Tom Roper

Biography

Born in 1955 in London and brought up in Cambridge, Tom read economic history at University of Kent from 1974-78  and then stumbled into a job in a public library.  Finding he liked it, he took the postgraduate librarianship course at what was then the Polytechnic of North London in 1983 and worked in North London public libraries till 1990.

Then he changed direction, working for the British Council and Hawker Siddeley, before finding his way, not unnaturally for a doctor's son, into medical librarianship.  He worked in London hospital libraries and at the Regional Library and Information Unit, before going to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1996. 

In January 2003 he became Information Resources Development Coordinator for the Brighton & Sussex Medical School (BSMS) where he co-ordinates library and information resources for BSMS staff and students across all partner institutions, the University of Sussex, the University of Brighton and the National Health Service.

Abstract - Blogging in Brighton: current awareness for medical educators through weblogs

Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS), one of the recently founded new medical schools, admitting the first cohort of 135 students in October 2003.  BSMS and sister new medical schools are characterised by an innovative approach to medical education.  Some 200 people are involved in teaching Phase 1 (years 1 and 2 of the five year course), ranging from academics employed by the two higher education partners in BSMS, the Universities of Brighton and Sussex, to clinicians in the NHS, including a large number of general practitioners.  BSMS will grow by similar intakes to reach "steady-state" in 2008 with a student body of around 640.

BSMS teachers, a diverse and heterogeneous group, need considerable support both in adapting to teaching a radically new type of medical course and in locating learning resources for use in teaching and research.

To support this a current awareness service was launched as a pilot in January 2004, delivered through a weblog (blog).  A prototype can be seen at: http://www.roper.org.uk/bsms/.  The blog provides users with:

• current news on medical education
• news on ICT applications, including the use of PDA's in medical
• education, the subject of another BSMS project, Project Handful
• new resources to support teaching learning and research, both print and electronic
• links to other news feeds
• details of media coverage of BSMS
• events of interest to medical educators

The pilot will be evaluated in June 2004, at the end of the first year of BSMS and the results of the evaluation will be presented, discussing the potential of weblogs for delivering current awareness, the advantages or disadvantages over paper-and e-mail based current awareness services, the level of take-up of and involvement with the service by medical educators and the relationship between the weblog and the BSMS electronic learning environment, studentcentral.

Refinements to be implemented between now and September include implementing taxonomy and changing the blog hosting from a personal web site to a more official home.  There is also clearly a potential for cooperation with other medical schools and organisations with an interest in medical education to collaborate on developing this service.

Other possible uses for blogging in the health library and information community will be suggested and the part they can play in raising the profile of library and information professionals in organisations discussed.

This page was last updated on: 9 July, 2004