Karen Newmeyer, Medical Librarian
October is National Medical Librarians Month. The medical librarians at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions celebrated the month by presenting at the Mid-Continental chapter of the Medical Library Association (MLA). The virtual conference was held on Oct. 3-5th. Our topic? Increasing Librarians’ Accessibility to Distance Students.
In November 2017, we implemented a simple but effective feature called “Book a Librarian.” It is front and center on our library website (lrc.rmuohp.edu). By clicking on the icon, students can schedule a session with their librarian of choice. Meetings can be in person, by phone, or online. Scheduling is easy and only requires sending an invitation-link to the student by email. All the student needs to do is click the link and a connection is established.
I remember my days as an undergraduate student. Library orientation consisted of walking around with a headset and a cassette player. That was before online database searching and Google (gasp). In today’s libraries, contacting a librarian is easier than going to the reference desk. It involves chatting, texting, phone calls, and emails. However, online meetings are still coming of age with Business Skype, Zoom, Appear.in, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, and on.
Here at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions, our online students are primarily nontraditional students who have been out of the academic setting for decades. Technology can be intimidating. So how are they going to navigate online course requirements and online research tools? We are here to help them with that, starting during new student orientation. Once, after library introductions at new student orientation, a student in tears ran down the hallway to catch us as we left. How was she going to learn the technology and complete a very challenging program? She felt overwhelmed, panicked, and was about to have a meltdown. We reassured her we would help her, but she was not on campus much of the ensuing two years. Phone calls helped but more effective would have been meeting online and screen sharing. (Thankfully, she was able successfully to complete her program.)
Since implementing our “Book a Librarian” service, we average 2-3 requests a week. Considering we have 400 online students, it equates to 10% of our online students and adjunct faculty benefiting from this service in the past year. The ability to screen share is hugely valuable.
This is what librarians do. As technology changes, we change too. Even residential students find it easier to utilize Google and would rather not have to come to the library. “[R]esearch demonstrates that librarian-led information services and resources improve clinical decision making and patient-care outcomes” (Hickner, 2018). As librarians increase our contact points and accessibility, we can get our message across: Google cannot replace the library or the librarians. As Neil Gaiman stated, “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one” (Kowalczyk, 2018).
*Parts of this story were used in a story published in the Utah Libraries News available here: http://ula.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ULN-SEPTEMBER-2018.pdf
Works Cited:
Hickner, A. (2018, October 5). Cushing/Whitney Medical Library. Retrieved October 10, 2018, from Yale University: https://library.medicine.yale.edu/blog/october-national-medical-librarians-month
Kowalczyk, P. (2018, January 9). EBook Friendly. Retrieved October 10, 2018, from 50 thought-provoking quotes about libraries and librarians: https://ebookfriendly.com/best-quotes-about-libraries-librarians/
