Joy Kennedy, who's a medical librarian in Illinois, made these interesting remarks in a post recently (I'm reproducing them with her permission):
The book Applying the Nursing Process (by Alfara-LeFevre, R. c2006, LWW) spells out the role like this: "CNSs [Clinical Nurse Specialists]:...have a master's degree..and are expert clinicians in a specific nursing area... In addition to providing direct patient care, CNSs influence patient outcomes by providing expert consultation for staff nurses, giving support in terms of education for nurses, and making improvements in health care delivery systems."
Wouldn't this be an excellent model to build a hospital librarian's job description around. Think about this: "Hospital Librarians: have a master's degree and are experts in a specific area--knowledge and information sources related to nursing, medical and healthcare literature. In addition to providing direct expert searching skills, Hospital Librarians influence patient outcomes by providing expert consultation for staff nurses and CNSs, giving support in terms of education for nurses, and making improvements in health care delivery systems by providing information skills as part of a multidisciplinary team or as consultant to multidisciplinary teams planning care and services."
I think she is so right. People generally have no idea that there are librarians in hospitals, much less understand what we do. It's a mantra in the field that "non-revenue-producing" departments like the library are the first to be cut, because they're seen as sort of whipped topping and cherry on a milkshake--something that isn't vital for the definition of milkshake but definitely contributes to the experience. I used to lament after our own cutbacks that I didn't succeed well enough in marketing my skills, but now with a little perspective, I realise that people went to bat for me, and kept me (and the library) from being cut altogether, so I did have some success.
Viewing a hospital library according to Joy's definition means we see ourselves very much as part of the health care team, and that's the first step in teaching others about what we do. Before the cutbacks, when I had more time, I was on several committees because my contribution was seen as valuable. Even now that I can't serve on so many, if people have a particular research or clinical question, or are dealing with patient education, really a fairly wide range of problems, they'll come to me, and furthermore, they always go away with the sense that I helped, because I'll go as far as I can to find the information they need--a trait I think you'll find in nearly every librarian, but especially in hospital librarians, because we know the value of getting results means a better quality of life for our patients.
Just my two cents' worth first thing in the morning. Now back to work.
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