraisal: Qualitative Research' course this week and overall I think it went quite well. Most of the attendees had come to the Quantitative course a month earlier and were quite keen to chip in and share their thoughts and opinions. At the end one of the attendees actually expressed an interest in setting up a journal club, to keep the critical appraisal skills fresh and the others seemed interested in this too. I have no experience of setting up and/or facilitating a journal club but I think it would be quite fun and a way to reinvigorate the Trust's evidence-based practice and build upon the research work already taking place. If anyone has any experience of journal clubs I would be very happy to hear them and will keep you posted on any progress made!
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In other news, I had the supreme privilege and delight of being filmed doing a presentation this week then had to watch it in front of my colleagues and get feedback. This was part of the Facilitating Information Literacy Education (FILE) course run by Susie Andretta at London Metropolitan University, which I have been doing since January. I can highly recommend the course and have learned a great deal from it but this was one of the more stressful weeks by far.
The filming bit wasn't so bad - we were put in front of a camera in a pokey little TV studio at the university but my fellow FILEers made up the audience, so after the initial shock of being in front of a camera I forgot it was there and it was just like giving another presentation.
Watching back later on was much harder and I felt a strange, almost out-of-body experience watching myself on the TV. I realised I spend way too much time looking at the screen, rather than the audience and definitely fluffed more than a few of my lines but all-in-all it wasn't too bad. I looked a lot more confident than what I felt and I didn't talk too fast or too quietly, which I am wont to do. I certainly wouldn't want to repeat the experience but I've definitely learned a lot about my presentation style and will work on my weak spots in future sessions.
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Luckily I had Thursday and Friday off to recover from the trauma. This has been very pleasant but I am rather worried about my reference management training workshop next week, of which I have done barely any preparation for yet...oops! Will report back on how it goes (or doesn't go) next week.
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.
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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