Poster Board Number: 145
Title: Going Mobile: Librarians Supporting Distance Learning Students with Mobile Resources
Objective: To demonstrate how medical librarians can support an institution’s overarching goal to graduate technologically competent practitioners to provide quality health care by increasing availability of electronic resources to better match those available to clinicians and providing training and support for those resources.
Methods: The small library staff of a distance-based graduate nursing school selected resources and provided training and support for those resources as part of a grant-funded emerging media project. The institution received funding to initiate a proposal to incorporate new technologies for enhancing delivery of distance education. One objective of the grant was to increase the electronic resources available to students to better match what will be available to them as clinicians. Because the grant also provided for a mobile initiative, the resources selected were all available on mobile platforms. The library staff was integrally involved in choosing the resources, providing support and training, and by extension, providing support and training on mobile devices. Various student surveys reveal that students feel comfortable and confident using these resources and consider them essential for practice.
Results: Over the 4 academic terms of 2010, the number of clinical students (n=228) who reported using their mobile devices to access information to assist them in clinical very often increased from a low of 27% to a high of 55%. The overall percentage of clinical students who used their devices for clinical information often or very often was 67%. An overwhelming majority (>85%) of students agreed that the librarian-led session assisted them in learning to use clinical resources on their mobile devices.
Conclusions: Point-of-care resources are an important tool for clinical students, but more promotion and training may be necessary for widespread adoption. Librarians can support this initiative by selecting appropriate applications and providing training for their use.
Authors: Billie Anne Gebb, Director, Library Services; Zach Young, Information Services Librarian; Alice Whitman Memorial Library; Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, Lexington, KY
