Meeting with Jan/Janene

Today I met with Jan. Jan in high school wanted to be a librarian and went to schools that had librarian schools. So, she received her MLS from the University of Rhode Island. Jan is now the Education Services Librarian. She organizes classes. There are three kinds of classes. One is the drop in type, which is free of charge and is scheduled monthly. Another type of class is a requested class, which is when faculty or maybe a residency program decides residents need to be taught a specific thing. The third is integrated into the curriculum. Jan teaches a lot and schedules education classes for people. She has had her current position since 1988. Jan also works with teams that are doing systematic reviews. Systematic reviews are basically a study of studies. Jan helps the team find every study that exists on a topic, which could take ten to twelve hours; its a long process. The team is trying to answer a question by looking at the literature systematically. It tends to be better to pool information and study it. There was a case where a study was done over and over again, when really if the studies had been pooled the answer would have been found after the first four studies. Since the information was not pooled and studied, a lot of unnecessary money was spent doing the experiment over and over again.

A typical day for Jan includes troubleshooting, answering emails, meetings, teaching/preparing for classes, and working on projects. One of the most challenging parts of her job is the constant change in technology. Another would be the constant need to learn new things. The easiest aspect of her job is knowing her environment and the people around her. Jan's memorable professional experiences include a conference in Beijing and another conference in Australia. Jan reviewed with me the Basic Steps for an Information Quest and How to Search, as well. I realized that I tend to skip steps when searching for information.


After I met with Jan, I met with Janene. Janene is originally from Australia. She attended the Australia Sturt College of Advanced Education. Also, Janene received her MLS from Southern Connecticut State University. Janene is the liaison to the nurses. She teaches nurses, helps students with research, questions, and reference. Janene has had her position for five years now. A typical day is usually busy for Janene. She has to respond to emails, work on projects, prepare for classes, go to meetings, and look at her calendar. The most challenging thing about Janene's job is doing everything effectively. The easiest aspect of her job is receiving questions from students that she previously answered and questions with quick answers. In the future Janene will most likely be in the same profession, except she wants to be so good at her job that when people think nursing librarian they think Janene.