Book in time at the Northern Health library, and become immersed in all it has to offer!

The Northern Health library provides staff and students connection to quality evidence-based health information to support research, student and patient care, and to continue professional development.

Located near the Fit Testing Centre and Lecture Theatre at Northern Hospital Epping, the library has a rich set of services, including online and physical resources, provision of expert search services, critical appraisal advice and training, and research and search strategy design support. There’s also the ability to source articles and self-loan material, with group and individual training available to support health search and literacy.

The library is staffed by fully qualified health librarians Monday to Friday. Staff can access the library 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via their swipe card. The library has a small meeting room, a study room and six computers. Online, the library can be found via the eLibrary.

Natasha Bradley, Director Library and Information Literacy Services, said as Northern Health continued to grow and develop, so too has the library.

“Most recently, we have focused on redeveloping and expanding our online resources and capabilities via the eLibrary,” she said.

“The eLibrary aggregates all online resources and service requests forms, and enables staff to keep up to date with emerging health issues such as COVID-19 and Monkeypox, along with specialised pages on other topics. We continue to maintain a relevant and current collection of hard copy books on a range of clinical topics.”

The current library team is comprised of Natasha, Erica Hateley, Senior Librarian and experienced clinical search specialist, Jade Howell, Librarian – responsible for core day-to-day services in the physical and online library environments, and Kelly Chan, Library Technician.

Looking to the future, Natasha’s key focus is expanding the library’s capabilities so staff and students can utilise face-to-face or online education around expert search.

“As well as screencasts, we’re exploring how we can best offer brief online training to help resolve the common, but tricky questions users have around literature search,” she said.

“We’re also working towards enabling an all-encompassing library search capability, so users can access every single library book, eBook, article, journal, video and audio file on their topic of interest.”

Natasha says people are often surprised to discover that 95 per cent of the library’s day-to-day work is in the online environment, from responding to email enquiries, to sourcing articles via online networks and searching online medical literature to answer clinical questions.

“We also maintain our own eLibrary and associated resources – we are confident and capable digital citizens. The books are one aspect in of the library – the one folks most regularly think of when they hear the word ‘library’, but the Northern Health library is so much more than books,” she said.

Staff and students can become Northern Health library members, which enables access to a range of resources and access to the library anywhere, anytime. For more information and to sign up, please click here.

Featured image (back to front): Erica Hateley, Senior Librarian, Kelly Chan, Library Technician, Jade Howell, Librarian, and Natasha Bradley, Director Library and Information Literacy Services.