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National Medical Librarian Month Kickoff!

October is officially the month of autumnal festivities,  pumpkin-spiced everything, and cooler temps (Arizona, you're killing me). It's also National Medical Librarians Month, and we want to celebrate all that medical librarians contribute to their organizations.

This is also a great opportunity for us to provide some education on what, exactly, medical librarians do and how you can benefit from their versatile skillsets. 

I love taking the opportunity to shed some light on the purposeful work we do. Contrary to stereotypes, we are naturally curious, and curiosity is a must when it comes to identifying and solving problems. We are also educators with a knack for collaboration & training because we value information-sharing. Medical librarianship and social justice also intersect in the literature and in professional practice .

And some of us are writers, too! We love generative AI solutions as much as the next person, but this blog post was written entirely by a librarian.

When it comes to technology and innovation, we tend to be early adopters. Part of what makes us tick is trying out emerging technologies so that we can teach you how to use them. 

When you are supported by a librarian, you can expect to be empowered and engaged. Sure, we can perform tasks and duties on your behalf, but empowering you to learn a new technology, search technique, or information appraisal skill is far more satisfying.  It's more "teach me to fish" and less "give me the fish", if you recall the old adage. 

The next time you're tempted to ask your librarian friend if they "are obsessed with the Dewey Decimal System" or love "getting paid to read all day" (try copyediting), recall that Medical Librarians:

• Provide work that "that contributes, and is often even necessary, to the economy but largely goes unrecognized and unpaid"
• Directly contribute to decision-making around hospital initiatives, patient safety, length of stay, diagnosis and more
• Provide demonstrable value in patient care 
• Perform invisible labor and require stronger advocacy to make this labor visible (in this case, developing comprehensive Systematic Review strategies)
• Impact adverse events, patient care changes
• Impact patient length of stay

We are a demonstrably valuable member of the healthcare team. Even if the Medical Library is "A Hospital's Most Underappreciated Asset", our resolve is strengthened by the work we do in partnership with and in support of you and your patients.

Ready to connect with your library? Contact your librarians today to learn more about how we support you and our system-wide initiatives!