One of the most common questions I get from aspiring health librarians – which I’ve discussed before here – is “I really want to be a health librarian. Can I be one without a health sciences background and/or degree?”
My colleague Greg Rowell has a background in the sciences – but I do not. However, I have always maintained that my initial liability has actually instilled in me an intellectual drive and interest in learning my field – and this in turn has become a huge plus as I try to share my expertise gleaned over two decades with my colleagues and students through the wiki.
Last fall, a very revealing study was published in the Health Information and Libraries Journal based out of the UK, “The education and training needs of health librarians – the generalist versus specialist dilemma” by T Petrinic et al. The study found that a first degree in a scientific area was an advantage in the early stages of building a career in health librarianship but this advantage diminishes over time through training and experience.
I was glad to see this study because it affirmed my observations. This is a point I will make to my students, next week, during the first class of term when we are all trying orient ourselves to our discussions and scholarly work. ~Dean
4 replies on “Is a health sciences degree required to work in health librarianship?”
(Way)back in the early 1990s when I was working on the Reference Desk at the University of Guelph and deciding to become a Librarian, the Librarian job qualifications at Guelph were both a relevant subject Masters and an MLS/MLIS/MISt. Guelph has since dropped the subject Masters requirement. However, I contend that in most health sciences positions posted today that there is a requirement for a health sciences education or relevant experience. And, in fact, this was precisely the case for the position I just recruited for at the ARHCC (the new hospital in Abbotsford). True to form the successful candidate did not have a health science education, but did have relevant health science experience.
I would also argue that while the knowledgebase in health sciences is huge (and thefefore no one can know everything) I have benefited (and continue to benefit) from my health science background (anatamy, biomechanics, physiology, biochemistry, immunology, nutrition, toxicology…). While I cannot argue with the general results and conclusions of the paper you have cited (they make great sense) I note that this is one paper with a small sample size (n=16) and from one location (UK).
Lastly, is it relevant to consider this…would you rather have a generalist performing your heart surgery or a cardiac surgical specialist….what skills and training gained over years of educational and practice based training become inherent to the (medical or information) practitioner compared to the surface level (get by at the moment) skills present in someone with a generalist background coming at the same problem.
Hi Mr. Science 🙂
My reaction is that the background required will depend on the position.
However, your opinions on this issue are in the minority. Shouldn’t you, as an EBL-based librarian, know this study:
“Subject knowledge in the health sciences library: an online survey of Canadian academic health sciences librarians” J Med Libr Assoc. 2005 October; 93(4): 459–466.
The most significant finding of Erin Watson’s work?
“Respondents recognized the need for subject knowledge: 93.3% of respondents indicated that subject knowledge was “very important” or “somewhat important” to doing their job. However, few respondents felt that holding a degree in the health sciences was necessary…”
Dean
Dear Dean and Greg,
While having a background in the subject matter may be useful, I think that having expertise in searching and advanced information retrieval is also important not to say may be more important. On one side, having a background in the subject matter helps in the use of relevant terminology as well as identifying quick relevant keywords for searching. On the other hand, expertise in information retrieval strategies and familiarity with the relevant databases is an asset on its own. The challenge becomes understanding the specific database structure, its indexing language and classification scheme. If a database is well structured with efficient thesaurus, I don’t think it should be difficult to navigate your way through the subject matter and its terminology. In the case of specialized medical databases, it would be ideal if the database included a dictionary, or even an illustrated dictionary, too in addition a thesaurus.
Coming from the exact sciences background in mathematics, I have no experience in health information and I am really hoping that this does become a barrier in my future career.
Hi Suher
I hope you can share your knowledge of math with me. I am hopeless at statistics. Can you do that too?
Dean