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CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals 7 Ridgmount St, London WC1E 7AE. Tel: 020 7255 0500 Textphone: 020 7255 0505 Fax: 020 7255 0501 Email: [log in to unmask] News from CILIP Tuesday 21 December 2004 For immediate release (Please copy to online discussion lists) CILIP Council endorses action report on information for health Health Executive Advisory Group sets out new direction for CILIP with implications for entire profession The governing Council of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals has unanimously endorsed a report, specially commissioned from its Health Executive Advisory Group (HEAG), to advise the Institute on the role and activities it should pursue within the healthcare sector and beyond. 'Future Proofing the Profession' warns that, if the information profession is to survive and prosper, then a radical realignment of priorities and activities is required in the support that CILIP gives its members as they move into the new types of roles being created in information. "What distinguishes health from the rest of the profession is that these challenges and opportunities are with us now," Dr Judith Palmer, Chair of the HEAG, comments. "Therefore their successful resolution in healthcare would be a useful proving ground for action in the rest of the profession." Among its ten recommendations, the Group calls on CILIP to seek partners to engage in horizon scanning, consider giving greater emphasis to continuing professional development in health information and other specialist sectors, and take a lead in the development of a clear research strategy. It also calls for strategies to support emerging leaders in the profession and analyse the skills deployed by role models. Changes in CILIP's training and development and course accreditation activities will be needed, the Group suggests, and it also urges the Institute to be more aggressive in its advocacy and leadership on the profession's behalf with a greater role for its specialist interest groups such as the Health Libraries Group "To support the new information professional, CILIP must... consider different ways to influence and promote the profession to employers and the public, and to educate and support Institute members through career trajectories that are radically different to those of the past," the report concludes. "On the one hand we must ensure that the knowledge base of existing members is continually updated and on the other we must attract to membership new and differently trained individuals." "I am pleased that CILIP Council has endorsed the report so enthusiastically, but now is the time for action," Judith Palmer challenges. This point was echoed in the debate at Council and Bob McKee, Chief Executive of CILIP, will be advising on how the recommendations in the report can be incorporated into the new Corporate Plan that CILIP is developing for 2005-8. The full text of 'Future Proofing the Profession', the report of the CILIP Health Executive Advisory Group is available on the web at: www.cilip.org.uk/professionalguidance/health. Contact: Tim Buckley Owen, Head of Membership, Marketing & Media. Tel: 020 7255 0652 Email: [log in to unmask] Notes to Editors CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is the leading professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers, with around 23,000 members working in all sectors, including business and industry, science and technology, further and higher education, schools, local and central government, the health service, the voluntary sector, national and public libraries. For more information about CILIP, please go to www.cilip.org.uk. Set up early in 2003, the HEAG's core group was chaired by Dr Judith Palmer (Keeper of Scientific Books at the Radcliffe Science Library, Oxford University), and included Anne Brice (Specialist Libraries Development Manager at the National electronic Library for Health), Jackie Lord (Head of Library & Information Services at the Royal College of Nursing and Chair of CILIP's Health Libraries Group), National Health Service Library Adviser Veronica Fraser, and Guy Daines (Head of Policy & Governance at CILIP). - Ends -