Poster Board Number: 118
Title: Marketing a Consumer Health Collection in a Pediatric Hospital
Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine the best, evidence-based methods used by medical librarians to market and promote pediatric hospital consumer health collections and services.
Methods: Setting: Pediatric hospitals containing consumer health collections and/or services. Population: Pediatric hospital librarians and staff. Description: This study explores, via a survey, the marketing and promotional activities performed by pediatric hospital librarians and staff that have increased the use of their consumer health collections and services. The survey was administered to pediatric medical librarians via a SurveyMonkey survey link to evaluate their marketing and promotional strategies. The survey included questions about outreach, hospital staff involvement in marketing efforts, and information delivery methods. In November 2010, the survey was sent to the email discussion list of the Pediatric Libraries Special Interest Group of MLA and to pediatric hospitals that were named in the Honor Roll of the 2010/11 US News & World Report Best Children’s Hospitals. Once survey replies were received, the information was analyzed to determine the top five strategies that were identified.
Results and Conclusions: The survey resulted in 23 responses. The top five strategies identified were: (1) working closely with hospital nursing staff to promote the consumer health collection; (2) using open houses and monthly health observances as advertisements for consumer health services; (3) having patients pick up materials from the library; (4) involving child life, volunteers, and social workers in promotions for the collection; and 5) highlighting the online consumer health resources that the library maintains.
Author: Carolyn Biglow, Student, Certificate of Advanced Study in Health Sciences Librarianship, and Medical and Consumer Health Librarian, Family Resource Center Library, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
