Report on Janet Coomber’s job shadowing visit to Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust Library service on 3rd December
Clinical Librarian
The first item for the day was shadowing Sue Clayton, the clinical librarian on a stoke ward round this started at 8:30. When Sue and I arrived at the Stroke Ward, the consultant had been delayed and the ward round would take place later than planned. Sue & I moved on to join the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Ward round and managed to arrive towards the end of the round. Sue explained how she would be asked to do literature searches to support clinical care or occasionally to support research undertaken by some to the consultants. Sue also showed me how she would use the PDA that every fourth and fifth year medical student had to access resources on the go. I was impressed by how well Sue was known by all the staff on the wards and many people said how much they valued the service of the Clinical Librarian and impressed on me that this work really did make a difference to patient care.
Sue and I also spoke about her recent visit to the University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka in Zambia, working with the two nurse educators; Universe Mulenga (Principal Tutor) and Patrick Malisawi (Nurse Tutor) to devise library services to support them in their aim to develop a nursing workforce for a hospital environment (critical care) by improving nurse information literacy and the information facilities and resources available to them and to develop evidence based practice in critical care nursing. Sue Clayton hopes that the KSS Library and Knowledge Services team will be able to support her to encourage CILIP to support a mentoring programme for the staff there.
Staff Meeting
The next item was attendance at the Library Staff meeting, there were various items on the agenda and then staff went round the table and gave a five minute update on their work. Helen Barrett the new librarian at the Princess Royal also joined the meeting. I was invited to give feedback from our team and spoke about phase 2 of the Library Management System Project, the survey on capturing and mapping Health & Wellbeing Promotion projects in the region and the new LQAF criteria and guidance especially about how to measure the impact of library services.
Enquiry Desk
I then had a session on the Library Desk with Beverley Gittins, although this was quiet I had a chance to issue books and experience the problems that arose when users presented old cards.
Knowledge Management Librarian
After lunch I had a talk with Ben Skinner about his work on his current awareness bulletin and knowledge management work. We also discussed the evaluation reports that he produces of the services that are undertaken. I was given a copy of the evaluation of the literature searches undertaken during 2008.
Research for 4th Year Medical Students
The next session due to be watching a training session for a small group run by Jil Fairclough and we were joined by Helen Barrett. However, none of the students turned up, so Jil did an induction session for Helen and me. During this we discussed the importance of the reading list capability of the new Library Management System is to Jil’s work and the impact of this on information that she gives out to her users. I know that this is one of the concerns that Jil had already raised so it was very useful to see a demonstration of the impact of this first hand.
Deputy Librarian
I then had a session with Sharon Spingham who explained what she did in her role as Deputy. She explained that she was responsible for the operational running of the library and the website. Her role also includes responsibility for patient information and she showed these areas on the Intranet where patients would gain access to the information leaflets. She also explained that these are printed out and distributed to doctor’s surgeries. We also discussed the evaluation of the resources that was done at the library.
Library Trainer
My last proper session was with Sally Manser who is the temporary Library Trainer and she went over the training sessions that the users have during inductions and one-to-one training sessions. Sally and I also discussed the evaluation forms that she gives and also the evaluation that takes place some time after the sessions that take place, she normally gets about a 20% response to the second evaluation form. This is very good and does give a clearer picture of the real value of the sessions.
Library Manager
I finished the day off with a talk with Judy Lehmann, we spoke about the service she provides to users and how over thirty years she has built the service up from very small beginnings, we also discussed the relationships that Judy has built up over the years. We discussed the recent costings work and the impact that this is likely to have on her service as she has been very successful in the past in securing funding for her service and much of this funding also covers staff salaries as well as physical resources. We also spoke about Judy’s future vision for her Library Service and the things she will be putting into her new Strategy document.