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RETHINK Our Value and Our Roles: Presidential Priorities for 2010/11

Submitted by Ruth Holst, AHIP, FMLA, President-elect, MLA

Health sciences libraries are in the midst of a major transformation brought on by many factors, including evolving technological innovations, ground-breaking changes in scholarly publishing, and demands from our institutions to do more with less as the health care sector continues to grow out of proportion to the rest of the economy. This transformation is forcing us to RETHINK the way we operate our libraries and the way in which we interact with administrators, professional colleagues, and the public.

Each year, the MLA president works with the Board of Directors to review progress toward the association’s strategic plan and to identify key priorities that will guide us through the coming year. The challenge is to build on the priorities and initiatives of previous years and, at the same time, set some new directions for the association. To build on the priorities of previous presidents, MLA will continue to find new ways to employ social networking tools to connect members to the association and to each other. Members who are unable to attend MLA ’10 in Washington, DC, will have opportunities to participate remotely from their local institutions through a newly launched “Conference Community” portal. During the next year, MLA members will also benefit from features of MLA’s new association management system that will allow them to develop e-portfolios and to share more information with fellow members. In addition, efforts to make MLA national and chapter meetings more environmentally friendly will continue, and, as an incentive, MLA will present the first ever “green project” award at MLA ’11 in Minneapolis, MN.

MLA President Connie Schardt, AHIP, continues to focus her efforts on building the MLA community and developing emerging leaders. During my presidency, I will be asking MLA members to “rethink” both the value that we, as librarians, bring to our institutions and the current and future roles that we play in forwarding the mission of our institutions, as well as the mission and goals of MLA and the profession.

Rethinking Our Value

Health sciences librarians are being challenged to demonstrate how their services contribute value to their institutions. Librarians need to create and promote the evidence that will convince administrators of the value that librarians and libraries bring to the education, patient care, management, research, and community service missions of their institutions. In 2007, MLA published The Research Imperative: The Research Policy Statement of the Medical Library Association, which articulated the need for developing a culture of research in the profession and presented recommendations, along with an action plan for expanding the health information knowledgebase. Let us use the ideas from that statement to build the organizational structure needed to support the creation and dissemination of research-based evidence.

• Promote “communities of practice” across units of the association and provide incentives for members to get more involved in conducting evaluative studies in a systematic way. Develop multi-institutional study protocols that make it easier for hospital librarians to participate in documenting the expertise that librarians bring to health care delivery. A current example of this type of multi-institution project is the “Value of Libraries Planning Study” that aims to demonstrate the value of library resources and librarian-provided services on patient care outcomes in the four-state Middle Atlantic Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM).
• Provide more opportunities to help members build the knowledge and skills that will enable them to become involved in research activities directed at expanding the evidence base. Build upon existing MLA continuing education (CE) research courses, and explore partnerships with graduate library schools to make training for research skills more accessible to all members of the association.
• Promote the research agenda developed by the Research Section and approved by the MLA Board of Directors [J Med Libr Assoc. 2009 Jul;97(3):178–85] as a way to raise awareness of potential domains of study.
• Explore measures and sources of data currently in use by MLA members, including MLA’s Benchmarking Network studies, to assess their impact on the mission and goals of their institutions. Redefine a core set of metrics that could be used by members as a meaningful way to both communicate their value to administrators and compare their library operations with those of other libraries.

Rethinking Our Roles

Many MLA members have taken on expanded or new roles in their respective institutions. Specific examples of subject areas for emerging roles include knowledge management, disaster and emergency preparedness information, health literacy, e-science, electronic medical records, competitive intelligence, translational science, and scholarly communication. The recent Vital Pathways Symposium [J Med Libr Assoc. 2009 Oct;97(4)] provided examples of current and future roles for hospital librarians. The association can promote and prepare members for new roles through disseminating information and by offering professional development opportunities that enable members to develop the knowledge and skills needed for these roles.

• Develop CE courses or identify existing training opportunities that provide specialized education in subject areas that lead to expanded roles for librarians. Partner with other professional associations or organizations that share an interest in these specialized areas.
• Develop a specialty area in the MLA CE program for the role of “Disaster Information Specialist” to prepare librarians to fill a key role in assisting organizations with planning for and responding to all types of emergencies.
• Produce additional advocacy and promotional materials tailored to specific target audiences, such as hospital administrators and university deans, to educate them and raise awareness about expanded roles for health sciences librarians. Take advantage of National Medical Librarians Month to disseminate these materials.
• Begin to implement the recommendations of the Vital Pathways Project, including offering a web-based Vital Pathways toolkit and a traveling exhibit to be used by members at hospital association meetings.
• Promote the MLA mentor database as a tool for members to share their specialized expertise with colleagues who want to develop new skills.