Supporting research at the Faculty of Medicine:

the development of Imperial College London’s Medicine Information Literacy Group

Abstract

Librarians providing information literacy training to Imperial College London’s medicine faculty have set up a successful working model implemented by the Imperial Library Medicine Information Literacy Group (MILG). MILG was created to improve and develop library services to support the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College and to overcome the many challenges librarians face when attempting to provide information literacy training. These challenges include keeping up to date with new developments in their subject area, maintaining effective liaison with their faculty, updating their own skills and ensuring that they provide relevant and informative training sessions. MILG’s achievements include a successful, coordinated approach to liaison which has led to information literacy training being embedded into the curriculum of the Faculty of Medicine. The group has also developed working practices that allow its members to maintain and update their skills through professional development and “train the trainer” sessions. MILG members maintain current awareness within their subject area through the use of resource champions and make use of the latest technologies when they are training. The group uses a variety of methods to improve both the quality and relevance of the information literary training it provides. This involves adapting training to meet the changing needs of the medicine faculty and developing new ways of staying in contact with library users such as the Imperial Library medicine blog. This article outlines the work of MILG and explains how the group’s development has enabled its members to better coordinate library services across six campus libraries. This working model has already been successfully adapted by other library teams within Imperial College London and could be adapted to meet the needs of librarians outside Imperial.