We are pleased to say that we are progressing with the development of our post-graduate health librarianship specialist course, which will lead to certification as a specialist health librarian or health library technician. The course is aimed at those who are new or recently recruited to health librarianship, as well as those who aspire to getting a job in a health library. For current practitioners, the units may be taken to learn from our health library experts, update or refresh your knowledge of contemporary issues and topics, and fulfil CPD requirements.
Our recently convened Course Advisory Committee has been meeting to oversee the transition from the previous Essentials of Health Librarianship and Digital Health Information Services units, into seven, newly constituted units that, in combination with the AEBPL Institute, will cover all eight health library competency areas.
An academic coordinator will be recruited, who together with our health librarian industry experts and ALIA technical education staff, will develop and present the units in a mix of synchronous lectures and tutorials, recordings and other learning materials, on the moodle platform.
The units will be assessable according to the HLA competency-based learning outcomes, and successful completion of all seven units’ assignments will be required to achieve specialist certification (or specialist recognition). We will be launching the first new online unit – Understanding the Health Environment – early in 2023, with others to follow in subsequent months.
The units could be taken as standalones for any individual’s informal CPD learning, or they could be “stacked” (to use the new microcredentialling jargon) as part of the health specialist certification program. Although LIS students and others may enrol in the units, they will not be eligible for certification as a specialist health librarian or health library technician until they have completed their LIS university or TAFE qualifications.
References
HLA Competencies (2018). https://read.alia.org.au/alia-hla-competencies