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Bulletin of the Medical Library Association logoLink to Bulletin of the Medical Library Association
. 1987 Oct;75(4):366–369.

The library's role in the continuing education of health professionals.

D D Van Vuren 1, R Adelson 1, R Caplan 1
PMCID: PMC227763  PMID: 3450347

Abstract

Health sciences librarians have historically viewed disseminating information to health professionals as a major role. Typically, they have provided individualized services and are among the professions that help health professionals further their education after finishing formal education. Another group directly involved in health professional continuing education is continuing education (CE) providers who offer ongoing learning through group activities. These two professions often reached the same audiences in the past, and their different approaches--individual and group--were complementary. Health professionals who needed information immediately or who wished individual learning used the library while those who wanted to hear eminent colleagues tended to use CE meetings or seminars; some did both. The librarians and CE providers rarely interacted, but this is now changing. With the introduction of personal computers, medical librarians have expanded their responsibilities to include formalized classroom instruction. At the same time, CE providers have increased their scope beyond formalized group instruction into individualized education. Librarians and CE providers can either collaborate and share their expertise or they can compete against each other.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Adelson R., Van Vuren D. D., Hahn J. Integrating library services and continuing education. Mobius. 1984 Oct;4(4):138–144. doi: 10.1002/chp.4760040433. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

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