In October, Preston Medical Library (PML) staff had several reasons to celebrate. It was National Medical Librarians Month, sponsored by the Medical Library Association. The month provided medical librarians opportunities to raise awareness for their services in searching for and providing reliable health information to healthcare workers. Throughout the month, and every month, librarians and staff have classes available to clinicians to introduce them to the many resources available through PML.
October also marked the one-year anniversary of the relocation and expansion of Preston Medical Library to the new University of Tennessee Medical Center Health Information Center (HIC). Through this new center, librarians have been able to assist a much larger community in accessing health-related information. Within one year, the number of people visiting HIC has more than doubled to a monthly average of 7,200. Also during that time, librarians have responded to nearly 5,000 health information requests for patients, their families and community members. This is nearly a 400% increase per month. Expanded services were also made available to academic and clinical patrons through in-depth literature searches and delivery of article journals, enabling the best patient care and research.
Beyond statistics, librarians have received positive feedback from consumers and healthcare professionals, including:
"I am glad that the hospital opened and operates a service like this. It is important to understand all we can about our bodies and the care thereof, and the Health Information Center can assist us with this," said a community member.
"Any time I need to research a paper or presentation that I am doing, I reach out to the library and they are so helpful in getting the literature I need," said a healthcare professional.
Posted November 16, 2015
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