I have been a librarian for over 30 years working in the health library and information field.
In 2004 I got my Honorary FCLIP due to the work I had done in the area of health informatics. I was a founder member of the UK Council for Health Informatics Professions (UKCHIP) and have been a past Chair and Group Councillor of Health Libraries Group.
One of my themes this year is about how we can work more closely with our IT colleagues.
Currently I am working as Director of Marketing for the London Upright MRI Centre, a small medical imaging centre in London, which goes to prove that librarians can be flexible in what jobs they can do.
Before coming to my current post, I was a Sub-Librarian at the British Medical Association Library, Before that I worked for 2 years as Assistant Director for Patient Information at the newly established National Patient Safety Agency. Here I set up and ran an information centre for patients and a small library for staff.
My first senior job, in 1995, is when I became Head of Healthcare Information at the British Library, where I managed the production of the Allied and Complementary Medicine database (AMED) as well as the UK indexing input for Medline, the major medical bibliographical database.
Prior to that I spent several years working in various positions within the NHS. These included District Librarian at Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust and Librarian at the National Poisons Unit. In the 80’s and 90’s I was heavily involved with computers in libraries and have continued this interest to the present day.
My international interest came about because of my experience being the Chair of the Health and Biosciences Libraries Committee of IFLA, a member of the European Association of Health Information and Libraries Council and a past Chair of the International Co-operation Section of the US Medical Library Association.
I am also a Trustee of Partnerships in Health Information, which is involved with health information for developing countries, an area in which I am particularly interested. In 2000, I wrote a book entitled “Harnessing Health Libraries” for Radcliffe Medical Press and have a number of articles to my name. In 2008, I plan to start my PhD on health informatics.
In my spare time and whenever I am in America, I play lead guitar for the Bearded Pigs (pictured above), the world’s only international, open access library rock band and drive my Jaguar XJ40.
Bruce Madge 16th January 2008
Updated: 06 February 2008