I agree with Kerry. The report seemed to be looking at the technology and systems that nurses have to use on a daily basis rather than on obtaining information and literature to use to underpin evidence-based practice.

 

I think that libraries are often still seen as physical collections and that maybe we all need to focus more on becoming embedded within teams and departments rather than expecting our users to come to us. That’s probably the only way we can change their perception. As it says in Knowledge for Healthcare 7.A Proactive customer-focused services ‘Ensure services are available at the point of need’.

 

Libraries provide electronic access to a wide variety of information sources but maybe it’s the outdated and limited (often for security reasons) IT and inconsistency of access that are the major issue for our users. Unfortunately, many of these things are beyond our control – upgrades to systems like OpenAthens which mean we spend days unable to log in; publishers’ insistence on making everything compatible with the latest browsers and operating systems, when the NHS is lagging sadly behind; a lack of seamless access to full text items; the dumbing down of search engines (eg Science Direct) meaning that results are too unfocused to be of value, and so on.

 

Some of these things are slowly being addressed. Why don’t we have a pressure group to try to get electronic books and journals zero rated for VAT? That could save the NHS a fortune.

 

 

 

Hi Rob,

 

Disappointed, but not surprised. Maybe the old stereotype still holds of health libraries as being only for doctors, and public libraries for fiction and kids’ books?

 

There’s often a perception, in my own experience, that libraries are what you need if you’re studying, and even then only if you have time. We’re a useful resource, but one that is an adjunct, and risks looking increasingly less relevant to day-to-day work as nursing staff get busier and busier. There’s a sense in which the academic/learning side of things can feel like a distraction or a source of frustration: people are under such huge pressure in their normal working lives that all their time is being spent trying to keep on top of things, never mind anything else. Add to that a perception that information literacy learning can feel abstract, and be time-consuming, and we’ve got a perfect storm. Where library services have been cut, or are at a central site that not everyone can get to, matters are complicated even further.

 

I do also wonder if there’s perhaps a difference in the way the RCN sees info lit and the way we see it as information professionals: for us, it’s a way of knowing what the *best* or highest quality evidence is (scoping, identifying and evaluating the literature for use in practice). On the strength of the report, the RCN seems to see it very much in the sense of being able to use systems effectively, and to gather, manage and present clinical information in their practice. This looks like a report of ‘how to get nurses using systems effectively’, to be honest.

 

For patients, it seems to be focused on how they use information that they’re given, rather than equipping them to find things, and on helping them feel comfortable with new technology-it’s quite passive.

 

Interesting reading!

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Kerry

 

Kerry Flett

Site Librarian (Acquisitions and Reader Services) | Public Health liaison | Athens administrator

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust Library and eLearning Services

 

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Tel: 023 9228 6043

 

    

                           

 

 

 

 

 

Just come across the attached.

 

Is it just me or are others disappointed that yet again the RCN do not see the value or role of libraries (particularly health) in relation to developing information and health literacy in the nursing profession or the patient population.

 

Rob

 

 

 

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