Librarian and Faculty Partnerships: Teaching, Technology and Triumphs

Abstract

The primary goal of librarian and faculty partnerships in Bracken Health Sciences Library, Queen’s University, is to provide information literacy training to health care practitioners beginning in their student years and continuing into their professional careers. Such partnerships have had a long history and have produced numerous triumphs. Since 1991 information literacy courses have been integrated into the medicine, nursing, rehabilitation therapy and life sciences curricula so that students can learn to embrace life-long, self-directed learning, navigate and access multiple layers of information, and meet discipline-specific competencies. Of course, undergraduate and graduate students are not the only focus of Bracken Library’s information literacy program. Courses are also developed and delivered to faculty (e.g. via “House Calls”, and recognized Continuing Medical Education courses). These courses are invaluable as health care professionals must promote a learning culture and maintain their own information literacy competencies for evidence based practice. Librarians and faculty collaborate on curriculum committees to ensure the seamless integration of knowledge and to produce positive learning outcomes. The Health Sciences Faculty’s “Technology Learning Community” is an innovative, interdisciplinary committee developing three exemplars to demonstrate the effective use of technology in teaching. Lastly, librarians and faculty are embracing the challenge to deliver just in time training to students and health care professionals locally, regionally and nationally, utilizing state of the art information and communication technologies such as course software, and web tutorials.