BOOK REVIEW / CRITIQUE DE LIVRE

**A guide to developing end user education programs in medical libraries.** By Elizabeth Connor.
New York: Haworth Press, 2005. 244 pages (soft cover). ISBN 0-7890-1725-3. US$24.95.

If you have been thinking about revising your current methods of instruction, or if you are thinking about developing an education program, this book may be the inspiration you need to move forward. Elizabeth Connor presents an encouraging collection of 18 case studies that explore the development of end user education programs in medical libraries across the United States and the Caribbean.

Connor's intended audience is “hospital and academic health sciences librarians who develop and teach end user training programs as well as anyone interested in developing or evaluating education programming, especially library school students”. The case studies are written in a structured format that includes a description of the library and the setting, the participants, the educational approach, evaluation, and conclusion. The case studies include approaches such as credit and noncredit course work, distance learning, informatics integration, clinical librarianship, and the use of innovative technologies to provide instruction. The end users are medical, pharmacy, physical therapy, dental and veterinary students, residents and health professionals. Rather than adopt a strictly “best practices” approach, this collection profiles innovative programs that librarians can implement into their own practice.

General themes common to the case studies are collaboration, planning, integration, and evaluation, with emphasis on collaboration between librarians and their peers or colleagues in other departments or programs. In Chapter 4, Jennifer McCabe, from James Madison University, shares her library's experiences with developing a health care informatics curriculum. To develop and implement a health care informatics curriculum, the liaison librarian reported working closely with the faculty and program staff. McCabe credits the library as having a “cooperative and supportive relationship with the university as a whole” and the librarians as being “recognized as contributing members of the academic community and valuable resources for curriculum development”. Her case study explores some of the strategies implemented by the library to achieve collaboration and the “cooperative and supportive relationship” developed within the library and within the institution.

Developing and implementing a successful end user educational program involves a detailed and cohesive plan. Some of the case studies suggest creating overall competencies or goals for the education program, whether instruction involves a credit course or a set of library sessions. The

Health Sciences Library at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill went beyond creating competencies for end users based on the Association of American Medical Colleges' Medical Informatics Objectives by developing a program management tool. This tool incorporates five key aspects used to plan and design instruction sessions: creativity, perseverance, publicity, teamwork, and evaluation. This approach has helped the UNC-Chapel Hill Health Sciences Library build a successful and effective educational program.

Integration is not something we can always tackle, but some libraries have approached this concept well and succeeded in integrating library instruction into courses, programs, and departments. The Health Sciences Centre (HSC) Library at Stony Brook University describes their efforts toward curricular integration over a 6-year period. At first they had little or no integration into the curriculum, but after much collaboration, planning, and evaluation, the HSC Library was successful in designing noncredit workshops for students. These workshops evolved into the librarians teaching and organizing a required one-credit course titled Computer Literacy for Healthcare Professionals.

Evaluation is by far the strongest emphasis of this collection of case studies. Each of the authors in this book stresses the evaluation process of his or her education programs. The Health Sciences Library at UNC-Chapel Hill underscores its evaluation mantra, which involves evaluating “everything continuously, making changes based on evaluation, and realizing that some approaches are going to fail. Growth depends on experimentation, and although not all experiments are successful, they can serve as learning experiences for future endeavors”. The case studies not only discuss the importance of evaluation on the development of educational programs but also provide useful descriptions of evaluation methodologies.

This collection of case studies is an excellent read for health sciences librarians involved in instruction. Although some of the advice is common sense, the collection brings moments of inspiration and encouragement to move forward and revise, expand, or create your own end user educational program.

Trina Fyfe

Northern Medical Program

Geoffrey R. Weller Library

University of Northern British Columbia

333 University Way 3

Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada

E-mail: fyfet@unbc.ca