Library and information science education for the new medical environment and the age of integrated information

Library Trends, Fall, 1993 by Ellen Gay Detlefsen

THE PRESENT SCENE

The key sites for medical librarianship in the United States include not only traditional medical libraries in academic settings, but also those in hospital settings, corporate organizations, professional associations, and in public and specialized sites.

Professional positions at these sites may range from those of a traditional librarian to others such as an information management specialist, medical informaticist, or faculty member. The primary professional society affiliations for many of these individuals are the Medical Library Association (MLA), the Special Libraries Association (SLA), the American Society for Information Science (ASIS), the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), and the American Association of Health Science Library Directors (AAHSLD).

Despite their differences, these information professionals and organizations generally have an interest in the same three key issues: 1. the solution of information problems in health care, 2. the wider applications of information technology to medical

concerns, and 3. the education and continuing education of health information

professionals. It has been apparent for some years, however, that the role and activities of the traditional medical librarian have been changing in response to major changes in the larger health care environment in which these professionals find themselves (Anderson, 1989).

PRESENT EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE

The most typical preparation for a career in medical librarianship is to earn a graduate degree from one of the library and information science programs accredited by the American Library Association and, preferably, but not exclusively, to do so in a program that offers a specialization or focused group of courses in medical library work.(1) This preparation is not different from the programs followed by someone seeking credentials for special librarianship in general, except that the elective portions of the Master's of Science(2) degree offer course work in the literatures of medicine and science. An internship or field experience in a medical information setting is also characteristic of this preparation, as few individuals come to the graduate programs in librarianship with much practical background in health sciences or health care. One obvious exception is the corps of experienced nurses who seek library and information science training as a means of making a career shift away from daily clinical care but not away from medicine or medical institutions. An occasional pharmacist, dentist, or even a physician, may also seek library and information science (LIS)(3) training but only rarely and then only when seeking a major career change. Nonprofessional staff members from medical libraries are also good candidates for graduate LIS education.

Among the most sophisticated approaches to education for health information professionals at present are programs in the "full-service" LIS schools which offer a complete range of teaching and research programs from undergraduate through doctoral study. These schools are able to combine their larger faculties, universitywide contacts, extensive technological resources, and large student bodies to form a critical mass for specialized education.

CURRENT FACULTY AND COURSE WORK

At present, only ten LIS programs in the United States and Canada claim a full-time faculty member with a specialization in medicine (Association for Library and Information Science Education [ALISE], 1992). Four other academics can be identified as being active in this field by virtue of their publishing widely in the field, while several others have also been identified by those already practicing in the field of medical library education, to yield a total of only seventeen LIS academics with an interest in health sciences.(4) Of these, however, one is a professor emerita and two are deans, suggesting that there may be other professional activities which claim their attention. Of the remaining fourteen, only five are tenured faculty members, while nine are in the tenure stream. Typically, most other LIS programs rely on the adjunct services of local practitioners to teach a course or two which focuses on the bibliography of and/ or the management of medical libraries, while twenty-three of the fifty-seven accredited LIS programs simply do not offer any course work or specialization in health information at all.

Those programs which offer the opportunity for students to enroll in courses specifically focused on health sciences issues are likely to be the best places to pursue an MS in preparation to become a health information professional. Course work in health sciences bibliography, on electronic resources for science and medicine, on the management of biomedical information and libraries, coupled with an internship/practicum or field work opportunities in medical sites are most typical. Cooperative registration agreements which allow LIS students to take courses in health sciences schools are also a mark of excellence for programs.