Developing Competence in Health Librarians Through Legitimate Peripheral Participation

1. Health librarians: developing professional competence through a Legitimate Peripheral Participation model Sara Clarke and Zoe Thomas Royal Free Hospital Medical Library, UCL Library Services sara.clarke@yahoo.co.uk z.thomas@medsch.ucl.ac.uk

2. Legitimate Peripheral Participation mapping and recognising the competencies that health librarians gain on the job development of a competency framework to frame the learning of health librarians

3. study methodology critical appraisal literature searching grading evidence systematic reviewing

4. “proposed competences for …healthcare librarians providing information literacy instruction to learners: Professional competency - content knowledge o LIS concepts and processes o Personal information literacy o Healthcare concepts, vocabulary, subject knowledge o Good knowledge of relevant resources and systems - Technical knowledge… - Teaching skills… • E-learning skills…” p47 (Robinson & Hilger-Ellis 2005) Image used from Mark Brannan on Flickr under creative commons licence

5. in order to become fully adept practitioners, health librarians also need to develop knowledge of the particular needs of a ‘health professional’ audience, and the ability to speak with authority to that audience

6. “structured continuing professional development (CPD) is required to meet the rapidly changing needs in the health sector. The emphasis ought to be on teaching skills, outreach work, marketing and promotion, research skills and methods, subject knowledge and terminology, and management skills. Library school curricula do not appear to meet the demands of medical library posts…The conclusions suggest that library schools need to update their programmes to include teaching skills, advanced search skills, project management skills, research methods, with more practical exercises.” p167 (Petrinic & Urquhart 2007)

7. learning from a course vs learning on the job? “I took the health care module [in my library course] – it was just kind of doing things I had already experienced in my job. There is no substitute for experience.” p171 (ibid) Image used from Nationaal Archief on Flickr

8. “recent case-study work suggests that qualifications and training are partial measures of skill development as most learning arises naturally out of the demands and challenges of everyday work experience.” p359 (Felstead et al. 2005) Learning as acquisition Learning as participation

9. Current situation for health librarians? General certificate gained on library course Learning specialist competencies through participation in job Get first professional post

10. Legitimate Peripheral Participation “They propose that learning is a process of participation in communities of practice, participation that is at first legitimately peripheral but that increases gradually in engagement and complexity”. (back cover) (Lave & Wenger 1991) “The individual learner is not gaining a discrete body of abstract knowledge which (s)/he will then transport and reapply in later contexts. Instead, (s) he acquires the skills to perform by actually engaging in the process”. p14 (ibid). learning how to do something, not by reading about it but by actually doing it

11. Legitimate Peripheral Participation Used with permission from: http://www.southalabama.edu/oll/mobile/theory_workbook/situated_learning_theory.htm

12. Zoe’s story… Image used from Okinawa Soba (In Asia and Africa until August) on Flickr under creative commons licence

13. Health Library staff competency framework

14. Potential difficulties • Best to start with new staff member • Need to have - 1 trainee and 1 mentor - is this always practical? • Limited opportunities e.g. training large groups • In the current economic climate, how many new starters will there be to pilot this?

15. The future • Possible future developments • Would certification of competence (learnt on the job) be useful to future employers? • Any questions or comments? Image used from darkmatter on Flickr using creative commons licence

16. References Eraut, M. 1994, Developing professional knowledge and competence Falmer Press, London. Felstead, A., Fuller, A., Unwin, L., Ashton, D., Butler, P., & Lee, T. 2005, "Surveying the scene: learning metaphors, survey design and the workplace context", Journal of Education and Work, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 359-383. Health Executive Advisory Group 2004, Future proofing the profession, CILIP. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. 1991, Situated Learning - Legitimate peripheral participation Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Lewis, S. 2009, “I work in a hospital library, that makes me a health librarian, doesn’t it?” Paper submitted for the 10th International Congress on Medical Librarianship, 31 August to 4 September 2009, Brisbane, Queensland Petrinic, T. & Urquhart, C. 2007, "The education and training needs of health librarians;the generalist versus specialist dilemma", Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 167-176. Robinson, L. & Hilger-Ellis, J. 2005, "Healthcare librarians and learner support: a review of competences and methods", Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 22, no. s2, pp. 42-50.