Guest post by Courtney Eger, Learning & Engagement Librarian
October is National Medical Librarians Month! Medical, or health sciences, librarians work in a variety of settings, like hospitals, clinics, or – in our case – universities that serve medical students and other health sciences programs.
The Temple Health Sciences Libraries are comprised of the Ginsburg Library on the Health Sciences campus and the Podiatry Library on the School of Podiatric Medicine’s campus. A public health librarian also works in the Charles Library. Nine librarians support the health sciences schools, which consist of the Katz School of Medicine, the Kornberg School of Dentistry, the School of Pharmacy, the School of Podiatric Medicine, and the College of Public Health.
Health sciences librarians perform the types of duties that one might expect in any university library: answer research questions, give instruction, and build an updated collection of resources. But there are many other areas that we have expertise in and spend time on, and those are the services we want to celebrate here.
Health science librarians support researchers – students, staff, and faculty – in their search for evidence. Did you know that Temple librarians are available for half hour research consultation appointments? During these meetings, librarians can discuss topics, search terms, search strategies in databases, and more! It’s best to make an appointment with your subject librarian.
For those who prefer to review resources on their own, we recommend our research guides! Librarians with expertise in certain disciplines or topics create and maintain these guides. Guides contain relevant library databases, recommended journals, links to websites, data resources, and general helpful advice! Our tutorials provide education to those who are interested in topics like database searching for health and biomedical sciences, research data, generative AI and chatbots, and more.
Our health science librarians are also leading experts in specific forms of scholarship.
The Evidence Synthesis and Systematic Review Service works with faculty, students, and staff who plan to publish a rigorous review article such as a systematic review, scoping review, rapid review, and more. These reviews require a detailed and exhaustive search strategy that captures all available literature across multiple databases. Most of the health sciences librarians are members of this team. In this work, librarians meet with researchers, create in-depth search strategies, and earn credit as co-authors on these publications.
Another area of expertise from our team is in research data management, which involves the planning, organizing, collecting, and storing of research data. Librarians hold consultations with researchers on best practices and recommended tools. There’s even a team that supports qualitative data analysis and tools.
After Temple researchers work hard to gather data and evidence, they probably want to publish their findings! Health sciences librarians offer publishing support in many ways. We can find a journal to publish in, recommend tools to use during the publishing process, and possibly provide funding support through publisher agreements.
So that we can stay up to date on the latest tools, best practices, and resources, librarians regularly participate in education and training. Conferences like the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting, the Librarian Evidence Synthesis Services Symposium, and the LOEX library instruction conference offer education that help us stay sharp on how we can best work with library users to support their needs.
Our health sciences librarian team works hard to provide this wide array of services and resources. Consider signing up for one of our workshops, which cover many of the topics discussed here. We hope that you reach out to your subject librarian for help in any of these areas. Health sciences librarians are just an email, phone call, or chat away. We can’t wait to hear from you!