For at least ten years (that I can recall) and probably longer, the issue of sustaining Medical/Hospital Libraries has been a chief concern not only in the United States - but around the world. To her credit, the NCNMLG President, Carmen Huddleston, hosted a meeting at the Stanford Health Library that provided a forum for an open discussion amongst librarians from Stanford, UCSF, Kaiser Permanente, Los Gatos Health Library, and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Librarian members of NCNMLG where also invited to participate in this event via webinar. Members of the Pacific Southwest Region were present and provided support for the event.
This meeting held on January 13, 2014 was a great chance to share information and start a real conversation around strategic planning and outreach endeavors.
For the last two years, the librarian members of CHIP have discussed this issue at length in meetings, on email, and by phone. We decided as a group that we needed to take some action. The primary action item from our last CHIP meeting was to create an online support venue for librarians to include library disaster preparedness planning, career change resources, and professional development weblinks. Hence, the CHIP 4-11 webpage was born! As President of CHIP, I invite medical or health librarians to use this resource to arm yourself with information. My advice...use every opportunity to gain exposure within your institutions about the importance of what you do. Be proactive!
The Krafty Librarian said it best in her blog post of January 24, 2014
"The only way I see medical librarians continuing on is to work together to get our message out. As many said on the listserv, medical librarians are too often preaching to the choir about our value and benefit. We need to take our message out to our patrons. Not only do we need to do this locally, but nationally. As much as I am in favor of our medical library journals, we need to stop publishing about the value of library services in them and start publishing those kind of studies in our patrons’ journals which is what they read. Our
patrons don’t read our professional journals. We need to attend and present at their meetings".
Librarians."This is your time...now go out there and take it!" - Herb Brooks
Respectfully submitted by: Geri Bodeker, M.S., MLIS