The Women’s Health specialist collection is exactly that – specialist, and with the risk of being unknown. As a drawback, more work is required to get more users, and get the collection recognised. One way many of the collections do this is exhibit at various conferences/meetings. On Friday 6th November, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) held their ‘Academic Association of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (AAOG) Annual Meeting’. We had an exhibition stand booked, so that we could inform people in the field (clinicians, researchers or students) about the collection, and try and get more people subscribed to our monthly e-mail newsletter.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, my supervisor could not attend with me; but, seeing as it was an excellent marketing opportunity for the collection, I went down to London on my own as a representative of the Women’s Health collection (struggling with my laptop and a banner stand which turned out to be ridiculously awkward and heavy!) I thought it was ironic that I had been nervous the week before at the prospect of half an hour manning the stand by myself whilst my supervisor had a meeting during lunch…never mind the whole day!
After getting the 6.15am bus to London, I got to the RCOG just after 8.00am, where I proceeded to set up my stand. I had an ‘NHS Evidence’ banner stand to place beside the desk, and had taken my laptop with me so I could show people ‘round the library’. My contact time with potential users was restricted to the registration period (9.00-9.30am), morning break (10.25-10.45am) and lunch (12.30-1.45pm). There was a mixture of clinicians, researchers and academics in the field of women’s health attending, and I hoped to at least bring attention to the collection.
As it was, not many people came up to talk to me, but I did get some more subscribers to the newsletter! One aspect I had been worrying about was if people asked questions I couldn’t answer. I’d imagine that’s a general concern for all library trainees, and most people will probably bumble by! I especially felt out of my depth with the possibility that people might ask medically-based questions about the collection (rather than the simple question of how to use it and what else can you do with it!) Luckily, the only question tending that way was whether we included a certain topic, which I knew we did (but also showed the person how to find that subject on the topic tree; akin to another trainee showing a user where the medical books are!)
I really enjoyed the whole day; especially explaining the benefits and advantages to using the collection and what else we do (other than housing a vast amount of medical evidence). I liken it to giving a library tour – showing a user the general layout, what subjects are included, answering any questions, and (always!) hoping to promote the library and gain more members.
Digital libraries may be the way forward in the future, but there will always be the traditional aim of a library…
…to help promote learning!
Wow – sounds like a good day overall, Sarah!
I had to give library tours to freshers at the start of term and I was a bit worried, given that I could barely find my own way round the building! A colleague said to me, “No matter how little you know, you know more than the freshers” – although I’m not sure that principle necessary applies to NHS professionals.
It’s a great feeling being able to handle enquiries and answer questions competently though, I agree! (Or at least knowing where to look to find the answers …)
May I just ask, though … what’s a topic tree?
Ah sorry, one of those times where you know the ‘lingo’, but then forget others won’t!
The topic tree is a ‘list’ of all the subjects we cover in the library. It’s called a topic tree because within each subject there might be a sub-category, then a further sub-category, and so on … so the topics will ‘branch out’.
For example,
– Normal Pregnancy
……… Postnatal care
……………… Infant feeding
……………………… Breastfeeding
……………………… Formula feeding
I suppose you could say it’s a written version of a library catalogue so the users can see exactly what we cover. An example from an academic library point of view might be:
– History
…… English History
………… World War I
………… World War II
To see our topic tree (and the collection in general!) go to:
http://www.library.nhs.uk/womenshealth/
(Topic tree on the left hand side of the screen).