Best practices for embedded librarian service: Connecting with students online

Embedded librarianship has been around for a long time. It was considered a buzz word and began appearing in journals and conferences early in the 21st century, according to Kathy Drewes and Nadine Hoffman. Embedded librarianship became a way for librarians to provide research help and assistance to distance education students, as more library resources came online. Embedded librarianship has been an important service no more so than now in the new reality of the pandemic world.

Indicators of Embedded Librarianship and the Effects on Practice by Librarians in Northeast University Libraries

Concept of embedded librarianship has continued to attract attention in research and academic discourse globally, especially in the advanced countries. There is still growing interest to discovery of the perceived factors for a successful practice of the term among the developing countries. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of Librarians’ information literacy skills, professional development, academic engagement and learning management use on practice of embedded librarianship. The study used Questionnaire to generate information from 355 librarians from 11 universities in Northeast, Nigeria. The result revealed that academic engagement, professional development and information literacy skill has positive and significant effect on embedded librarian practice while learning management system use failed to pose significant effect. Moreover, information literacy skill had positive and significant effect on academic engagement and professional development but failed to affect learning management system significantly. Also, academic engagement posed the highest effect on professional development, while learning management system use failed to produce significant effect on embedded librarian practice. The study concludes that embedded librarian practice is bright within the study environment, however, the use of information technology by the libraries and skill among the librarians was recommended.

Embedded Librarian in an Emergency Department

Clinical librarians, knowledge specialists and informationists have been working closely with medical faculties and hospital departments for some years with the aim of mobilizing evidenced-based medical research in the healthcare workplace. However, evidence of the effectiveness of these interventions is limited. This paper describes the initial findings of an embedded clinical librarian project in an emergency department (ED) of a rural NHS hospital. During the trial period 54 information requests were made by ED staff to the librarian and the librarian spent a total of 2600 minutes answering queries representing a considerable time and cost saving to ED department staff. The librarian was able to effectively mobilise evidence at the point-of-need, supporting evidence-based decision making, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and staff learning. Staff satisfaction with the embedded librarian service was consistently high.

Connecting theory to practice

This design-based research study of library instruction was developed using the Community of Inquiry theoretical framework. Three different instructional approaches were developed and evaluated as part of this study: the one-shot session approach, the partially embedded librarian approach and the fully embedded librarian approach. Surveys, interviews and journaling were used to gather data from faculty, undergraduate students and the researcher–librarian about their experiences. This research study is unique given the combined use of design-based research methodology and the Community of Inquiry theoretical framework to collaboratively design and evaluate library instruction.

Pragmatic implications of embedded librarianship in academics: a review of eminent literatures

PurposeAs the concept of “embedded librarianship” is gaining acceptance globally, and a surplus amount of literature is available for the aspiring practitioners, it would be supplementary to carry out such a literature review and bring alike and crucial works together within one piece of writing. This paper aims to gather realistic instances in LIS literature, where embedded librarianship has been practiced successfully.Design/methodology/approachWhile the focus of this review paper is on embedded librarians in curricular contexts, the phraseembedded librarianhas a variety of meanings, including librarian involvement and integration at the macro levels such as college, department, programme, research team and micro levels such as course designing, semester assignments and competitive preparation etc. List of relevant literatures was collected from Scopus and LISTA database. Later, full text of the listed document was retrieved from different sources. But the literature that included practical role of an embedded librarian was prioritised and the one which incorporated proposed theories was excluded, and hence, 67 of them were found to be fitted for reviewing purpose in the current case.FindingsWhile planning for any extensional service besides the usual housekeeping ones, a vigorous transformation in the attitude has to be engulfed. Though the conception of embedded librarianship as a whole is an extended version of service deliverance, it can be alienated into sections according to the contextual outline and areas of embedding such as in the research context, pedagogical participation and offering information literacy.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper provides a panoramic view on the emerging notion of this extended version of librarianship. By successfully practicing the embedded librarianship model, the user group would be benefited and the professionals could justify the ethics of their professionalism. Embedded librarianship in the university context can be a very important endeavour for the future challenges. The proactive initiatives of the librarian along with a handy support from authorities might ensure continuous and effective partnerships.Originality/valueThis paper is expected to be one of the initial and review articles in the area of embedded librarianship in academics. It is a highly informative paper on embedded librarianship and will be most useful for researchers to refer this paper for individual study and also will promote the academic librarians for taking initiative to work as effective embedded librarians.

Shumaker, David: The Embedded Librarian: Innovative Strategies for Taking Knowledge Where It's Needed. Medford: Information Today, 2012

Rezension von "Shumaker, David: The Embedded Librarian: Innovative Strategies for Taking Knowledge Where It's Needed. Medford: Information Today, 2012. – XVII, 212 S. ISBN: 9781573874526"