We had a great discussion at the 2012 CHLA Conference during the special interest group hour.  Eight people were in attendance and we had a wide variety of experience and opinions present. 

Here’s a point form summary of some of the topics we discussed:

The current format of the Mentorship Interest Group

• The value of individual mentorship pairings, in terms of privacy of discussions, development of a more in depth relationship


• Some discomfort around posting on the blog, and the “stiffness” in writing style compared to an individual mentorship email or phone call


• Monthly topics give us a reason to connect, and a reminder to connect with each other


• Could we do both individual pairing and a pooled resource (community of practice-style) blog as well

Skills and experience

• Management training is a weak area in library school – many of us don’t feel prepared for the unique challenges of managing people at work, budgets, asking for money, preparing business cases, etc.


• Many of us at the table are about 7 years into our career, and wouldn’t consider ourselves “new” or “experienced”.  We’re now comfortable in our professional skin, but many of us are asking ourselves “what’s next?”


• Skills we will need to develop and support for the future: collection evaluation, licensing, advocacy, how to write well (persuasively – lessons from journalism?), how to measure value, marketing (like teaching – your content is your message)

The future of medical libraries, the outlook for our professions

• A general worry that jobs are disappearing – we need to encourage succession planning through mentorship


• The work will remain, the drive will remain


• Advocacy for our professions needs to be strong and ongoing (branches staying open, getting more staff)


• Scope of practice and licensing issues for our professions: Charlotte hoping to bring this issue to the CHLA board


• Worry around pigeon-holing the job duties of librarian and library technician


• Under direction of a librarian?  Increase of non-librarian managers and directors of library services


• Equity with other professions in hospitals


• Other un-regulated professions in healthcare such as Physician Assistants, and the tension this is causing


• Changing the name of “librarian” – how do other professions see us?  CIHR title of “information specialist”


• Is AHIP worth it?  Criteria for membership; not recognizing our existing professional activities

How can we better support each other?

• Inspiration from peers


• “Changing of the guard” is coming in medical libraries, as many are set to retire in the coming years


• Creating a living archive through mentorship


• Ecosystem of librarianship, where it doesn’t have to be old feeding the new necessarily


• Value of medical libraries needs to be studied, published, discussed

Please add your thoughts and help continue the discussion!