Advice
diane stone
librarian's position is middle management which does not attend Management
Team. Do you have advice either positive or negative? Please respond to
me directly. My only thought is that in this rapidly changing healthcare
environment, the librarian must be proactive in meeting the information
needs of the hospital.
Diane Stone -- me...@iac.net
John R. Clark
Information age, you need to be aggressive. In bureaucracies, I find I'm
better off telling my supervisors what I plan to do rather than waiting
for a response and asking permission. Do you have a vision of where you
want your library to be in the organizational structure 5 years from
now? If you do, does anyone else know? Being a management participant
gives you the opportunity to sell your goals and visions to others. I'm
a key member of our management and planning cadre here at AMHI, and have
been quite successful in selling my 5 year vision to both the Supt. and
the new commissioner of the department. Hope this pep talk is of use-JC
John R. Clark, Librarian 207-287-7266(V)/7127(F)
Augusta Mental Health Institute jrc...@saturn.caps.maine.edu
P.O. Box 724 Dispenser of wit, humor, hope
Augusta Me 04332-0724 and information galaxy wide.
MICHELYNN
be proactive in meeting the information needs of the hospital"
YES! That's the important point. Meeting with management is both
a service opportunity and a marketing opportunity for your services.
I don't usually use library jargon with non-librarians. For instance,
instead of "meeting information needs" I may simply say "I can help".
.. or perhaps "If I know what you're thinking about, I can get you
good background material"... Being at the meeting insures you know
more of "what's going on" than if you weren't there .... even if you
*do* have to sit through much that does not interest you. When we
reorganized recently, I found myself on more "councils" than before.
People saw me at meetings and remembered that we serve; they asked for
searches before and after meetings. Even while I was grousing internally
about sitting through another dumb meeting (when I could have been doing
something necessary and exciting back in the library... like cataloging
or checking in journals) our real value to the institution increased. New
managers asked old hands "Who is she? and What does she do?". Administration
and management "sees" more of our work when they see more of us... especially
if we take the opportunity to prepare searches and booklists for the
"hot topics" that come up at these meetings.
It works!
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K mmck...@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu H
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AHOMAOKLAHOMAOKLA Michelynn McKnight M
O Phone: 405/360-8385 A
K FAX: 405/321-6576 O
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OKLAHOMAKLAHOMAOKLAHOMA
Director, Health Sciences Library, Norman Regional Hospital,
PO Box 1308, Norman, Oklahoma, 73070, USA
Pamela Sieving
able to look more effectively for information that management needs.
Pam Sieving
Kellogg Eye Center
U of Michigan
Lee Hover
> I need to justify the librarian attending Management Team meetings. The
> librarian's position is middle management which does not attend Management
> Team. Do you have advice either positive or negative? Please respond to
> me directly. My only thought is that in this rapidly changing healthcare
> environment, the librarian must be proactive in meeting the information
> needs of the hospital.
>
> Diane Stone -- me...@iac.net
>
Diane: I strongly agree with you. Its difficult to be "proactive" (I
really am beginning to hate that word) when, instead of going out to meet
the train, you're run over by it. In short, if you don't know what the
organization has in its little brain, how can you preare for it? I think
its important to emphasize that in order for the library to be ready for
inquiries and, even better, be able to supply information even before its
asked for, its necessary to be present for all the discussion that
usually takes place.
For what its worth.
Lee Ho9ver
lho...@gti.net
Webster Library
"managememnt". Ling range plans come in very handt, and they are not too
tough to put together. The worst an administrator can say, abd I've
heard it, is "cute". However, several years letter, there was that
"cute" facility of 30,000 sq. feet serving the total hospital staff. It
happened recently, again, when a physcina brought in $$ and wanted to
develop "his" database inforamtion system. if not for our long range
plans, and pushing them under administration and department heads noses,
we would not have ended with a hospital supported extensive data base,
managed by the library "who knew all about it all along". You need to
want to do it, be "pushy", pro-active, take chances (Judy Messerley
called it at one talk or another "falling on your knife" (outgrowth of
being on the cutting edge and extending yourself - taking risks _ that
can backfire). Just like "inf there are no complaints- nothing will
happen", if you don't push, and push, nothing will move. It is the very
occasional librarian that have things just fall into her/his lap. Most
of us work too hard for what we end up getting -
Dalia Kleinmuntz
Webster Library, Evanston Hospital
web...@nslsilus.org (708) 570-2665
(708) 570-2926 FAX
Sandy Kerbow
included in management meetings is the information you can provide to
management staff to help them with their decision-making. I
interpret the JCAHO standards to mean that there should be planning
for future information needs that is integrated with the
organization's future services. Discussion of the intent of IM.9.2
through IM.9.2.1.3 ( on p. 427 of the 1995 Comprehensive Accreditation
Manual for Hospitals ) states "Library and information services
enable the organization to . . .provide information in advance by
anticipating information needs" and how better to anticipate needs
than to know what is going on in the organization early in the
process! Perhaps envoking JCAHO in this manner would help your
request to be included in the management team be approved.