Chimato on Practicing Medical Reference
I’ve been taking a class on Reference Librarianship this semester, so I was especially interested to see Mary Carmen Chimato has posted some thoughts on Practicing Medical Reference.
The only times I have flat out conducted a full-on database search for someone is when a doctor has come down to the library, in scrubs (this has happened more than once or twice) or about to go into surgery and needs to find out something immediately.
I think medical librarians remain important when they empart their skills and knowledge to others through instruction and training, not by mechanically answering question after question after question. Anyone can pretend to do that well, but by showing our patrons what we do is a skill and takes time and practice to get really good at doing, they value us more.
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October 17th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
I read the title of this post and laughed out loud! Thanks, David, for the laugh in a pretty crap day.