Future of academic and health libraries: personal perspectives

I am frequently asked about the future of academic libraries—by my staff, my colleagues and students at Carleton—I think there is a view that libraries are becoming less visible in the Internet age. It is true that many of our users do not visit the library building but they certainly use our digital resources. Others are still coming—particularly the undergraduates—but they tend to use the library as a study hall/community centre. That is the greatest challenge for me—shaping the library to accommodate a growing diversity of needs—from undergraduates who want space and freedom to study in flexible groups with access to computers and furniture they can move around; to graduate students who want quiet, individual, reflective spaces with access to extensive collections; to faculty who want everything delivered electronically to their offices. With so much of our digital collection bought through national consortia, there is not much to differentiate us from other academic libraries—apart from our special collections and services. I am encouraging further diversification into these areas, for example, we are actively seeking faculty papers and research data and are acting as a digital and paper repository for the research collections. Some people think that in the digital environment, libraries are simply licensing agents, but I think that it is up to us to promote our critical stewardship role to our users while, at the same time, exploring new ways to make these resources even more useful in the lives of our users. So ... we are also expanding our information literacy services into a full range of literacy, numeracy and emerging technology services for all students, faculty and staff. We want to support the information continuum from creation to publication to preservation. Our library is very active in statistical data documentation and management and this has opened up a new role as research data managers. In addition, we are increasingly involved in all sorts of projects from writing knowledge strategies to assisting in developing evaluation systems for strategic plans to information management specialists in large research networks. All this is opening new career paths for our librarians and it is very exciting. But not all are prepared for these new roles which require skills beyond the traditional librarianship and teaching skills. My staff are improving their research, evaluation, marketing and numeracy skills as well as ensuring that they are well versed in the skills of evidence-based practice so that they use the latest research to shape services that will meet changing user needs. This is true across academic libraries in Canada so, for instance, this year there are national meetings to discuss research priorities, skills and other workforce issues, and particularly how to cope with an increasingly multigenerational workforce. So ... Joanne, are the trends the same for health libraries or are there different challenges for them? Thanks for the great entrée into thinking about the health libraries scene. In general, there has been a trend towards the centralization and coordination of health library services in North America. This coordination has continued to strengthen the link between academic libraries and health sciences libraries of all types. So the trends you name, Maggie, are ones that affect libraries and librarians in both types of settings. In the US, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) and the Medical Library Association (MLA) continue to play key roles by providing research and development support for emerging areas such as consumer health information, health literacy and patient safety. There is also a keen interest in how health library services can be linked to the electronic patent record. In Canada, we see similar trends reflected in the activities of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA) and the National Network of Libraries for Health (NNLH). Canada was a pioneer in evidence-based practice for health professionals and librarians. An impressive open access journal from Canada, Evidence-based Library and Information Practice, is now available and the 4th International Conference on Evidence-Based Library and Information Practice was held in the US in 2007 so North America is active in this international movement. Health librarians continue to seek and develop new roles in clinical, research and community settings. Many of these roles require additional education and training in areas such as bioinformatics, neurosciences, public health, to name a few. The trend towards speeding the application of research to patient care is illustrated by the Clinical and Translational Science (CTSA) awards offered by the US National Institutes of Health. The CTSA initiative is affecting libraries both directly and indirectly, for example, through the recently revised policy on enhancing public access to NIH-funded research through PubMed. Many health libraries are offering assistance to authors as they strive to meet the new requirements and bolstering their consumer health information services through the ‘Go Local’ feature of MedlinePlus. The changing demographics of the population, as the baby boomers move into the retirement years will have a major influence on both the staff and users of health libraries. So will important trends such as global health, the increasing use of hand-held technologies, and possibilities for learning and social networking in virtual environments. In short, there appears to be no shortage of exciting challenges and opportunities in the increasingly interwoven worlds of academic and health libraries. In the midst of this entire change one thing stays the same—our core mission of gathering, organizing and making available the highest quality information to meet the needs of our users continues to be as relevant as ever. Editor's Note: For further details of the ‘Go Local’ feature, see Smith, K.H., MacCall, S. & Vucovich, L. MedlinePlus ‘Go Local’ and Consumer Health Collection Development. Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet, 2007, 11 (2), 43–59. MH & JGM have declared no conflicts.

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