title: HeLIN pilot mentoring scheme
abstract: The health care libraries unit coordinates, facilitates, and promotes continuing personal development for all staff in the Health Libraries and Information Network (HeLIN) of the Oxford Deanery (UK). It supports the development of a culture of lifelong learning and recognizes that CPD should help deliver organizational objectives, as well as enabling all staff to expand and fulfill their potential. A major emphasis for 2000 was to investigate ways of improving support for individual learning within the workplace. The group identified a need to build on existing informal support networks in order to provide additional learning opportunities and decided to investigate the feasibility of piloting a mentoring scheme. The objectives of the pilot were to increase understanding and knowledge of mentoring as a tool for CPD; to investigate existing mentoring schemes and their applicability for HeLIN; to develop a pilot mentoring scheme for HeLIN incorporating a program for accreditation of mentors; and to evaluate the scheme and disseminate the results. In order to identify current practice in this area, a literature review was carried out, and colleagues with an interest in or existing knowledge of mentoring schemes were contacted where possible. In the absence of clearly defined appraisal tools, all abstracts were read, and articles that met the following criteria were obtained and distributed to the group for review
keyphrases: HeLIN pilot mentoring scheme health care libraries unit continuing personal development staff Health Libraries and Information Network lifelong learning informal support networks accreditation literature review midcareer librarians