Students understand the systems and technologies that facilitate the management and use of information resources to serve the diverse needs of users.
- II.a Students identify and analyze diverse information needs of individuals and communities.
Assignments in Basic Information Sources and Services, LIS 6303 provided my first experience with thinking of user needs. In this annotated bibliography, https://1drv.ms/w/s!Ap6gMKkB15dDg2OH9aEx3McH3mDG, I combined my interest in health and medical librarianship with my current experience as a massage therapist to review an article describing the development of a hospital based massage therapy program. The role of massage therapists in patient care is essentially reemerging. The needs of users in this area will vary greatly from medical experts to massage therapists. This article bridges that divide by demonstrating evidence for medical experts as well as possible roles and training opportunities for massage therapists.
For the Research Methods course, I decided to focus my research proposal on evaluating the information and research literacy skills (IRL) of massage therapy students and practitioners. It is a goal of educators and practitioners in the field to encourage research literacy and evidence based practice in massage therapy practice and education. However, I believe that we must first discover and address existing IRL skills of this population to better inform the learning objectives and goals of these programs. https://1drv.ms/w/s!Ap6gMKkB15dDpHld9xOh7M-VX1cX
- II.b. Students evaluate and select print and digital information resources and systems to meet needs of users.
The Reference Quest assignment in the course Basic Information Resources and Services, LIS 6603 in my first semester demonstrates locating and evaluating resources to meet user needs: https://1drv.ms/w/s!Ap6gMKkB15dDpiJTEOekp4wCPyaw. The assignment offered a selection of varied user queries, requiring me to both describe my search process as well as consider the needs of the user. For example, one question was for a mother concerned about child health complications. Here I was able to incorporate important health information resources such as Medline Plus. Another question required searching congressional history, I was able to demonstrate searching government documents and information for a user.
As the culminating assignment in Health Information Resources I produced a libguide for users that have a unique need. The assignment was to create an information resources for users being discharged from a residential substance abuse program. I chose to focus on a unique group, parents in addiction recovery. This group needs information resources for not simply their personal addiction recovery but may also may be dealing with family problems such as having children placed in the Foster Care system. For this guide I combined information resources that would be useful for parents in general, for families dealing with addiction, for researchers and social work professionals as well as for parents dealing specifically with Foster Care: http://libraryschool.libguidescms.com/parentsandrecovery
- II.c. Students understand and use appropriate information technology for information services.
This presentation for Health Information Sources and Services demonstrates using screencast technology as well as using and evaluating a health information resource: http://www.screencast.com/t/j1Egf6htT. This screencast does not play well in Firefox but works well in Safari and Chrome.
A few months ago I learned of the FALSC’s planned change of ILS for all colleges and universities in the Florida state system. The implementation of Innovative Interfaces’ Sierra was originally planned for July 2017 but has been pushed back to July 2018. Since I am not currently working in a library, I have been searching for more information regarding the plans for the transition and even attended the FALSC meeting at the FLA conference in May. This change will have a tremendous impact on library services across the state and it would be very exciting to be a part of this transition.