Library and Information Week (LIW) 2023 presented the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of Northern Health library across our multisite healthcare organisation. Northern Health has 4 physical locations in northern metropolitan Melbourne and we were excited to get to know each health service in more detail. With a relatively new team in place, making connections with colleagues at sites without a physical library was important, as well as establishing the best format and location for recurring site visits in a pop-up library format.
In preparation for the week, we worked with site managers to confirm appropriate dates and times for each site to identify optimal times and site locations to connect NH staff and the library team.
Our Library and Information Week visits to each site were promoted to staff via a regular weekly meeting of hospital managers, the Northern Health Intranet, an organisation-wide screensaver, a timely all staff reminder email to staff at each site, and a story on our internal newsletter, iNews. This story was also distributed via the NH LinkedIn account, and garnered an encouraging set of interactions with the post.
We also created a postcard which highlighted popular library services, including Quick Links to the relevant eLibrary page. This was well received by staff.
We visited a different site each day to a particularly warm and engaged reception from NH staff less used to onsite library services. As well as friendly library and resource awareness chats over the course of our 4-day campaign we engaged in everything from resource training sessions, referencing queries, book loans from our mini-display and awareness-raising opportunities from areas who previously thought the library had little to offer their department.
We tracked a total of 220 library-focused interactions during LIW and netted a 12% increase in library memberships.
Critically, mobilising the library for LIW was not only awareness-raising for NH staff, but also for the library team, who gained a better sense of the interests of staff at each site and extended our relationships within Northern Health as a whole. LIW facilitated both a better awareness of the library services, as well as our intention to regularly visit sites in the future.
NH Library team member, Jade, at our Broadmeadows library stand. Credit: Erica Hateley