Library to Library: Knowledge Exchange between Two Health Sciences Library Neighbors

Background: Two geographically close Academic Health Science Libraries that serve similar constituents, offer similar services and face related challenges and needs, recognized that effective collaboration would be beneficial to our respective institutions and colleagues. The goals of our collaborative project are to 1) improve communication and information sharing 2) identify and build opportunities for our staff members to collectively build new skills and knowledge 3) identify and increase our involvement in existing partnerships at our respective institutions.

Description: The development of an active knowledge exchange program came as the result of both libraries hiring librarians new to medical and health sciences librarianship. Building off their own need and desire to develop a local network, they initiated a series of in-person meetings with defined agenda topics to address common challenges and discover new opportunities. Meetings were held at both locations enabling attendees to experience spaces and see workflows in action. The current and ongoing benefits of our knowledge exchange have been: observing how our respective institutions function including ways that procedures and roles align or differ; finding innovative ways to solve common challenges, and sharing knowledge of overlapping tools as well as benefits of differing resources. Immediate benefits include improved workflows around e-resource management and the development of collaborative approaches to research support and training.

Conclusion: Our knowledge exchange program is in progress.
The outcomes we expect to measure are:
- Improved organization workflows across library departments/areas
- Improved search strategy and research skills including management of systematic reviews with students and faculty
- Preventing duplication of efforts
- Increased visibility and credibility of respective libraries
- Cost savings with improved skillsets