Not every stereotype about librarians is false, according to Scott Johnson, Director of Library Services at Ketchum University. “I have two cats,” he says. “And I like to wear cardigans.”
Among the other “stereotypes” that hold true for Scott is a dedication to helping patrons of his library discover, understand and use the information and resources of which he is the steward. For Scott, working at a leading health care university is an even greater privilege. “I love being a librarian in the health sciences,” he says. “The students here are working toward a career in helping people, so it feels good to help them.”
A great advantage in that endeavor is MBKU’s support of innovative library resources. As an institution of optometry education for more than 100 years, Ketchum already had one of the most extensive optometry libraries in the country. But one of the many challenges of adding the School of PA Studies and College of Pharmacy was creating a library collection that served the students and faculty in these new disciplines, which demanded expanding and subscribing to a multitude of new sources of information.
Helping patrons make sense of this information required a powerful search engine that led Ketchum to the development of an entirely new online search interface called MBKU Discovery. In addition to a set of limiters and filters that gives students and faculty the ability to exert very precise control on their search criteria, MBKU Discovery combs through everything – clinical resources, online databases, books and journals – at once, and supplies the results in one place.
“Libraries continue to evolve to meet their users’ needs,” explains Scott. “Students these days are used to getting information with one click, so we have to be competitive with that. At the same time, we know that many online sources are not authoritative.
Our mission is to teach students how to evaluate information and find it effectively, while making it as easy as a Google search.”
The full Spring 2019 issue is available online. Read Now