Delivering accessible, factual health information during the pandemic has become a focus in many public libraries. At a time when people from many different backgrounds and in many different regions are bombarded with low-quality and misleading health information, how can reference staff deliver science-based information that can support community health?
This 4-week online course blends independent learning units with real-time online meetings and will enable you to connect with your classmates and the instructor to expand everyone’s awareness of available tools; delivery techniques that can lead to best information sharing and understanding; and standard reference methods that support local health reference work. You’ll also learn strategies for presenting information neutrally and best practices for advocating for your reference services amidst controversy.
This course includes two live sessions, both of which will be recorded for those who cannot attend live. The live sessions will take place on Thursdays, April 14 and April 28, 2022 at 12:00pm Eastern/11:00am Central/10:00am Mountain/9:00am Pacific and will be an hour long each.
After participating in this course, you will:
- Understand how basic reference delivery methods, including responsive interviewing and resource evaluation, underpin community access to sound health information
- Recognize local needs for information literacy and health literacy support
- Know how to access free and high-quality health information that serves the capacities of your community’s varied demographics
- Be able to identify potential community partners who can aid in the expansion of community awareness of and access to science-based health information
- See your own role in bridging gaps between community reliance on opinion and the need to deliver science-based fact both just-in-time and just-in-case
eCourse Outline
- Week 1: Meeting information needs w/ culturally competent responses. How well connected is reference staff with community health access?
- Week 2: Live session featuring exemplary reference interview techniques
- Week 3: Featuring free, high value resources everywhere. Where can you put information so that it makes a difference locally?
- Week 4: Live session featuring experiences, discoveries, questions, and forward movement planning at the local level
Francisca Goldsmith has worked in public and academic libraries across North America for more than 25 years before becoming a full-time library staff development consultant and instructor. Recently, her focus has been on supporting public library staff and administrators in responding to community needs for access to healthcare information and expanding librarian and educator awareness of multi-modal literacy needs in both youth and adult communities. Her library and consulting experience includes frontline reference work, collection management, branch services management, and teen services development and advocacy. She is the author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Graphic Novels, Second Edition (ALA Editions, 2017).
