Look at the Library
These last few weeks have been busy for me. I have been happily doing a lot of library demonstrations to various groups of hospital users and departments. While they are brief little hour presentations, I think they have been extremely helpful.
Most of the comments I have heard from the people who attend my presentations:
- I didn't know we had online journals let alone access to 6,000.
- I can use that?
- Can you come to my department and tell the rest of colleagues about what you have?
- We can get access from home now?!
While many people still think of libraries as a book and journal repository, these educational classes help them see that while we still have the traditional books and journals, we also have a lot more things that can bring information to them on the floors.
As much as I think I tell people about what the library has to offer, I am still amazed that there are people in my small community hospital who have no idea about us and our service. That makes me think about all of the possible ways I can inform people about the library and our services. I have done flyers, sent out group emails, posted on the Intranet, written articles in employee newsletters, and spoken to people. Any other ideas? I am open to almost anything other than walking around with a sandwich board advertising the library. If you have some good ideas, please share because I would like to know what other people are doing out there.
1 Comments:
Something tells me you have handouts when you give your presentations. If not, I have a colleague who has put together a small binder of pertinent info to hand out at these presentations. She has thorough instructions for all the online subscriptions as well as pointing out that there is a link to the library on their hospital's intranet page. This binder also includes the trifolds provided by PubMed that seem to be so helpful.
It definitely sounds like you have covered all your bases. It is sad to think that so many hospital employees have this mind-set that the library is nothing more than a book and journal repository. I, like you, wish there would be a way to "get the word out" to those who need it.
One other possibility - does your hospital have a group orientation for new employees? If so, that may be an excellent place and time to reach out to the "newbies" to let them know what services the library provides.
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