DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2012.00995.x

International perspectives and initiatives

Abstract This is the third in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship in the first decade of the 21st century. The invited authors carried out a survey of librarians in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland to identify common developments in their countries. A focus on pedagogy was seen as the most important trend. Future issues will track trends in Southern Europe and Latin America. JM Keywords: comparative study, Europe, health science, librarianship, library and information professionals, national strategies, Northern

International trends in health science librarianship: part 3 - the Nordic countries Lotta Haglund, Karolinska Institutet University Library, Stockholm, Sweden Karen J. Buset, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Medical Library, Trondheim, Norway Hanne M. Kristiansen, Psychiatric Research Library, Aarhus University Hospital, Risskov, Denmark Tuulevi Ovaska, University of Eastern Finland Library, Kuopio University Hospital Medical Library, Kuopio, Finland Jeannette Murphy, University College London, CHIME, London, UK, Feature Editor Health and medical libraries in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) have many similarities and a long history of networking and collaboration. When the authors compared ideas on trends in health libraries in each country, it was apparent that many were the same. To see whether it was possible to write one article on common trends for the four countries, and to get an overview of the last decade, the authors asked col-

leagues to help identify the most important trends. A questionnaire was distributed via email lists, Facebook, and LinkedIn groups. A total of 21 trends were listed, based on the authors’ knowledge on national and international development in libraries. The questionnaire asked health librarians ‘Do you agree that these have been/are the trends in health libraries during the first decade (2000– 2010)?’ Table 1 presents the list of trends. Recipients could choose between strongly agree, somewhat agree, don’t agree, cannot say. Additionally, they could make comments and suggest other trends. We received 133 answers in total – 38% came from Sweden, 23% from both Finland and Norway, and 16% from Denmark. The responses were quite equally divided between university/education librarians and hospital librarians. Looking at those response alternatives where respondents endorsed strongly agree/somewhat agree, three trends stand out: Focus on pedagogy, EBM/EBN and Open access. More than 90% of respondents agreed that these were important trends, with pedagogy the most important. Open URL Link Server, E-books and Reference software were also considered important, together with Internationalization/networking, E-learning and Library building/space. Our respondents did not consider Books are no longer of interest to our users to be important – only 7% said it was. We also asked ‘If you had to choose one trend, which one, in your opinion, was the most important over the last decade’. Again Focus on pedagogy was considered most important, with EBM/EBN second. To complete the picture, we asked respondents to tell us of other trends we might have missed. A shift from paper 1 journals to e-journals, ‘googlization’ and acquisition 2 consortia were mentioned as important. The common trend: Focus on pedagogy – librarian’s role as guide/trainer/teacher/coach In all four countries, the trend ‘Focus on pedagogy’ came out as most important; the role of

© 2012 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2012 Health Libraries Group Health Information and Libraries Journal, 29, pp. 247–251

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International perspectives and initiatives Table 1 List of trends in health libraries during the first decade of the 21st Century Bibliometrics Books are no longer of interest to our users E-books Economic problems/budget cuts E-learning Evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) Evidence-based Medicine and Evidence-based Nursing (EBM/EBN) Focus on pedagogy – librarian’s role as guide/trainer/ teacher/coach Generation shift Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Institutional repositories Internationalisation/networking Library building/space: a change from archive for printed material to working space (for students) Marketing focus Open access Open URL Link Server linking references to full text (SFX) Parent institution invests in Web solutions unfit for library websites and operations Radio Frequency Identification (RFID; replaces magnetic strip or barcode technology) Reference software Shift in budget – major part of acquisition budget used for access to digital resources Social media

health librarians as guide, trainer, teacher or coach has increased in importance over the previous decade. The ways librarians teach vary. Some have mostly face-to-face information retrieval sessions with one or two customers at a time, perhaps offered as a book-a-librarian-service. Some give lectures or organise hands-on training sessions, while others are coaching distance learning ecourses. Some teach in hospital staff meetings, train undergraduate, graduate and some post-graduates, and others do all of this and more. This change in focus has led to a shift in activities and a need for increased librarian pedagogy competence. We have seen an expansion of continuing professional development courses and workshops being offered both nationally and as Nordic 3 collaborations, discussing both pedagogical methods and information literacy. In some libraries (e. g. Sweden), the emerging insight into and application of pedagogical methods has been led by specialist staff (pedagogical developers). In Sweden,

