National electronic Library for Health
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040719 |
| Pages | 57-61 |
| Date | 01 February 1999 |
| Published date | 01 February 1999 |
| Author | Muir Gray |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
National electronic
Library for Health
by Dr Muir Gray, Director of the
National electronic Library for Health
Project
The National eletronic Library for Health
(NeLH) is to write a new knowledge service for
patients and clinicians. This article describes
the background to NeLH in Information for
Health and outlines the aims, benefits and
architecture of
the
proposed
service.
It
identifies the challenge to Health librarians to
develop new skills in informatics and critical
appraisal.
The need and demand for easy access to the best
current knowledge is increasing. Clinical govern-
ance,
as the concept implies, promotes high quality
care,
with the definition of "quality" being doing
the right things to the right people at the right time
and doing things right first time.1
In addition to these external pressures on clini-
cians,
there is another powerful pressure - the
World Wide Web, which is creating the knowledge
revolution at the turn of
the
century. In the old
days clinicians used to speak, rather disparagingly,
about "le maladie du petit papier." This refers to a
patient who brought a little bit of paper out of their
pocket at the end of a consultation. Most clini-
cians are now familiar with what might be called
"le maladie du grand print-out" - the patient who
presents with Web print-out pages, sometimes
inches thick. The World Wide Web gives amazing
access to a very wide range of topics but it is
unmanageable, ungovernable and uncontrollable.
There is now good evidence that much of the
information that is available is misleading, some-
times dangerously so.2 It is true that the best
evidence is available on the World Wide Web.
For example, the abstracts of the Cochrane Library
are up there; but these pearls can rarely be dis-
cerned in the flood and welter of pages that are
downloaded when one types a common term into
the search engine.
Coping with the knowledge
revolution
One approach to coping with the knowledge
revolution would be to expand our present knowl-
edge services, but they have many weaknesses.
The problems of reaching a library during the
working day are considerable (Box1) and although
it is true that one can get to the library more easily
in the evenings and at weekends, the library's most
valuable resource, the librarian, is rarely there at
that time.
Box1:
The limitations of brick libraries
There are still healthcare professionals
who do not have access to a library or
librarian.
Even those who do have access do not
have much time
to
visit
the
library regularly
during the working day: car parking is a
major obstacle.
If people visit the library in the evenings
and at weekends they are unlikely to find
the most valuable resource-the librarian.
Most libraries have a limited set of journals
and there are still libraries without the
Cochrane Library.
Investment in the NHS libraries is low and
has not significantly increased in recent
years although the demand for access to
best current knowledge has increased.
Libraries are often locked at night.
What is needed is a new paradigm for knowledge
services and the mission of the National electronic
Library for Health is to create a new knowledge
service for patients and clinicians, as well as
managers and policy-makers, which builds on the
potential of e-libraries (Box 2).
The National electronic Library for Health is part
of the new Information for Health strategy and has
to be seen in the context of the other important
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