While doing my dissertation research I kept thinking… here are these wonderful, passionate, caring people ‘without a net’ – and we ***cannot*** fail to support them. If many end up in academic or other libraries as a best-case outcome of library closure – having collaborative research experience can only enhance employability and networking.

MLA and other LS association standards are prescriptive, not descriptive. The HLS work has been really important, providing data of interest to many in an area where there is far, far too little data to be had.

Sorry if this response is scattered – the situation and people are so much on my mind. I know the librarian who announced her library’s closing as a young, bright, future leader in our profession. I think we have a responsibility.

“Obviously I simplified the example a bit and there would be a lot of
people to work with. But my point is, do we need to start doing our own
mini research studies to clearly show our OWN library’s impact on our
OWN institution. It is nice to show the Marshal studies and other ones,
but administration wants to know what we are doing in more concrete
terms not what somebody else is doing as proof of our worth.”

The Research Section is just embarking on a series of systematic reviews using teams of interested librarians. Why could we not do the same, organized by people in the HLS, to do “mini-Marshall’ replications?

“Although, one person responded on the list saying they found it “disheartening that sometimes when a library staff is downsized or actually closed, that a too common belief is that if only ‘that library’ had been doing more, building a stronger case, demonstrating their worth in concrete ways, etc., etc., this would not have happened.”

Who knows what the situations were at those hospital library closures or downsizings? However, I firmly believe if you don’t start looking at your library as a business arm of the hospital and align your goals to support the hospital achieve its goals, then you are going to have a very rough time.”

I’m so glad to see you writing about this crucial topic – thank you!

It’s my impression that elements of the perfect storm have not been completely identified. There are more squalls off the bow and aft…

Of course I agree that the hospital library should be approached as a business arm of the hospital.

However, many hospital librarians are solo; they do not have sufficient skills, support, or mentorship to follow this recommendation.

Frequently, hospital librarians feel themselves adrift without support. To ask our colleagues to take action when they have no other staff but themselves, for example, is unrealistic.

Some of the hospital librarians I interviewed for my dissertation research (motivated by my own experience and observations as a hospital librarian, and by the Vital Pathways symposium) were subjected to the following:

- taking on roles for which they were untrained and unsupported (such as managing the hospital intranet) just to keep the library viable – and having to set aside library work to do so;

- running hospital libraries on a ZERO budget, but still working like mad to convince administrators of the need to support patient care by keeping the library alive;

- demoralized by a lack of support, using ‘back roads’ ways just to get access to software needed for basic operations… and more.

Librarians were sometimes, furthermore, hesitant to reach out through Medlib-L or to colleagues at academic medical centers, for a variety of reasons.

I responded just now to the discussion, saying that MLA itself needs to step up the game here. We may have some cultural issues (silos of operation, for example) that contribute to the situation, or at least do not help to alleviate some of the problems mentioned.

Further, I’d like to ask – what can we do to help our colleagues replicate the Values study in their own settings? While there are CEs available to assist librarians to acquire skills in more businesslike library management, is this working for hospital librarians during this transitional era? Here is an opportunity (a multitude of them!) for collaboration.