The Embedded Science Librarian: Partner in Curriculum Design and Delivery

ABSTRACT

Information literacy is essential for success in undergraduate science programs, but teaching faculty are generally ill-prepared or unwilling to provide intentional support in their courses. Librarians are uniquely qualified to help. In this article, the author presents one example of a faculty–librarian collaboration in which the science librarian is embedded in a first-year, undergraduate course in nanoscience, both as a codesigner of the curriculum and a member of the teaching team. She traces her progress from new appointee to faculty partner, and describes the unique, electronic-journal project they designed to promote the development of information and academic literacies.     

Creating a Role for Embedded Librarians Within an Active Learning Environment

In 2013, the librarians at a small academic health sciences library reevaluated their mission, vision, and strategic plan to expand their roles. The school was transitioning to a new pedagogical culture and a new building designed to emphasize interprofessional education and active learning methodologies. Subsequent efforts to implement the new strategic plan resulted in the librarians joining curriculum committees and other institutional initiatives, such as an Active Learning Task Force, and participating in faculty development workshops. This participation has increased visibility and led to new roles and opportunities for librarians.     

Embedded & Clinical Librarianship: Administrative Support for Vital New Roles

ABSTRACT

Medical libraries continue to face the challenge of demonstrating relevance and value in hard economic times. Job titles such as “embedded librarians,” “clinical medical librarian,” and “informationist” have become more common as medical libraries strive to meet patrons at the point of need within a natural workflow. This article provides an overview of such positions, including necessary skills and expertise, added value, administrative challenges, and a discussion of evaluation.     

Foundations of Database Searching: Integrating Evidence-Based Medicine into the Medical Curriculum

Library integration into the medical school curriculum is a crucial aspect of meeting Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) Accreditation Standards and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Medical School Objectives Project (MSOP) guidelines. To accomplish this, academic health sciences libraries seek to develop evidence-based medicine (EBM) literature searching classes within the medical school curriculum. Establishing a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts behind health sciences database searching among medical students is a prerequisite for a more demanding evidence-based literature searching curriculum. The George T. Harrell Health Sciences Library, Penn State College of Medicine, sought to incorporate an evidence-based medicine literature searching structure by working within the existing problem-based learning system during the preclinical years. Students in the clinical years will participate in evidence-based assignments during their rotations. A fourth-year EBM elective will be created to reinforce and round out students' exposure to these concepts.     

Application of Instructional Design Principles in Developing an Online Information Literacy Curriculum

ABSTRACT

An online information literacy curriculum was developed as an intervention to engage students in independent study and self-assessment of their learning needs and learning outcomes, develop proficiency in information skills, and foster lifelong learning. This column demonstrates how instructional design principles were applied to create the learning experiences integrated into various courses of the medical curriculum to promote active learning of information skills and maximize self-directed learning outcomes for lifelong learning.     

Expanding Librarian Roles Through a Librarian Initiated and Facilitated Faculty Learning Community

The role of libraries is changing to focus more on users rather than the collection of information. Community building and connecting people with shared interests represents a social role for libraries in the information age. Their role adds a new dimension to the traditional domains for libraries. Developing and implementing an integrated medical curriculum became the primary focus of basic sciences faculty at a new medical school. Scholarly teaching and connecting teaching with educational research presented a great challenge for the faculty. In response to the learning, teaching, and developmental needs of faculty members, a librarian established a faculty learning community as an approach to supporting faculty development and growth as teaching scholars and scholars of educational research. The article provides a case to illustrate how a librarian spanned boundaries and took up the responsibilities of establishing a faculty learning community and developing a year-long program in light of different developmental needs of faculty members at the new medical school. It also describes the process of developing the faculty learning community program, its components, and the many roles that the librarian took in implementing the program.     

Teaching First-year Medical Students Where to Go First: Connecting Information Needs to e-resources

The purpose of this project was to introduce first-year medical students to electronic resources that are best suited for different types of background questions. Specific questions from a case study were presented, and the students generalized them into a “type” of question. They then identified the best e-resources for that type of question. This is their first introduction to the lifelong learning competency in the Indiana University School of Medicine competency-based curriculum.     

