Blueprint for Success: A Federal Medical Librarian Checklist

Abstract

In late fall of 2013, three highly experienced knowledge management professionals from the US Department of Veterans Affairs established a checklist for federal medical librarians. A metric was created to assist federal medical librarians with refreshing their competencies, skills, and abilities, and to align their knowledge management aptitude with their organization’s strategic objectives for optimal return on investment. The authors selected 10 categories of functional areas and identified appropriate resources for each category. Based upon the input from the federal library community regarding the value of the categories and resources, the Checklist was updated to include resources deemed by the authors as authoritative and worthy for inclusion. In November 2014, the updated Checklist was e-mailed back to the same federal library community. It is our pleasure to share the Checklist (attached) with federal medical librarians, as well as others in the profession, in the hope that newcomers and experienced librarians can benefit from our experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• checklist
• competencies
• federal libraries
• federal library
• knowledge management
• management
• medical libraries
• medical library
• skills
• standards