Why (Many) Medical Librarians Deserve to Lose Their Jobs
Wow--I can't believe I just typed in that title, and I can't believe I'm actually going to go ahead and write this post. However, this topic has been rattling around in my head for a while, and I think it's time to let it out.
If this post makes you angry, I want you to think about why, and I want you to tell me why. Challenge me, and let's start a conversation.
Why (Many) Medical Librarians Deserve to Lose Their Jobs
I come from a public library background, and although I did an internship in a really terrific medical library while in library school, I always thought public libraries would be my home. Public libraries have a mission, a built-in purpose, that I found and find most appealing. Public libraries through their very existence encourage literacy, provide access, and enhance engagement.
Medical libraries, on the other hand, have a mission that seems on the surface to be just as clear and vital, but which in reality is muddled and indistinct. Where else can information truly save lives? Any medical librarian can rattle off a couple of stories about the time they provided just-in-time information to help if not save a patient. Medical information improves outcomes, eases fear, and empowers the consumers of an often-confusing health care product.
The problem is this: because of the way most medical librarians work, the number of times their work truly makes an impact are few and far between. What does the average hospital librarian spend most of her/his time doing? Much of the day is spent on circulation, processing materials (checking in journals, etc.), and processing interlibrary loans, both incoming and outgoing. This is clerical work that takes time away from activities that truly make an impact. Any librarian spending most of their time on clerical work deserves to lose their job and be replaced by a clerk. Modern healthcare cannot support an expense that cannot be justified.
"But wait," you say. "I'm a solo librarian! What else can I do? Materials have to be processed and the work has to get done!"
You get volunteers to cover your clerical work. You find ways to minimize the clerical work. You think outside the box and do whatever you have to do to get the daily clerical work down to less than 25% of your job. You implement self-serve checkout so you're no longer tied to the desk.
And then, you get out there and start shakin' your moneymaker. Medical librarians have skills, they have talents, they have gifts that make them invaluable to any healthcare organization. Who else knows that the MEDLINE search interface in MDConsult sucks? Who else knows that 30 seconds with a Jablonski's or even a Merck Manual can be better than a 20-minute Internet search? Who else truly understands what makes a piece of information a quality piece of information? Who else knows that PubMed citations end in the 1950's?
In most facilities, the medical librarian is the only one who really knows these things, and the medical librarian is the only one who really knows why these things are important. But if the librarian is trapped (willingly or unwillingly) in a room or behind a desk, s/he can't be out sharing this information with the people who need to know it. If you're trapped, you can't be making the impact that can save that pateint, and save you.
The fact is that it's not just medical librarians who face this problem: even public libraries have to justify their existence, academic librarians struggle to remain relevant in a Google world, and I can't even imagine what it must be like for corporate librarians. However, I think the nature of medical librarianship particularly encourages the kind of passivity that makes us so vulnerable. Someday, they might need us to help save somebody, so they have to keep us, right?
Not right. Not anymore.
Do you deserve to lose your job?
WDT
9 comments:
wow. thats telling us!
While I have a lot of sympathy for solo librarians who feel stuck in this position, I think you're absolutely right. What I find particularly frustrating about it is that this could be a great time for hospital librarians who do get out of the library, engage actively with the people that they serve, and make themselves professionally indispensible. And there are great role models out there -- many of the most dynamic and inspiring librarians I know are working in hospitals, often as solos -- but they're not spending all their time in the library waiting for somebody to come by.
Using your argument you could also say that most public librarians deserve to lose their jobs as well.
"Public libraries through their very existence encourage literacy, provide access, and enhance engagement." Not any more in the world of Barnes and Noble super stores, the Internet, Netflix, and giant community rec centers.
Why should somebody go to the library when they can go online research their family tree, update their Netflix picks, order the latest Harry Potter (that is they would have to wait forever and a day to get at the library).