美国博物馆学校的课程设计与启示——以NAMS的K-5课程为例

博物馆学校作为馆校合作的新模式,是美国中小学教育校内外融合的新视点。本文对美国博物馆学校联盟(NAMS)推广的一套K-5课程,从课程标准、课程内容和课程实施三方面进行了系统分析,发现NAMS课程具有四个特点:构建系统化的K-5课程体系;对接课标设计博物馆特色课程;精选跨学科领域的课程内容;采用以学生为中心的项目式教学模式。基于此,NAMS课程对我国馆校合作工作提供了如下启示:为课程开发与实施建立长期稳固的保障机制;基于课程标准与博物馆资源培养核心素养;设置跨学科领域的馆校合作课程内容;通过基于实物的项目式教学实施课程。     

Taking Chances: A New Librarian and Curriculum Redesign

As technology becomes ubiquitous in designing and delivering medical school curricula, health sciences librarians can embrace emerging opportunities for participation in curriculum design. A new medical librarian at Michigan State University Libraries engaged her user base outside of established duties, learned new skills, and challenged preconceived notions about librarians’ roles. In the process, she became a partner in copyright education, amended license agreements for enhanced curricular multimedia use, and facilitated curriculum mapping through taxonomy building. These projects helped create the informational foundation for a novel hybrid medical education curriculum and introduced new curricular roles for the librarian.     

职业化：我国图书馆员未来发展的路径选择

为应对信息时代给图书馆带来的机遇与挑战,图书馆需要进一步拓展服务领域,提升服务层次和服务质量, 也需要的高素质的职业馆员。我国图书馆职业的发展现状不容乐观,难以完成这一紧迫任务,而加强图书馆员职业化建设是一条有效的解决途径。培养职业精神、严格入职条件、完善继续教育制度等措施有利于推进我国图书馆员职业化建设。      

医学图书馆嵌入式服务的尝试与思考——以齐齐哈尔医学院图书馆为例

[目的/意义]基于嵌入式服务理念，设计医学图书馆嵌入式服务框架，并尝试进行嵌入式服务实践，对医学图书馆开展嵌入式服务具有借鉴意义。[方法/过程]通过研究嵌入式服务模式的原理、发展历程以及服务模型，根据读者需求和初期的嵌入式服务实践设计医学图书馆嵌入式服务框架，在这一框架下，研究不同领域的嵌入式服务内容、角色及医学图书馆服务的可延伸拓展性，并论述在这个嵌入式服务框架指导下开展的嵌入式服务实践和取得的服务效果。[结果/结论]在嵌入式服务模式下， "图书馆是一个生长的有机体"，图书馆生产力得以提升，馆员新生职业范围将不断扩大，个性化的嵌入式服务模式是未来医学图书馆服务的发展方向。     

A Clinical Librarian Embedded in Medical Education: Patient-Centered Encounters for Preclinical Medical Students

Adding patient encounters and simulation to the preclinical years of medical school is becoming increasingly popular. This article describes the creation of active learning opportunities by a clinical librarian that are aimed at training preclinical students through the use of simulated patient scenarios. Scenarios for second-year students walk them through the evidence-based resources needed in clinical years and beyond through a standardized patient encounter. Scenarios for first-year students involve role-play of cases where the patient and physician bring contrasting ideas to the outpatient interaction. All scenarios are carried out under the guidance of a clinician and librarian.     

An End User Search Service in an Academic Health Sciences Library

This paper describes the experience of an academic health sciences library which made BRS/After Dark, an end user search service, available to its clientele as a complement to its mediated search service. The library environment, initial publicity efforts and administrative procedures are discussed. An attempt is made to evaluate the usefulness of the service in a library environment. This evaluation, covering a three-month period, is based on the observations of the librarians administering the service and an exit interview conducted with searchers over a two-month period. User satisfaction, both observed and recorded, was quite high; however, the librarians found that users had more difficulty in constructing appropriate search strategies than had been anticipated. Overall, the service is assessed as highly useful.     

