3rd UK Clinical Librarians Conference
Report on the 3RD UK Clinical Librarians Conference
St Williams College, York
11th and 12th of June 2007
This was the first time I had attended a Clinical Librarian Conference and the fact it was being held in the lovely city of York made it all the more appealing!
The conference ran for two days and was held at St Williams College in the shadow of the breathtaking York Minster. The daily programme was chaired in turn over the two days by Pip Divall (Clinical Librarian UHL), Andrew Booth (ScHARR) Sarah Sutton (Clinical Librarian UHL) and Claire Honeybourne (National Core Content Manager for the East Midlands Strategic Health Authority). A wide range of topics were covered by speakers from across the UK, Holland and Australia. It would be impossible to summarise everything so I’ve chosen the talks which I felt made the strongest impression on me.
Day One Highlights:
Day one opened with a talk on information needs in Emergency Care from Ffion Davies who is Head of Emergency Medicine at Leicester Royal Infirmary. Ffion highlighted the importance of the Clinical Librarian to her team and in particular the amount of time saved carrying out literature searches as well as the provision of tailored training in searching for junior staff. Her point was emphasised by government targets which often left her team with only around twenty to forty minutes to spend on each patient. Ffion did stress the need for the CL to be able to rapidly provide the correct information and put the ability to understand both the language and issues of Emergency Medicine at the centre of meeting this challenge. Her vision of the future posed another challenge to the CL: the provision of bedside orientated or patient specific information. I found this talk interesting as the Clinical Librarian accompanies her staff on their ward rounds and is able to witness the information needs first hand.
The second speaker was Stephen Sharp who is an Information Specialist at the NLH Specialist Library for ENT and Audiology. His talk was on Current Awareness with emphasis on quality and currency. As someone who produces several bulletins each month I was very interested in what he had to say. He pointed out services such as ZETOC alerts and questioned the need for any more Current Awareness in addition to this. The danger of information overload was a key message in this presentation and the aim to avoid needless research. Solutions proposed included attaching a critical appraisal checklist to enable the reader to assess the merit of the articles more easily. The need to be more selective and avoid duplication was also highlighted. His closing remarks did point to the continuing importance of Current Awareness as clinicians now come face to face with patients who are more informed than ever before. The need to keep up to date with current research remains crucial.
I chose to attend an afternoon workshop on outreach and how it can be embedded into a library service. We were put into pairs and discussed the efforts we had made to provide outreach in our own organisations. Several common themes emerged from this session one of which was the importance of identifying influential staff who were receptive to the library and meeting them face to face to establish good contact. Targeting new staff and attending clinical meetings or ward rounds also featured prominently in the discussion. Overall the importance of remaining visible, regularly visiting departments and maintaining the profile of the library was key to the success of an outreach strategy.
Day Two Highlights:
I bravely returned to the conference on day two having been scared half to death the previous night while on the York Ghost Trail, one of York’s historic ghost walks!
Day two featured a talk by Pip Divall, a Clinical Librarian at University Hospitals Leicester, on a trial of the use of PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) to assist the decision making of Pharmacists. Pip secured the PDAs on a trial basis and her project measures their use on the wards and if they make the job easier. The outline of the study involves answering the question: does using a PDA with drug information increase the number of interventions by a Pharmacist on the ward? Although there have been problems getting busy Pharmacists to participate, this ongoing project is a great example of opportunism as Pip spotted the PDAs at a conference stall and enquired about them.
Peer support was the focus of the next talk by Sarah Lewis and Nia Wyn Roberts who are based at Royal South Hants Hospital and the University of Oxford respectively. They described a Search Skills Group which has been formed by a small group of librarians who individually tackle search questions and share their approaches to the search. The group meets four times a year and is open to all library staff with peer support as members are encouraged to take turns in leading the sessions. It was pointed out that the group needed a core membership to make it work well and benefits included making staff more aware of search terminology and different information sources. Last but not least was the social aspect with a friendly environment allowing participants to take part in discussions.
Finally Debra Thornton (CL at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals) and James Allen (Assistant Librarian at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust) gave talk on a journal club they had formed. I was especially keen to hear this due to my involvement in setting up such a club for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Their opening statement was thought provoking: we expect clinicians to read evidence based material so why don’t we? The club was formed out of a realisation that keeping up to date with professional literature had fallen by the wayside and it became a vehicle to generate discussion and develop critical appraisal skills. Good tips included getting one person to lead a discussion on a topic relevant to their library or service. The club works well and has been a good discussion forum and a place to share ideas and experience.
I had a good two days in York and found the conference informative and interesting. The next one is in Brisbane in 2009 and with family living there I may just decide to attend……anyone care to join me?
Paul Herbert
Assistant Librarian
Robert Lamb Library
Education Centre
Inverclyde Royal Hospital
Larkfield Road
Greenock
PA16 0XN