That is why many public libraries have problems passing referendums. Are these public librarians "shaking their money maker?" Are they actively going out to their consituents in their community and encouraging them to use the library? Or are they merely preaching to the choir, those who are already within their walls. In a world where the public is bombarded with commericals for everything under the sun, a simple flyer or newletter to city residents isn't, "shaking your money maker."
I am not trying to bash public librarians, but I am trying to illustrate a point. All librarians need to do a better job of marketing themselves to users and non-users. To single medical librarians out is very short sighted.
I don't think :30 was singling out medical librarians as much as focusing on the particular sector that she's a part of -- you are absolutely right that librarians all across the board need to rethink how they approach their mission, and your public library example is spot on. Here in Alabama, a couple of the local libraries have re-invented themselves as dynamic community spaces that certainly encourage reading and a love of books, but also embrace all media and encourage people to use the library as a gathering place, and educational place, and a social space. Those libraries are crowded, vibrant and, even in Alabama (!) keep getting funding.
And I would suggest that it's more than "marketing" -- it's about coming up with new and creative ways to effectively engage with your community, whatever that happens to be.
I agree totally with :30. I'll give you a solo corporate librarian's perspective. Being in a corporation, I unfortunately can't use your recommendation of volunteers for clerical work, so what I did was I just stopped doing a lot of the clerical work althogether.
For me, I never found any 'value-add' in checking in serials, for example. I never went through the lists afterwards or chased after missing journal issues; If someone needed an article from a missing journal I'd just order it in as needed.
Similarly, I can't afford to spend a lot of time cataloguing. If I can't copy-catalog a book, I'll look for something that is close enough and copy-catalog it instead. We don't have a huge collection, and I'd estimate that at least 80% of our collection is at somebody's desk at any given time so it doesn't make a lot of sense to spend time getting the cataloguing exactly right.
I could go on with more and more examples, but the bottom line in a corporate library is....well... the bottom line. You have to spend your time on what brings the
most value to the organization.
Better keep this anonymous, but I am an academic health sciences librarian. The library I work at *is* the library for several local area hospitals and when the pushing-90 I-graduated-from-library-school-in-1946 librarian at the local hospital lost her job as a result of our new partnership, some people were horrified. First of all, we hired two new, full time librarians as a result of the move, so no librarian actually lost their job, she could have applied for them. Second, many of the local hospitals simply aren't large enough to justify having a full time librarian, so it makes more sense to pay us to be your library, and have access to the larger collection of an academic institution. Not to mention access to longer reference hours, larger staff with dedicated clerical people, etc. It is all part of the old school thinking that confuses clerical, part time "women's" work as librarian's work! How can we expect managers to respect us if we don't respect ourselves?
Yikes!!
I don't even want to imagine the horrible mistakes a volueteer would make or the distasters it could cause to the library and possibly even a healthcare provider. There is a reason you've got to have a Master's for this job!!
Hey,
You fail to mention the types of medical librarian or roles they play.....embedded librarians, clinical librarian that round with the staff of the hospital or the case of circuit librarians. A circuit meaning-beacause of budget cuts and thought such as your's that a hospital doesn't a librarian.A circuit librarian is left covering and traveling to several different hospitals in an area. Limiting the time they have to address staff concerns and also limiting the intereactions/influence the librarian plays in hopsitla affairs. Apublic library has a limited role when it comes to the medical field outside of consumer education.......where would staff go to borrow a book.....the local academic library? Work in a medical library and let me know your thoughts after that......beyond an internship.
Please don't suggest a volunteer when a library clerk or technician can be hired for the job. Even a casual position, enough with the trying to get things for free. Perhaps the upper management can take a cut so that some "lower" paid worker can have a job? A good budget will allow for some paid work. I hope! Yikes, but library techs do get over looked a lot, the courses cover a lot of ground from cataloguing to advocacy.
I've done reference, know the Merck Manual and other med databases and short cuts to information - reference and processing/manual skills.
Post a Comment