Library Sciences
In the Spring of 2008 UofT library sciences was invited to travel to Ethiopia to meet with the chief medical librarian at the Black Lion Hospital in Addis Ababa. This is the 900 bed teaching hospital affiliated to Addis Ababa University where every health care professional is trained. We were able to see firsthand the challenges to accessing print and digital resources in the Black Lion medical library.
Thanks to Sandra Kendall a partnership was established with the medical librarian with the goal to improve access to e-resources, to improve the print collection and to provide training in clinical librarianship.
To achieve the goals set out in the Library partnership letter of 2008, the TAAAC Library Program established an Action Plan which is continually updated. An important part of this Action Plan is to develop a training program in clinical librarianship at the university level.
The TAAAC-library sciences team travel annually to the Black Lion Hospital AAU to provide training for the librarian and library assistants, and they co-teach with the team all the various disciplines of students to learn essential library skills, for example, how to conduct a literature search, and how to use up-to-date HANORI evidence based assessment tools. Since 2011 well over 1500 students have taken the course. Involvement between the TAAAC UofT and the AAU medical librarians continues throughout the year by email.