we have also seen an increased interest in pedagogy from the Library Association. In 2003, a new Library and Information Science education was offered at Linnaeus University with library pedagogy as its specialty. In both Norway and Sweden, we have seen an increased emphasis on problem-based learning and active student participation, or other kinds of selfguided studies, based on the search for knowledge by the individual student. In Finland, information literacy standards and models have influenced many pedagogical projects, for example, Tiedot 4 (2002–2004) of seven universities. Consequences for the libraries have included increased demand for library services, for help in finding adequate information, and for user education. The libraries have had to change focus from traditional reference services to user education, encouraging students to become information literate. Many universities have also worked systematically to embed library instruction in the curriculum. Differences between Nordic countries – the trends in Denmark Hanne M. Kristiansen, Psychiatric Research Library, Aarhus University Hospital, Risskov, Denmark Results from Danish respondents identified ‘Focus on pedagogy’ as the top trend. Other important trends included: 1 EBM/EBN (12 respondents, 55%). This trend can be explained by the focus of Danish hospitals on EBM, and the fact that many medical libraries work closely with healthcare staff to support these strategies and goals. 2 Shift in budget – the major part of the acquisition budget is now used for package deals (13 respondents, 59%). To a great extent, this trend can be explained by the construction of a national collaboration with a common budget, the goal of which is to provide access to journals and databases to smaller and non-university hospitals. 3 Reference Software (13 respondents, 59%). This is a natural consequence of medical librarians having broad knowledge about information retrieval, databases, and citations, and acting as troubleshooters when helping academic and

© 2012 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2012 Health Libraries Group Health Information and Libraries Journal, 29, pp. 247–251

International perspectives and initiatives

healthcare staff with reference software (e.g. Reference Manager, RefWorks and Endnote). Danish respondents also choose strongly agree regarding Open URL Link Server (SFX) (nine respondents, 41%), bibliometry (nine respondents, 41%) and Open access (nine respondents, 41%). Economic problems/budget cuts (eight respondents, 36%) were also a concern. Danish health and medical librarians have a strategic focus on core outputs. They are specialising more and more in teaching and coaching customers on how to perform structured, well-organised and evidence-based database information retrieval, as well as continually improving access to scientific information to meet customers’ needs. We are also refining the ways in which we synthesise citations in new bibliometric analyses. Differences between Nordic countries – the trends in Finland Tuulevi Ovaska, University of Eastern Finland Library, Kuopioi University Hospital Medical Library, Kuopioi, Finland Half of the Finnish respondents strongly agreed with two trends: library space transformation from archive to working space (15 respondents, 50%) and Open URL Link Server (SFX) (15 respondents, 50%). The former is the result of journals being mostly electronic instead of hard copy, and the latter is explained by the fact that 20 (67%) of 30 respondents reported they serve universities and all Finnish universities have implemented SFX.5 Other trends strongly agreed with by almost half of the Finnish respondents were EBM/EBN (14 respondents, 47%), social media (14 respondents, 47%), open access (14 respondents, 47%) and internationalisation/networking (13 respondents, 43%). The first three are international trends that have influenced and changed health information globally. The internationalisation and networking trend can be at least partly attributed to the fact that the 11th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries (EAHIL) was held in Helsinki in 6 2008. Furthermore, this trend can be credited to the activities of BMF such as: supporting networking and organising biannual national (and also 7 international seminars), and the network of hospi-

tal librarians who are cooperating by forming a consortium for hospital library electronic acquisi8 tions and by organising national seminars every second year since 2000. Differences between Nordic countries – the trends in Norway Karen J Buset, Medical Library, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Since 2000, there have been changes in library services to meet new user demands, with a focus on the role of the librarian as teacher and supervisor. We have also observed an increased use of library resources by healthcare professionals. In our opinion, this is a result of hospital demands for skills development and continuing education for staff. The latter half of the decade saw the growth of evidence-based practice, both in health education and in the practice field. In 2008, Bergen Univer9 sity College Centre for Evidence-Based Practice established a Master’s Program in Evidence-Based Practice aimed at healthcare professionals and librarians. The first librarian finished the Master’s Program in 2011. An increased emphasis on elearning is also an important trend in Norway. By mid-decade, several libraries were engaged in developing Web-based tutorials, covering information literacy aimed at students, and Evidence10 Based Practice healthcare professionals. Another trend in Norway, as well as internationally, is the shift from print to e-journals. Beginning early in the decade, library consortia were established, allowing each library to extend the range of material on offer to researchers and clinicians. National licences and the implementation of Open URL Link Server (SFX) in databases and library catalogues made access to full-text articles easy. In 2006, the Norwegian Electronic 11 Health Library was launched. This website provides free access to point-of-care tools, guidelines, systematic reviews, scientific journals and a wide variety of other full-text resources for healthcare professionals and students. The service is funded by Norway’s National Budget and the four regional health authorities. With the Norwegian Electronic Health Library, hospitals now have almost

