It’s goodbye from us – June will be #ukmedlibs final chat on AI tools for medical libraries

After eight years and countless hashtags the #ukmedlibs team have made the tough decision to hang up our tweets. It has been a privilege to have been able to provide a small, safe space for professional discussions relating to our sector and we hope that along the way you have been inspired and informed. We will maintain the twitter handle, so the #ukmedlibs hashtag can still be used to pull together sector information on that platform. 

To go out with a bang our final chat, which will be on Tuesday 20^th June at 12.30, will be on the use of AI tools and the implications this will have on the healthcare sector. Phil Bradley will be joining us to offer his experienced thoughts on the topic. Here are the questions we will be following during the chat: 

1. Which AI tools have you used (and which versions)?  
2. What made you use these tools and what did you get from it?  
3. What are the opportunities these tools can give us?  
4. What are the dangers of using AI tools?  
5. What do you think the effect on our profession will be?  
6. Have any of your library users used AI tools?  
7. What do you think our role will be in an AI assisted world?  

In the essence of this discussion, I asked ChatGPT to give me the perfect goodbye quote for a medical libraries twitter chat and it suggested – 

“Closing the chapter on this inspiring medical libraries Twitter chat. Grateful for the knowledge shared, connections made, and conversations ignited. Together, we’ve delved into the depths of medical literature, championed evidence-based practices, and empowered countless minds. As we bid farewell, may the love for learning and the pursuit of knowledge continue to flourish. Keep exploring, keep growing, and keep making a difference. #Goodbye #MedicalLibraries #KnowledgeIsPower” 

Probably couldn’t have done better!  

#ukmedlibs chat May – Health Information Week 2023

For our May #ukmedlibs chat we will be discussing this year’s Health Information Week. Join us at 12.30 on Tuesday 16^th May to share ideas, planning for the week and how you might involve partners.  

Health Information Week is the 3-9 July 2023. For more information about Health Information Week, the themes for each day and resources you can visit the website: https://healthinfoweek.wixsite.com/healthinfoweek   

1. Are you joining in with Health Information Week in 2023? 
2. If yes, what activities are holding and how will you promote it? 
3. Which is your favourite theme for this year and how will you approach it? 
4. Do you like having a theme each day? 
5. Are you working with any partners this year? 
6. How can we encourage other sectors to get involved in HIW? 
7. What is the most useful tool on the HIW website? 
8. Is there anything you would like to see on the HIW website? 

#UKmedlibs chat – supporting other organisations – Tuesday 18th April at 12:30pm

There are other organisations outside the ones that our library services directly support – such as ICBs (integrated care boards), arms length bodies such as the HSIB (Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch), or charitable health care organisations and so on.  They may not have their own library services or you know that they could do with such support – so how do you go about this?  We’d love to get a chat going that covers supporting organisations outside your own.  The conversation starter questions will be:

1. Do you feel that there are local organisations that the LKS should or could support (or do you do that already?)
2. How could you identify organisations that your LKS could support?
3. How could you find your way into that organisation?
4. How might you demonstrate the benefits of your LKS to that organisation?
5. How might you join forces with nearby LKSs to offer that wider service?
6. What’s the best way to put a price on your services and to create that SLA?
7. What support would you like from colleagues or NHS England to enable this?
8. Do you already support organisations outside your Trust and what advice can you give to colleagues?

Come along at 12:30pm on Tuesday 18th April to share your thoughts and see what other people say!

#UKmedlibs chat March – National Searching Guidance

March’s #UKmedlibs chat will focus on the National Searching Guidance that was launched last month. Join Lucy Wells and Adam Tocock for this discussion on Tuesday 21^st March at 12:30pm. This is a good opportunity to talk to the working group and ask any questions about the guidance.  

Questions are:

1. Were you aware of the national searching guidance before?
2. If yes, how have you used it or are planning to use it?
3. What do you think of the new update to the guidance? What is the most useful feature?
4. Is there anything that you would like to see included in the next version of the guidance (any new resources etc)?
5. Would you use the guidance with your users? 
6. How would you like to be able to access the guidance?
7.  What other support would be useful to help you with searching?

