Surveying the Global Health Efforts of Health Sciences Libraries

1. The UNC Health Sciences Library The Health Sciences Library (HSL) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill serves five health affairs schools—dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and public health—as well as a robust health-care system. HSL also coordinates library services to the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers (AHEC). In 2008 HSL crafted a new vision to adapt to the changing needs of its constituents by playing an integral role in UNC’s growing global presence. HSL’s vision for 2020 is to be a leader in the global health information network and an essential campus and community partner which is working to improve the health and well-being of the people of North Carolina, the nation, and the world. ‘Increased involvment’ broadly includes more staff, materials, or time, etc devoted to new projects. Objective Next Steps • Explore nontraditional library services • Share methods of securing institutional support • Build capacity in the library for global outreach, including cultural competence, collections, IT, etc. • Provide sustainable global health information services Investigate how academic health sciences libraries are evolving and expanding as global health information leaders. To inform planning of HSL’s own global health activities, we conducted and analyzed a survey to gather baseline data. Respondents’ most frequent words http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/774206/Global_health Surveying the Global Health Efforts of Health Sciences Libraries Emily Vardell,1 Carol Jenkins,2 Mellanye Lackey,2 Karen Crowell2 1The University of Miami, 2The University of North Carolina Methods The library distributed a survey to the AAHSL library directors via Survey Monkey. Results were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Results • 44 AAHSL directors (35%) responded. • Libraries increased global health involvement (61%) in correlation with their institutions' global health involvement (77%), even if library budgets did not increase (71%). • Library efforts concentrated on collection development, curriculum planning, remote access, liaison services, and outreach. • Concerns focused on budget, materials/resources, communication difficulties, and staff time. • Libraries' roles change in areas of: partnerships, purchasing of resources, training, budget, barriers to access, and librarians as liaisons. Conclusions In our investigation of health sciences libraries emerging as global health information leaders, we determined that, despite budget and time constraints, libraries are increasing their involvement in global health initiatives.