T.Scott Plutchak

Biography

T.Scott Plutchak has been Associate Professor and Director of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) since 1995.  He has served as Editor of the Journal of the Medical Library Association since 1999.  In 2001-2002 he served on the Medical Library Association's Informationist Task Force and has discussed the concept in two editorials in the Journal of the Medical Library Association.

Abstract - From Clinical Librarian to Informationist: developing specialised expertise.

In the June 2000 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, Drs Frank Davidoff and Valerie Florence introduced the concept of and "informationist" - an individual trained in both clinical medicine and information science, who could serve as a full member of the clinical care team.  The editorial sparked a flurry of discussion and activity in the United States, culminating in a conference in April 2001, jointly sponsored by the Medical Library Association and the US National Library of Medicine.  In the three years following the conference, the concept has broadened beyond the clinical sphere, but one central question remains - how does the "informationist" differ from the "clinical librarian" as the latter concept has developed in the US and UK?  This presentation will discuss the history of the informationist concept and identify the salient points relating it to clinical librarianship, as well as discussing some of the differences in how the concept of clinical librarianship is understood in the US and the UK.

This page was last updated on: 27 April, 2004