Being a newcomer to medical librarianship I am not acquainted with the issues that have faced this aspect of librarianship hence my application for this course. Please forgive my generalizations or oversimplification of issues.
In my view, I think that both the terms evidence-based, and librarian carry a lot of weight. Despite the stereotype around libraries as some people have mentioned I also think that librarians command a lot of respect. Depending on the qualities and characteristics of our user population, we are perceived in many different ways. For the most part, whether we do or do not use the "L" word, often times our user populations do not know what it is we do and oversimplify our profession and it is that that impacts on us. So changing our name does not change our role, therefore the stereotype will persist. At the same time the profession is an established one and retaining the "L" word embodies the good reputation that goes with it.
As has already been mentioned terminology will change as time goes on but for now I would support the use of Evidence-based librarianship.
Pearl Raju
Reference Librarian
The Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine
1255 Sheppard Ave, Toronto, ONT.
M2K 1E2
Tel: 416 498 1255 ext 374
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