#UKmedlibs chat on Grey Literature – join us on Tuesday 21st February at 12:30pm

The next #UKmedlibs chat will take place at 12.30 on Tuesday 21st February. Join us for an interactive discussion exploring the use of grey literature in the health library service. We will be joined by colleagues from the Kings Fund, so this is your opportunity to get involved in the conversation, ask questions, share ideas and experiences and see if grey literature could be more of an asset to your searches.

The questions we will follow are:

1. How would you define grey literature and what does it mean for health library staff?
2. Do you include grey literature in your clinical and non-clinical searches? If not, can you tell us why?
3. What benefits have you found from including grey literature?
4. Do you alter your search strategies at all for grey literature searches?
5. Which are the best online sources of grey literature?
6. Do you use Google scholar or different search engines?
7. Would you encourage our library users to include grey literature in their searches?

Bring your lunch and come and join us for an informal but very interesting chat!

#UKMedlibs chat: Tuesday 17th January 12:30

Happy new year!

Join us for a discussion about goals and predictions for 2023. Have you decided to pursue a new goal and what do you predict will happen for/to our sector in 2023?

1. Do you have any resolutions to share for 2023?
2. What is your number 1 professional goal for 2023?
3. Have you set any goals for your library service?
4. Are there any lessons learnt from 2022 that you would like to share?
5. What are your predictions for our sector in 2023?
6. What would you like to see happen in 2023?

Join us on Tuesday 17^th at 12:30-13:30 on twitter!

#UKmedlibs Christmas quiz 2022!

It is nearly time for the annual #ukmedlibs Christmas Quiz!! This year we will be trying something different. We will have the usual one hour lunchtime chat on Tuesday 20th December at 12:30pm – see questions below.

AND….there will be a kahoot quiz launched during the course of the twitter chat hour! This quiz will be available for 24 hours and will offer participants the opportunity to do a timed quiz for a, currently unspecified, prize! (Most likely some form of chocolate!)

So, the questions for the chat will be as follows:

1. How does your library team celebrate Christmas?
2. How do you celebrate other events such as Hannukah or Diwali?
3. Do you decorate your library and how?
4. What are the plans for your service between Christmas and New Year?
5. Does your Trust run other celebratory events you can get involved with? (Christmas or otherwise!)
6. Do you find that your Christmas (or other celebrations) are good promotional events for your service?
7. What are your New Year’s resolutions for you and your team?

Come and join us for some festive conversation – bring your festive nibbles and get comfy for a lovely chat and take part in our quiz!

#ukmedlibs chat November – journal clubs

It’s the third Tuesday of the month already and we’re back to discuss the role of health librarians in creating, supporting and sustaining journal clubs for hospital or community staff or even the challenges of setting one up for knowledge and library staff ourselves! They can be a great asset to everyone’s practice in theory but how does it work in reality?

Questions as follows;

1. What experience do your library team have of setting up and running journal clubs for healthcare professionals?
2. Do you facilitate the clubs directly or is your role providing searching skills/document support or other support ?
3. What are the barriers to setting up journal clubs and how can these barriers be overcome?
4. Do you find on-line journal clubs are successful and why/why not?
5. Have you ever run a journal club in your library for library staff?

Join us at 12.30 on Tuesday 15^th November for the #ukmedlibs chat.

Transcript – October #ukmedlibs chat on Data and Digital Skills for Knowledge and Library staff

Thanks to those who were able to join us for the October chat! If you missed it and would like to catch up on the discussion, have a look at the transcript.  #ukmedlibs Healthcare Social Media Transcript October 17th 2022

#ukmedlibs Chat October – Digital skills for knowledge and library staff

We were away for two months, but we’re back for October

2022 is the year of Digital Professional and suddenly it seems like Knowledge and Library staff are building or flexing their skills to include elements of digital and data work. But what does that mean in reality? And how can we put those skills to use the healthcare context?

Questions as follows;

1. What would you define as digital and data skills for library staff?
2. How confident do you currently feel about incorporating data and digital elements in to our work?
3. Have you undertaken any learning around coding or programming?
4. How do you think healthcare knowledge and library staff can better work with data?
5. Which skills do you think knowledge and library staff already possess that can support this area of work?
6. How do you think Artificial Intelligence might change our services in the future?
7. What development opportunities would you like to see to support extending our skills with data and digital work?

Join us at 12.30 on Tuesday 18th October for #ukmedlibs chat.