It's Official: Librarian is a Cool Career

It must be true. I read it in U.S. News and World Report. According to a December 15, 2008 article Librarian is one of the top 30 professions for 2009 in terms of job outlook, job satisfaction, difficulty of training, prestige, and pay. Another semi-interesting factoid: special librarians are especially cool. A special librarian is someone who doesn't work in an academic or public library, so this would include yours truly, having worked in medical libraries for what is now decades.

I was interested to see that the article lists "Health Informatics Specialist" as one of "13 Ahead of the Curve Careers". This confirms my hunch that the combination of medical librarianship and health informatics is where our field is headed. I always like it when my hunches are confirmed, especially by such a highly-revered news source.

Just this week, I found myself encouraging a UC Berkeley undergraduate who was conducting informational interviews at the hospital to consider the Medical Librarian/Health Informatics option. As I was making the pitch, a musical version of William S. Borrough's Words of Advice for Young People kept running through my mind. I'm always surprised at how helpful (ahem) my subconscious is at suggesting songs that suit the situation. Maybe I should give the whole thing some more thought.

Calling All iPhone Users

If you are an iPhone user and would like free online access to DynaMed, please call me (415-206-6639) or email me (jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu) asap. DynaMed is an evidence-based point-of-care tool that's updated daily. We'll be retaining our desktop access to this resource, but we had to drop our PDA version due to budget cuts. BUT...if you establish you iPhone online access before the end of the year, you'll be grandfathered or grandmothered in.

If you're interested, I'll provide you with a unique serial number which you can use to set up the access.

Cry for Help. HELLLLLLLP

I've spent hours sifting through and evaluating electronic book, journal, database and package offers from various content providers with the goal of spending the least amount of money on the most valuable online products available. I want to provide resources that nurses and other SFGH staff will find helpful and actually use in their clinical decision making, research, and coursework. I'm also trying to figure out what resources will best support our fledgling Magnet initiative. Okay, so I admit it. I need help. Obviously I've got some ideas, but I need your clinical expertise and years of experience in the field to help me decide what to purchase. Please contact me asap: jgraham@sfghdean.ucsf.edu

Print or Online

A patron (that's that we call library visitors) came in this morning looking for a print copy of Brenner & Rector's the Kidney. Turns out we have only the 2004 edition, and that we had hadn't purchased the 2008 edition. Oh dear! Or maybe not. We do have online access to the most recent edition of that book via UCSF Library's MD Consult, an electronic content aggregator I think of as an electronic "aggravator" because their PDFs take so long to load.

Aggravation aside, the question remains: does the library need to spend $400 on a new edition of this title? If we buy it, will you use it? Please advise.

Embase, anyone?

Recently I've run into a few researchers here at SFGH, (not really run into them, just talked to them) who are beginning new projects and need to do exhaustive literature searching. They can't risk missing any of the European biomedical literature that may not be included in Medline. They need access to a database called "Embase", the database formerly known as "Excerpta Medica"

UCSF's Parnassus Library does not license this resource. The Mount Zion library is the only UCSF affiliate that does, and will very kindly do literature searches for SFGH staff on request. My question is: should the SFGH library subscribe to this database? Is there enough demand out there to warrant the purchase? Would you use it if you had it? Let me hear from you!

Librarians as Educators

While I don't often take the time to read Library Journal, preferring instead to let them pile up on my desk so no one else can read them, I did notice one news item from the October 1, 2008 issue that struck me as significant. It referred to a faculty opinion survey called Ithaka's 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education that revealed an "...emerging disconnect between librarians' perceptions of their roles and the expectations and habits of the faculty they serve."

The study drew a lot of comment from academic librarians, among them Steven Bell of Temple University, who suggested that the next study should include librarian roles of educator and instructional partner along with the more traditional ones. Good thinking, Steven. I believe this is a area where librarians can make the greatest impact, both now and in the future, and in all types of libraries.

Paging Dr. Google

Interesting article in the International Herald Tribune about how the public uses the Internet for health information. And later Twitters about their treatment.