Ennis Lisa A. - The Accidental Health Sciences Librarian

I clearly remember the day I chose my career. During high school, I went to a nearby college library to research careers and came home with the idea of becoming a health sciences librarian. My mother and sister helped guide me in this direction: My mother loved working in an academic library, and my sister enjoyed her career as a pharmacist. I wanted to blend the two conceptslibraries and healthcareand also have a career that allowed me to learn on a daily basis. Further, I wanted a job that provided a lot of variety and was not too specific, as I knew that I would soon become bored without such options.

More than 30 years later, I have no regrets about my decision and can honestly say that I have never experienced the same day twice. I have worked in all kinds of settings (academic medical centers, community hospitals, regional medical libraries), in different parts of the country, and with all kinds of library users. All of this makes for an extremely challenging, yet rewarding, career! Had I had a book like The Accidental Health Sciences Librarian, my career choice would have been so much easier, and I would have had a much better clue of what I was getting into by pursuing this path.

The authors of The Accidental Health Sciences Librarian are to be congratulated for presenting not just a terrific overview of the field and the infrastructure that supports it (such as the National Library of Medicine), but also for their inclusion of others stories and journeys. This ensured that they not only expressed their own voices but, through a peer survey and personal testimonies, that they shared others personal experiences of what makes health sciences librarianship such a valuable and fun profession.

This book encapsulates within its covers numerous personal reflections that provide valuable guidance to those considering a career in health sciences librarianship. With just over 4,000 health sciences librarians in the U.S., our profession is unknown to manyexcept to those lucky enough (as I was) to know someone in the library field or to have the resources at hand to explore this exciting profession. This book enables a quick discovery of the profession and is a very readable overview of a day in the life of a health sciences librarian.

As the book indicates, health sciences libraries and librarians are unique even within this subfield. Health sciences librarians directly engage with the healthcare enterprise of which the library is a part, and many librarians now, through the wonders of technology, are able to physically be located within healthcare environments rather than library buildings. They can do rounds with healthcare teams (clinical medical librarians), provide synthesized information at the point of need through their additional clinical and research subject knowledge (informationists), and train healthcare providers in using the knowledge and evidence available through years of organizing the medical literature (see ). They are vital members of healthcare teams that are examining how to embed such knowledge within electronic medical and personal health records and within the clinical context. They are supporting their institutions by helping to translate research into clinical practice at accelerated speeds, and they are instructors and members of educational curricular committees to ensure that the latest information is applied to the teaching of healthcare students.

The Accidental Health Sciences Librarian is a must-read for all those interested in a profession that will enable them to grow and be rewarded by serving others in the process, as it is all about the people. It should be promoted by library school educators and become part of library school students required reading. This book is highly recommended for inclusion in K12 guidance counseling collections and for those who help to direct students with their career selections.

Jean P. Shipman
Director
Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library
University of Utah
Medical Library Association President 200607