ICML 2009: Great Hall 2 Session 33

Theme: Marketing and Promotion

Time: 15.30-16.45
Date: Thursday 3rd September 2009
Chair: Garry Hall

The Personal Librarian Program at the Yale Medical Library: Reaching out to Medical Students
Jan G Glover, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale School of Medicine, United States

Jan Glover is the Education Services and Reference Librarian at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale School of Medicine. She coordinates the Library's Education Program and shares coordination of the Personal Librarian program with colleague, Judy Spak. Jan has been teaching evidence-based practice principles and techniques to Medical Center students and faculty through course-integrated instruction, workshops, one-on-one sessions or to anyone who will listen.

Abstract:
Objective: Evaluate the effectiveness of our Personal Librarian program – an outreach initiative to re-establish personal contact with medical students at a time when visiting the library’s physical space for information is not necessary.

Methods: The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library has offered a ‘Personal Librarian’ program to medical students since 1996. This program matches students to a professional librarian as they matriculate – a relationship that is maintained until graduation. Personal Librarians offer individualized assistance for almost anything – from library policies/procedures to thesis research. A short survey, including yes/no, likert scale, and open-ended questions, was used as the instrument to gather data. The goals of the survey were to evaluate student satisfaction with the program and to ascertain how we could improve the program. An invitation to participate was emailed to all School of Medicine students.

Results: The survey revealed that 99% of the students who utilize the expertise of their personal librarians are extremely satisfied, moderately satisfied, or satisfied, that 95% of the students could identify their Personal Librarian and that 94% felt that the amount of Personal Librarian communication was just right. Librarians report that the program requires minimal effort on their part and the return on investment of time and resources has been immeasurable.

Conclusion: We’ve expanded this program to all Medical Center student groups. The program now serves as a model at the Yale University Library and has been adopted by our colleagues for the Yale College undergraduate Class of 2012.

Relationship marketing can stimulate library development
Lotta Haglund, Karolinska Institutet University Library, Sweden

Lotta Haglund works as Head of Information and Public Relations at Karolinska Institutet University Library. The position involves marketing the library services to students, faculty and staff at Karolinska Institutet, as well as staff development, and management. Her main professional interests include marketing/communication, evidence based practice, pedagogy, and management. Lotta has a background in Archaeology, and holds a masters degree in Library and Information Science. She has worked in medical/health libraries since 1992, at Karolinska Institutet since 2000.

Abstract:
Objective: To show how you can use ideas from relationship marketing theory to increase marketing efforts

Methods: Relationship marketing involves establishment, maintenance and even the enhancement of customer and other library-related relationships. These relationships are often personal, but with a professional content. Some tools for development of relationship marketing will be described, including a project for continuous feedback from library customers (The Palpus program). The primary first step involves a change of perspective from library to customer orientation. Customer orientation will enable better liaison of library knowledge and skills with customer needs which may, in turn, improve how the customer perceives the value of the library. New areas of library development will also emerge from the customer-oriented perspective.

Results: The success of using relationship marketing clearly depends on full management support, a positive general working environment and the involvement of the whole library staff. Corporate culture is the key to successful relationship marketing.

Conclusions: Developing good (marketing) relationships takes time. Relationship marketing is a way of thinking, not a department.

Really Simple Syndication? A study on health sciences faculty and medical residents adoption of a new technology following an instruction session on RSS Thane Chambers, University of Alberta Libraries, Canada
Presented By: Sandy Campbell, University of Alberta Libraries, Canada
Dale Storie, University of Alberta Libraries, Canada

Sandy Campbell is a Public Services Librarian at the University of Alberta J.W. Scott Health Sciences Library. Sandy’s professional interests include information consumerism and all forms of digital information services. Sandy has published and presented nationally and internationally on a variety of subjects, including information literacy and the collecting of electronic books and journals. She is a member of the Canadian Library Association and the Polar Libraries Colloquy and is an Associate Fellow of the Australian Library and Information Association.

Dale Storie is a new librarian working at the University of Alberta J.W. Scott Health Sciences Library. A recent graduate of the Humanities Computing program at the University of Alberta, he is interested in digital preservation, open source software, and online game culture. He is a member of the Canadian Library Association.

Abstract
Information seeking behaviour studies on professionals in the health sciences has shown that being aware of the latest research is a crucial component for patient care. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has been described in both library and computing science literature as a simple and effective technology for maintaining current awareness. However, little research evidence exists on whether or not health sciences professionals are aware of or make use of RSS feeds. This session presents the findings of a study that explores the current awareness habits of health sciences faculty and medical residents at the University of Alberta in Canada. Specifically, it looks at how participants keep up with new information, whether they are familiar with RSS feeds, what benefits or barriers they encountered in using RSS feeds, and whether instructional sessions provided by librarians changed their awareness and use of this technology. An initial survey was sent to all health sciences faculty and medical residents to determine how they stay current with new information and measure their familiarity with RSS. An instructional session was then offered to faculty and medical residents, teaching them how to use RSS feeds to manage information. Participants who required further instruction were encouraged to ask for one-on-one instruction. Approximately one month following the course, participants completed another survey that measured whether the instruction they received had changed how they stayed current with new information, and whether they believed RSS was a valuable tool for current awareness.