Library Partnerships In Nursing Education
What Is Library Partnerships
Library partnerships in nursing education are defined by close working relationships, collaborative teaching and research, and consultation between nursing students, their educators, and library professionals. Partnerships between library professionals and nurses of all levels (practitioners, educators, and students) enable nurses to improve patient care through finding and incorporating evidence-based practice information into the care they deliver (Arndt, 2009). Librarians and nursing educators together can help students with information navigation and evaluation expertise and combine this with pedagogical knowledge and subject area skill (Dewey, 2001).
Impact of Library Partnership on Nursing Education
Nursing education library partnerships bring those involved in, or benefiting from, nursing education together with the various resources a library offers. “Library” describes both a collection of materials (electronic, print, photographs, other media, etc.) and the facility that houses these materials. Libraries may serve municipalities, educational institutions hospitals, corporations, or private citizens. Depending on the type, libraries may receive funding from public or private entities, or a combination thereof. There are multiple types of library employees with different specializations.
Professionals, or librarians, usually hold master's degrees in library or information sciences. Paraprofessionals often have special training to assist professionals in their work or in other library-related services. Library professionals and paraprofessionals may work in different capacities in research, reference, and information services; material preparation and circulation; building function and safety; material categorization or cataloging: technology; and a host of other areas. Librarians employed by health care focused libraries and as subject specialists within other types of libraries often have professional and/or educational backgrounds in health care.
Outcomes of Library Partnership on Nursing Education
Educators of pre-and-post-licensure practicing nurses' partner with libraries by first accepting overtures from library employees who offer to provide them service or by seeking out assistance and partnership from the library that serves them, Nurse educators who work with post-licensure colleagues at hospitals and other health care centers may be served by and partner with:
• An individual library or information management resource serving a particular hospital or health care system;
• State-specific Area Health Education Center (AHEC) library focused on meeting information needs of practicing health care professionals. Contact information for AHECS can be found by consulting the AHEC Directory through the National AHEC Organization. Although not all state AHECS offer library support, many do provide electronic resources and/or physical collections and support
• Public library reference services. Larger public libraries may have employees specializing in health information. Most general reference librarians can also provide assistance with training opportunities, finding health care resources, and conducting searches:
Academic library serving a community college or 4-plus-year institution. Depending on contractual agreements. with publishers and resource providers, the library may restrict resource usage or services to institutional affiliates.
Nurse Educators and Librarians May Partner
• Increase or improve educational opportunities for pre-and-post licensure nurses. Nursing educators can incorporate librarians' information finding and evaluating expertise into research methods and evidence-based practice classes and any coursework requiring students to find and use information. Incorporation methods include instructional visits to the class by the librarian, task and assignment specific searching guides, and co-teaching
• Conduct research. Librarians, particularly those specializing in research and reference or with expertise in relevant subjects, can assist nursing educators and students in conducting advanced searches of the literature, identifying survey tools and analysis procedures, and performing various other research related capacities.
• Pool human, monetary, space, and other resources. Nursing educators and librarians can draw from each other's skill sets, to improve libraries' nursing resource collections and services to nursing students and other library users. Nursing educators may host professional gatherings, in-person continuing education sessions, and displays in library physical spaces, while nursing educators may facilitate librarians' presentation of information finding and evaluation sessions for health care consumers in a care setting
Effectiveness of Library Partnership In Nursing Education
Primary benefits of collaboration between nursing education and libraries are strengthening of the information literacy skills in current and future nurses (Miller, Jones, Graves, & Sievert, 2010) and improving patient care through fostering effective evidence-based nursing practice ( Winsett & Moutscous , 2012), Librarians' skill set makes. them uniquely able to sift through large amounts of primary and secondary research across formats and disciplines to help identify evidence most relevant to practice.
Nurse educators should connect with librarians to gather authoritative and current literature on evidence based teaching (Cannon & Boswell, 2012, p. 20) to increase effectiveness and efficiency of teaching methods, just as those educators who encourage students to draw from timely and accurate evidence based practice literature to improve patient care (Winters & Echeverri, 2012).
Modeling such partnerships at the educator level sets a valuable precedent for student nurses when they begin work and can draw from the knowledge management expertise of librarians serving care settings (Marshall et al. 2013) and maintain lifelong professional learning (Dee & Reynolds, 2013) .Despite the availability of resources online, librarians make available other materials that are not accessible and information that they are uniquely able to navigate and evaluate .
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