My part-time teaching position for San Jose State University’s School of Information consists of one or two courses a year: Medical & Health Sciences Librarianship and Consumer Health Librarianship. Every course offered by the iSchool is online. This month, in my Consumer Health Librarianship class, there are students from San Diego, Seattle, Washington DC, Wallkill NY, and other locations. When my career took me to China, I had to adjust to most of my students being 12-16 hours behind China time, it was simple to adjust, and computer bandwidth for teaching with Zoom was excellent most of the time.
The most dramatic change in health sciences librarianship has been the increasing competition of misinformation. Misinformation comes in several flavors:
- “eye-candy” extraordinary claims which demand you click on them. Like how can you cause the end of a bothersome person with eye drops.
- Predatory scientific journals that offer open access very discounted article processing charges and immediate publishing with an important-sounding name…. but zero peer review and diploma-mill-like intention.
- Questionable drug approvals with little scientific evidence.
- National political leaders that wear their ignorance about pandemic prophylaxis as expertise.
- Significant disbelief of science as a political tool.
So what do I teach to prepare future information professionals to counter the information pollution about health, medicine, and science?
- Roots and ethics that are traditions in health sciences librarianship
- The history and current attributes of the national medical information infrastructure that includes the National Library of Medicine and Regional Medical Library system.
- Standards for medical vocabulary both for description and when doing database searching.
- Medline and PubMed and why they are not really the same thing.
- Building book, journal, and electronic collections for health sciences libraries.
- Specialized medical, nursing, and other health sciences databases.
- Evidence-based practice in health sciences professions, supported by library resources and services.
- Contemporary services offered in academic health sciences libraries
- Consumer health information
- Careers in medical and health sciences libraries, as well as other professions that use health information.
- How a library positions itself for successful service to its institution.
- Cooperation between librarians and libraries at local, national, and international levels.
Please contact me for more information about health sciences library career opportunities and education.
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