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the same access to e-resources as educational institutions. Differences between Nordic countries – the trends in Sweden Lotta Haglund, Karolinska Institutet University Library, Stockholm, Sweden Eighty-four per cent of Swedish respondents (43) strongly agreed on the trend Focus on pedagogy, 76% (39 respondents) on EBM and 75% (38 respondents) on Open URL Link Server (SFX). Shift in budget (43%, 22 respondents, strongly agreed), Library buildings/space (43%, 22 respondents), Open access (43%, 22 respondents), marketing (37%, 19 respondents), reference software (35%, 18 respondents) and were also noted as important. The use of evidence-based practice varies between county councils in Sweden and even varies between healthcare units in the same county. Where it is used, librarians have been involved from the start and play an important role in the process. An important step was taken by SBU [http://www.sbu.se/en/ (accessed 9 May 2012)] when the Cochrane Library was made available national-wide in 2005. Swedish libraries have a long tradition of collaboration, with the National Library acting as coordinator for, e.g., the national consortia for electronic journals. In the early years of the 21st century, over 50% of the budget for national licences was spent on e-content, but use was very low. In 2004, a project was started with the aim of increasing the use of electronic information sources available via national licensing, and by making access easier 12,13 for end users. The Open URL Link Server (SFX) is also available on a national licence and has been available since 2006. The use of a link solver has, in the libraries using the national licensed software, increased the use of electronic journal articles by more than 1000% between 2006 14 and 2009. It has also simplified the administrative library work as one only has to update journal information once. Conclusions Although one trend clearly stood out as growing more than the others in all four Nordic countries,

responses regarding the other trends revealed some variation between countries in the development of health libraries during the first decade of the mil15 lennium. References 1 Digitizing a library or making something into a Google product. Accessible at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlization (accessed 9 May 2012). 2 The full result of the questionnaire. Accessible at: http://bit. ly/IONNnO (accessed 9 May 2012). 3 NordINFOLIT, used to organize summer schools on pedagogy for librarians from the Nordic countries (the organization is now closed down) 4 TieDot. Tieteellisen tiedonhankinnan verkko-opetushanke. Suomen Virtuaaliyliopisto, 2002–2004. [Online reports and seminar presentations, in Finnish]. Accessible at: http:// www.uku.fi/kirjasto/TieDot/ (accessed 9 May 2012) 5 Tuuliniemi, A. & Rouvari, A. Nelli National portal: access to e-resources licensed via FinELib, 2004. In 6th E-ICOLC (International Coalition of Library Consortia in Europe), Barcelona (Spain), 28th–30th October 2004. (Unpublished) [Presentation]. Accessible at: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/ 5804 (accessed 9 May 2012). 6 The 11th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries. Accessible at: http://www.eahil.net/conferences/ helsinki_2008/www.congreszon.fi/eahil_2008/index.html (accessed 9 May 2012). 7 See e.g. Evidence Based Librarianship in Health Libraries, Helsinki, 2005, and Branding – Marketing – Facilitating, Helsinki, 2010. (Seminar presentations) Accessible at: http:// www.bmf.fi/file/view/2005juhlaseminaariohjelma.pdf and http://www.bmf.fi/file/view/BMF30.pdf (accessed 9 May 2012). 8 Helli – Finnish Hospital Library Consortium. Accessible at: http://www.helli.fi/indexe.php?sivu=hankinnat (accessed 9 May 2012). 9 Bergen University college, Centre for Evidence-Based Practice. Accessible at: http://www.hib.no/senter/kunnskapsbasert/english/default.asp (accessed 9 May 2012). 10 Web based tutorial in Evidence based practice. Accessible at: http://www.kunnskapsbasertpraksis.no/ (accessed 9 May 2012). 11 Norwegian Electronic Health Library. Accessible at: http:// www.helsebiblioteket.no. 12 Domellöf Mattson, U., Forsman, D., Haapalainen, M., Lindström, L., Nilén, P. & Söderbäck, A.. Långsiktig uppföljning av SamSök: rapport och underlag till nationella referensgruppen, 2010 [Online report, in Swedish]. Accessible at: http://www.kb.se/dokument/Bibliotek/utredn_rapporter/2010/ Sams%C3%B6k_uppf%C3%B6ljning.pdf (accessed 9 May 2012). 13 Nelke, M. SamSök under luppen: en översyn av organisation, användning och nytta samt några scenarier för framtida utveckling, 2009 [Online report, in Swedish]. Accessible at:

© 2012 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2012 Health Libraries Group Health Information and Libraries Journal, 29, pp. 247–251

International perspectives and initiatives http://www.kb.se/dokument/Bibliotek/utredn_rapporter/2009/ %C3%96versyn_Sams%C3%B6k.pdf (accessed 9 May 2012). 14 Statistics by Anders Söderbäck, Stockholm University Library, presented by Daniel Forsman, Chalmers Techical University in 2012 [In Swedish]. Accessible at: http://www. slideshare.net/halwete/forskningsbibliotekens-systemlandskap, slide 32. (accessed 9 May 2012). 15 The theme of the upcoming EAHIL workshop 2013 will be on Trends for the future. Accessible at: http://kib.ki.se/eahil2013 (accessed 9 May 2012).

For details on how to contribute to this feature please contact: Jeannette Murphy Senior Research Fellow Centre for Health Informatics & Multiprofessional Education University College London Archway Campus Highgate Hill London N19 5LW, UK Tel.: +44 (0)207 288 3044 E-mail: [email protected]

© 2012 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2012 Health Libraries Group Health Information and Libraries Journal, 29, pp. 247–251

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