Sustainable collaboration for community outreach: lessons from the Spanish Access to Literature/Uso Directo (SALUD) project

Kristin Hitchcock,Kristina Appelt

doi:10.3163/1536-5050.96.1.58

Abstract

Health sciences librarians have an active interest in community health information outreach projects [1–8]. Successful community partnerships are guided by each partner clearly defining goals. Accomplishing these goals requires time and personal contact to develop trust, active engagement of all partners, and careful planning [9, 10]. The investment required to develop partnerships makes project sustainability a desired outcome. The academic health sciences library exists to support the educational mission of the institution. By collaborating with other academic units, the library can meet its educational goals while building the sustainable relationships necessary for successful outreach projects. At the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the Library of the Health Sciences (LHS) and College of Nursing (CON) developed an outreach project that directly supports the mission of the university while strengthening relationships between the library, CON, and surrounding community [11]. As part of a core course in the undergraduate nursing curriculum, CON faculty supervise students in clinical rotations at two Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) clinics in nearby neighborhoods, engaging them in the challenges and rewards of community practice. In the fall of 2005, CON and LHS faculty saw an opportunity for outreach. The resulting Spanish Access to Literature/ Uso Directo (SALUD) Public Health Information Pilot Project provided education on evaluating and using online health education materials by leveraging community health nursing students and existing relationships between these organizations. This paper describes the project's core activities with an emphasis on the project's techniques for sustainability.

Highlights

AND BACKGROUNDHealth sciences librarians have an active interest in community health information outreach projects [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
Spanish Access to Literature/ Uso Directo (SALUD) project staff and students continue to face challenges reported in library outreach literature: computer skill level and access, need for comprehensive yet audience-specific resources, staffing, and time demands [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 14]
Information professionals are called on to determine how best to measure the impact of an author’s articles, and citation counts are often regarded as one method for obtaining a quantitative expression of the utilization and contribution of a particular published paper

Summary

Introduction

AND BACKGROUNDHealth sciences librarians have an active interest in community health information outreach projects [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Successful community partnerships are guided by each partner clearly defining goals. Accomplishing these goals requires time and personal contact to develop trust, active engagement of all partners, and careful planning [9, 10]. By collaborating with other academic units, the library can meet its educational goals while building the sustainable relationships necessary for successful outreach projects. Journal visibility and prestige affects dissemination, and self-citation can artificially inflate citation counts [1, 3, 5,6,7,8] Despite these concerns, citation analysis remains a useful tool for assessing faculty research publication

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Conclusion