In today’s healthcare there is a strong focus on evidence-based scientific information. The evidence-based movement states that healthcare should be based on scientific research. Hospital librarians have a role as key actors when it comes to facilitating information seeking and use of scientific evidence within healthcare (Chaturvedi, 2017; Egeland, 2015). In recent years, with demands for evidence-based practice, the main role of hospital libraries has gradually shifted from serving patients with literature to becoming medical libraries for healthcare professionals. This change has transformed the role of hospital librarians into specialists focused on clinical librarianship and research support. This paper is part of a research project started in 2020 on information practices of hospital librarians, with previous studies focusing on information work of hospital librarians (Hanell & Ahlryd, 2023) and documentary practices in evidence-based medicine (Ahlryd & Hanell, 2021). The often invisible information practices of hospital librarians can be visualized through the application of the concept of information work (Hanell & Ahlryd, 2023). Lloyd (2013) frames information literacy practices, such as facilitating access to information, as critical for solving workplace problems and consequently as a critical practice of information work. For healthcare professionals there is a need for specialized information literacy. Previous research shows how information practices in healthcare connect to both a science-oriented medical discourse and a holistically oriented nursing discourse (Johannisson & Sundin, 2007), and that information literacy practices of hospital librarians need to balance between an understanding of information literacy as either generic or embedded (Sundin, Limberg & Lundh, 2008). Against this background, this paper investigates the information literacy enacted and developed by hospital librarians as they work to support evidence-based practice. The main research question guiding this investigation is: what is the nature of information literacy practices constructed, negotiated, and enacted by hospital librarians as part of their information work? This study is informed by a practice-oriented perspective framing information literacy as a situated practice (e.g. Lloyd, 2013) and includes 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with hospital librarians and hospital library managers between 2020 and 2022. The analysis shows how information literacy practices of hospital librarians are situated within a multi-polar discursive field and characterized by three main hospital library practices: clinical practices, information seeking practices, and a health technology assessment practice (cf. Hanell & Ahlryd, 2023). Within the healthcare sector, hospital librarians need to navigate between generic and situated views on information literacy as well as epistemologically conflicting understandings concerning the nature of scientific evidence. The different views on information literacy make it possible to discuss different epistemological approaches within healthcare and how hospital librarians respond to these. With the growing importance of evidence-based medicine, we find that information literacy practices of hospital librarians tend to be positioned and shaped by a science-oriented epistemology. Drawing on this analysis, possible future directions for information literacy practices within hospital librarianship are elaborated.
References
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Sara Ahlryd, Fredrik Hanell
Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden
English 
French