Shaping medical library education

Library Trends, Summer, 1993 by Fred W. Roper, M. Kent Mayfield

Abstract

Considerable change is occurring in the health information environment, signaling a need for change in the roles of health information professionals and in the knowledge and skills expected of them. This article reports the results of a survey of knowledge and skills in the health information sciences conducted by the Medical Library Association (MLA) and relates those results to MLA's educational policy statement, Platform for Change.

Introduction

We must educate for the problems of a generation hence, not for the problems of today .... librarians must be imbued with the psychological ability to handle change and to live with ambiguity. Without this they will be performing tomorrow's tasks with yesterday's concepts. (Brodman, 1979, p. viii)

"Tomorrow's tasks" will be considerably different from those of today. The exponential growth in biomedical knowledge and the new information technologies are redefining the infrastructure of health care, education, and research. An array of professional specialties has developed, reworking what was a well-defined arena of information service. Changes in the health information environment signal change in the roles of health information professionals and in the knowledge and skills expected of them. Health sciences librarianship may not exist as a profession in the next century unless health information professionals begin to accept responsibility for their own destinies by seeking lifelong education and professional development opportunities from a variety of sources.

The key to developing the full array of needed educational opportunities is the leadership of the Medical Library Association (MLA). By reaching out and developing partnerships with other institutions and organizations to strengthen its programs and policies in support of the health sciences librarian, MLA can provide individuals with opportunities that will prepare them for a world that continues to change radically in response to the rapid growth of biomedical knowledge and technology.

This article focuses on the Medical Library Association and its activities resulting from the work that MLA has already sponsored and because of its unique position of being able to affect medical library education and to serve as a catalyst for change.

According to the Council on Library Resources (1989), "At the heart of many of the present problems facing librarians and library education is the failure to describe the profession and its present role in terms that are compelling, expansive, and accurate. The principles, the responsibilities, and the body of knowledge that shape the profession are real and of great importance ... but they are either implicit or incompletely formed and are certainly not widely understood..." (p. 26). Over the past twenty years, MLA has cited the need for a coalition of expertise and resources within the profession to define the competencies needed for professional practice and to support their acquisition in graduate school and beyond.

In May 1989, MLA's Knowledge and Skills Task Force (see Appendix A) was appointed in response to a number of different initiatives. First was MLA's own strategic plan and the strategy which seeks to influence curricula of academic institutions in the areas of design, development, and management of information systems. In order to achieve this, it seemed necessary, first, to validate what it is that health information professionals do and then to determine what is going to be needed in the future. A second impetus, closely related to the first, was the revision then underway of the American Library Association's (ALA) Standards for Accreditation of master's programs in library and information science. As a part of that revision process, each of the major library and information science associations was asked to provide the ALA Committee on Accreditation with educational and other policy statements pertinent to the needs of that organization so that they could be shared with the educational programs.

The Task Force determined that the best approach to gather the data necessary to carry out these objectivces would be to survey a sample of the MLA membership with two goals in mind: (1) to define the knowledge and skills required for competent professional performance now and in the future; and (2) to enable MLA to establish educational policies which would assure the acquisition and maintenance of those activities throughout a professional career. When tabulated and analyzed, these data would provide an inventory of knowledge and skills described in two major ways: scope - what are these skills? - and setting - where is the learning most likely to be applied and where is the learning most likely to occur?

In January 1990, an application was submitted to the Council on Library Resources for assistance in funding this survey and some other activities related to the survey. The Task Force received a grant of slightly more than $9,300 from the council. In addition, support was received from the Medical Library Association and from the University of South Carolina.