Kicking ASSessment: Using Information Fluency Assessment to Expand Librarian Roles,Engage in High-Impact Practices,and Create Sustained Contact with Online Learners

ABSTRACT

Iowa Wesleyan University (IW) has historically struggled with both assessment and supporting online students. Newly-appointed librarians and an impending re-accreditation visit prompted an increase in involvement and presence with assessment. In an attempt to expand the library's influence on campus, librarians took on a nontraditional role in the institutional implementation of LiveText, an assessment software. Librarians at IW have played an active and integral role in not only the initial roll-out of this software, but also in training and continuing support for students and faculty. Because of its importance to institutional learning outcomes, information fluency (IF) is being recognized as a high-impact practice across disciplines, and based on the results of this case study, librarians will pursue the creation of a required online IF course for online learners.     

The Decline of the Number of Interlibrary Loans by Medical Students in a Small Academic Medical Library: A Study of 18 Years of Data

The objective of this study is to provide data on one aca-demic medical library's experience with first and second year medical students’ use of interlibrary loan at the Indiana University School of Medicine–Northwest, Steven C. Beering Medical Library. The results of a study of 18 years of data show a substantial decline of interlibrary loans by medical students. Several factors, including the unique problem-based learning curriculum and the availability of online journals, which has expanded a small medical library's collection, may be responsible for the reduction of interlibrary loan. This study suggests the need for collection development librarians to understand their medical school curriculum and to invest in the most useful electronic journals for their medical students’ education needs.     

Wiki Technology Enhanced Group Project to Promote Active Learning in a Neuroscience Course for First-Year Medical Students: An Exploratory Study

A wiki group project was integrated into a neuroscience course for first-year medical students. The project was developed as a self-directed, collaborative learning task to help medical students review course content and make clinically important connections. The goals of the project were to enhance students’ understanding of key concepts in neuroscience, promote active learning, and reinforce their information literacy skills. The objective of the exploratory study was to provide a formative evaluation of the wiki group project and to examine how wiki technology was utilized to enhance active and collaborative learning of first-year medical students in the course and to reinforce information literacy skills.     

Isolated to Integrated: An Evolving Medical Informatics Curriculum

ABSTRACT

A library-led introductory informatics theme has been part of the Albany Medical College undergraduate medical school curriculum as a concurrent theme since 1993. Initially, classes were limited to large group sessions focusing on general searching skills. Over the past several years, course content has been expanded and increasingly integrated into other themes and clerkships. Web-based self-paced tutorials have replaced many classroom sessions, and Web 2.0 technologies have been introduced. Collaborations with clinical and basic science faculty in other themes supplement and strengthen the theme.     

Quality Matters: New Roles for Librarians Using Standards for Online Course Design

Quality Matters? (QM) is a nationally recognized organization that certifies online courses for effective design, using an evidenced-based set of standards and a structured peer review process. In this paper, the authors demonstrate how academic librarians involved with online courses can adopt Quality Matters to build capacity for designing online courses, as well as using this expertise to evaluate newly developed online courses throughout the university, thus building new networks and relationships with campus teaching faculty and other personnel interested in quality online learning.     

Integrating Information Literacy and Evidence-Based Medicine Content within a New School of Medicine Curriculum: Process and Outcome

This column describes a process for integrating information literacy (IL) and evidence-based medicine (EBM) content within a new school of medicine curriculum. The project was a collaborative effort among health sciences librarians, curriculum deans, directors, and faculty. The health sciences librarians became members of the curriculum committees, developed a successful proposal for IL and EBM content within the curriculum, and were invited to become course instructors for Analytics in Medicine. As course instructors, the librarians worked with the other faculty instructors to design and deliver active learning class sessions based on a flipped classroom approach using a proprietary Information Mastery curriculum. Results of this collaboration may add to the knowledge base of attitudes and skills needed to practice as full faculty partners in curricular design and instruction.     

Teaching Evidence-Based Practice in the Hospital and the Library: Two Different Groups,One Course

Key roles in teaching evidence-based practice (EBP) are of interest to many hospital and academic librarians. This article describes how three academic librarians, in collaboration with the academic medical center's EBP Nursing Council, developed a seminar consisting of three credit hours of instruction in the basics of evidence-based practice. The seminar consists of three core elements: basic principles of EBP and finding literature, clinical experience and integration of knowledge into the hospital setting, and patient education and participation. Emphasis is placed upon analysis of the literature, institutional models of practice change, and the importance of patient roles in guideline development.