Each October, the Medical Library Association (the national professional organization for health sciences librarians) recognizes National Medical Librarians Month. This year’s theme is Medical Librarians: Trusted Expertise in Times of Change. To borrow the words of our very own Tara Douglas-Williams, Associate Director here at WHSC Library and President of the Medical Library Association:
Every day, health information professionals are supporting students, educators, researchers, clinicians, patients, and communities. We help people find the right information when they need it most. We teach others how to navigate an increasingly complicated information environment. We support evidence-based care and research. We create connections, build partnerships, and find new ways to meet the changing needs of the people we serve.
In a time of enormous change thanks to new technologies, artificial intelligence, misinformation, the evolving healthcare and education landscape, and the sheer volume of information entering the stream on a daily basis, you can rely on the medical librarians and health sciences informationists here at WHSC Library. Librarians know how to ask the right questions, get databases to give up the right information, find and evaluate evidence, navigate complexity, and help our users make sense of what they find.
What can we at the library do for you? Well, we can help you find an article–or several, or all of them, if you need it. We can teach you how to build search strategies and navigate databases. We can come to your classroom to talk about database searching, citation management, systematic reviews, or using AI for research. We hold workshops on PubMed, Embase, Zotero, and EndNote. We can work with you to find the information you need to support your research, and we can partner with you on evidence synthesis projects such as systematic and scoping reviews to directly contribute to evidence-based practice.
And the not-so-secret secret? We actually love doing this.
So don’t hesitate to reach out to your informationist, submit your question to Ask Us, or check out our research guides on a variety of topics. We are here to support your learning, your research, and your practice.