This article is from the December 2003 issue of Update.
Alison Turner, Nick Rosen and Fran Wilkie explain how the NeLH uses a network of partnerships to cope with training 1.2m health professionals.
Health professionals are often unaware of the vast resources now available to them electronically via their libraries. A recent training needs analysis in East London1 showed that:
There is a real need to raise awareness of digital library resources and to develop skills within the workforce to get the best from these resources. However, there are two key barriers which need to be tackled: the sheer size and nature of the community we are dealing with; and the fact that health professionals have little time available to respond to our efforts.
Digital Libraries Network
The Digital Libraries Network (DLnet) is an informal network established during summer 2003. It is developing as a multidisciplinary network bringing together librarians, trainers and other professionals to raise awareness of digital library resources across the health community.
Created by the team at the National Electronic Library for Health (NeLH),2 DLnet aims to become a community of practice providing marketing and training and facilitating the sharing of ideas, materials and experience. Through a series of events held nationally this summer, librarians have been invited to sign up as ‘representatives’ to join DLnet. Representatives act as ‘champions’ within their organisations, promoting digital resources and library services. Many are already involved in marketing and/or training provision and have a great deal of expertise to offer. Representatives are supported by an online resource, a central repository of materials, teleconferencing facilities and a professional development programme, co-ordinated by a communications team at the NeLH.
Raising awareness and delivering training within the wider health community is not a simple task. The National Health Service (NHS) alone is a huge organisation — recent figures from the Department of Health3 tell us there are now 1.2m people working in the NHS. The wider health community stretches beyond the NHS to include social care, universities, professional bodies, charities and the independent sector. DLnet is open to any librarians providing a service to health professionals in this wider sphere. Given the size and complexity of the health community, a partnership approach is the best way to deliver marketing and training.
As an example, if we were to focus an awareness campaign solely on clinicians working in the NHS, we would be dealing with just over 600,000 individuals. To achieve a target of 65 per cent awareness, one option might be to offer group training. Even if we were to provide just one hour every three years to large groups, we would need 20 trainers working five days a week, for five hours. Add to this the usual difficulties, such as hectic work schedules and reaching rurally-based professionals, and the task becomes difficult to say the least.
For this reason, the NeLH is working in partnership with other library services to unify and maximise communication efforts. Health librarians are the interface between the healthcare workforce and national services such as the NeLH. Rather than promote national and local services separately, an integrated approach provides a wider reach for publicity campaigns and allows economies of scale. A key partner for the NeLH is the National Core Content Group, a group led by librarians and responsible for England-wide procurement of bibliographic databases and full-text journals (Hernando and Gibbens, 2003). The approach behind DLnet offers co-ordination; recognition of innovation; a valuable support structure; and opportunities to integrate national and local initiatives.
The strategy is to enable representatives to build their own networks of contacts who, in turn, will spread the word to colleagues. These contacts will act as advocates within their departments or professional groups, promoting the value of library services and resources.
Building the network
DLnet was launched with a series of masterclasses from June to September 2003. More than 340 delegates attended a DLnet masterclass and around half have since signed up as representatives.
An online resource to support representatives,5 consisting of materials, links and a know-how section, has been developed. A key feature of the know-how section is the DLnet collaborative weblog6 which enables representatives to share ideas online. The weblog now has more than 50 contributors signed up and has become a rich source of ideas. The best tips and tricks feed into the DLnet Tip of the Week and online guides called the Little Books of Marketing and Training.
The DLnet website also includes downloadable materials and tools. Materials are focused around the Education Pack, which is organised into five sections — plan, promote, deliver, evaluate, review. This is designed as a framework for helping librarians and trainers with their marketing and training activities and is not meant to be prescriptive. There is also a wide range of supporting materials: publicity7 including posters, flyers, monitor clips, postcards and internal mail envelopes; and trainer tools including a tour of key digital library resources and trainers’ tips.
The key tool for communicating news about the NeLH is its Update newsletter.8 This now includes a supplement, Update Plus, specifically for DLnet representatives. Update Plus offers advance information on planned developments; news relating to marketing and training; DLnet news; and details of opportunities for learning.
Teleconferencing is proving a convenient and effective way of maintaining communication with the growing DLnet network. It means we can communicate with representatives across the country in one sitting. Teleconferencing will play a large part in a forthcoming awareness campaign, where short 10-minute training sessions will be offered to health professionals around the clock, helping to mitigate the problem of lack of time.
The NeLH runs a Librarian Development Programme, focused on supporting areas such as knowledge management, digital libraries and evidence-based librarianship. The programme for 2004-05 will now incorporate a parallel programme for DLnet representatives, focused on supporting training needs in the areas of marketing and training. A significant area of work for the next two years will be a programme of online training for health librarians, called Folio. A three-month pilot of online learning was carried out in spring 2003 and lessons learned from this will feed into the development of a two-year programme, currently being procured. Professional development needs which cannot be met by online training will be met through seminars, workshops, coaching and conferences.
The future?
Currently, much of our activity is focused on Awareness Week,9 a national publicity campaign. The target for the NeLH is to boost the number of users by 50 per cent. The campaign involves a funded partnership scheme to work with health libraries across the country. Librarians who sign up as partners will carry out training and marketing activities locally, to promote digital resources and health library services.
Other priority areas for future DLnet work include commissioning an evaluation of DLnet and encouraging participation from those outside the library field, to achieve a more multidisciplinary feel.
DLnet has grown from the beginnings of an idea back in January to a fledgling network of more than 170 representatives within a period of nine months. This partnership approach offers a range of benefits, most notably:
- the integration of local and national marketing and training efforts;
- the promotion of resources as a seamless service;
- avoiding re-inventing the wheel by making available materials and tools;
- the sharing and promotion of good practice;
- a clear and identifiable two-way communication route.
References
1 S. Robinson. Health Information East London Training Needs Analysis. 2002 (www.thpct.nhs.uk/hiel/library/training/).
2 www.nelh.nhs.uk
3 Staff in the NHS 2002. Department of Health (www.doh.gov.uk/public/staff_in_the_nhs_leaflet_2002.pdf).
4 S. Hernando and S. Gibbens. Guest editorial, Health Information and Libraries Journal, 19 (3), 2003, pp. 129.
5 www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet
6 http://dlnet.blogspot.com
7 www.nelh.nhs.uk/publicity
8 www.nelh.nhs.uk/update
9 www.nelh.nhs.uk/awareness
Alison Turner is Library Partnership Co-ordinator, Nick Rosen Professional Partnerships Manager and Fran Wilkie Training Co-ordinator, National Electronic Library for Health, NHS Information Authority (nelh@nhsia.nhs.uk).
Alison Turner has written on the NeLH in Exploiting Knowledge in Health Services (edited by G. Walton and A. Booth), Facet Publishing, 2003.