Grace and Harold Sewell

Memorial Fund

Learning Partnerships

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"Wonderful program. There are not enough such immersion opportunities for librarians."  
                                        – Neil Rambo, UW Health Sciences Libraries, 9/22/06

The purpose of the Learning Partnerships is to place experienced librarians and information professionals within leading health care or research organizations in order for both partners to gain a better understanding of how best information sciences can be effectively applied in each environment. The Fund believes that this experience will facilitate a bridging of cultures resulting in a more creative and effective application of information science in the health care arena. The Sewell Fund support covers salary and incidental expenses for these twelve-month Learning Partnership fellowships. 

The application deadline for 2012 has passed.  Please visit this website in early June to read about the upcoming Learning Partnerships.  Host organizations will present a learning environment, a series of activities, and access to organizational leaders which will allow the librarian to more fully understand the nature of the organization’s work, its decision-making processes, the clients served and the health care issues addressed. The librarian will participate in team settings designed to utilize the librarian’s skills and knowledge in non-traditional ways. Immersion is the goal and expanded knowledge the anticipated result for both partners.    To read about past Learning Partnerships, click here.

Key 2012/2013 Learning Partnership Dates:

    Host Applications Due: April 15, 2012
    2012/2013 Hosts Announced: Early June 2012
 

Anticipated Outcomes from our Learning Partnerships

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Librarians should identify with their clients rather than look at clients’ needs merely intellectually from the library/information services perspective.

bulletLibrarians should be advocates for end users to the traditional library staff, assisting the latter in identifying with the clients and gaining a “We” rather than a “They” perspective.
bulletLibrarians should be prepared to improve or extend their services in a variety of ways such as: a) Developing, promoting, and administering programs to satisfy the client’s needs in libraries or information centers, b) as experienced intermediaries, providing improved services directly to the client in any appropriate setting, c) doing research or development on methods of satisfying those needs, e.g. through artificial intelligence in advanced search engines for the client’s use, and d) becoming more comfortable with the familiar specialty could lay excellent groundwork for showing the import of having an information specialist as a member of the client’s team.
bulletBecoming an “informationist”  in a particular area is valid for those librarians whose personalities and training are “more specialist than generalist.”(2,3)
bulletHosts, besides gaining from the improved perceptions and services of the librarians, should have gained a better understanding of the many ways the librarian can facilitate their work.
bulletHosts should be more facile with the newer information technologies,
bulletHosts should be better able to formulate queries or analyze problems that require a search for information in their solution.
bulletHosts should better understand how to analyze their own information needs as a first step in satisfying them. They should then be aware of when the next step will be turning to the library and/or a librarian.

(1) Institute of Medicine. Crossing the quality chasm: a new health system for the 21st century. [Web document]. Washington, DC; National Academy Press, 2001. http://www.nap.edu/books/0309072808/html/).

(2) Davidoff E, Florance V. The informationist: a new health profession? [editorial] Ann Int Med 2000 Jun 20;132(12):996-8.

(3) Rankin JA, Grefsheim SF, Canto, CC. The emerging informationist specialty: a systematic review of the literature. J Med Libr Assoc 2008 Jul;96(3):194-206.

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Copyright © 2003 Grace and Harold Sewell Memorial Fund
Last modified: 02/24/12