“AGENTS OF CHANGE”
This weeks reading from Bernard Barrett, truly reminded me of the time of year it is, Springtime!
It is the time to uncurl ourselves from the cold hard soil that was winter, and embrace the sunshine, (even though there is no warmth in it just yet) we will still run for our summer shoes, throw on our blazers and by the coolest sunglasses!!
Preparing ourselves for change is where we as Library Students are, and within the words of Bernard we can help prepare to Change the Script.
As another classmate touched on in her blog recently http://sarahkennedy3.wordpress.com/ the word library in the dictionary has a traditional annotation to it, we need to bring these original ideas and adapt them into the qualifications that librarians are developing.
The properties of Advocacy that Bernard speaks of are not new to the Professional within a library world, we do take our world very Personal and with it a lot of Passion. (As we have noticed from the Terry Deary comment that has been floating around Twitter)
It is this attachment to our love of Information, Books, Authors, Academics, Students, Technology and more, that make us want to develop and renew what is the soul mission of a library, no matter what context it is in.
Bernard does hit the nail on the head when he says “Person, Place or Both”? We are struggling to get the world to see a new place or space, away from the hush hush that once was libraries. In addition we are getting not only communities, but governments to see that we are not just a person that sits behind a desk and stamps books, we actually do provide a plethora of professions that we can adapt to and succeed in if the wider world just realised this.
RE-BRANDING OURSELVES!
This week has been a challenge, it has been embraced and I have had many things to sit and think over.
I have entered a capstone project with the view to looking at health libraries which had not been an area I have given much consideration, which incidentally was one of the reasons I said… go for it.
As I have been reading various pieces to upgrade my knowledge, and last week I had the opportunity to met with a Health service Librarian in Dun Laoghaire, I was truly amazed at the level of expertise one needs to know and second the vast networks you need to be attached to, in order to be apart of the medical world, which makes it astonishing that it is one areas of libraries that is under threat.
The 2011 Report by LAI-HSLG is an eye opener, its difficult to assess that medical librarians are there to give
1) Access of information to major heath professionals
2) Interpret various amounts of information either for these these health professionals or governmental bodies, or policy makers
3) Work with the Hospital, Government bodies and Legal Professionals in order to make sure all these pieces of “medical” information is correct and up to date!!!
How are these people not needed?
In today’s world the need for marketing is apparent, and I think the reason medical libraries need to do this is because they need to re-brand themselves and make themselves more expansive than what they are, to illustrate to all these organisations that the skills a medical librarian has is second to none, and without these skills many doctors and nurses and governmental departments will find that they will be doing a lot more information searching than actual medical practice.
Déise Librarian 