The Magnet journey: Opportunities for librarians to partner with nurses

Abstract

Librarians in hospitals seeking Magnet nursing status find that their roles and the services of the library grow and change as the organization evolves. While librarians have long functioned as content providers and as educators in their hospitals, new opportunities are provided in a Magnet hospital for consulting to researchers and becoming collaborative interdisciplinary task force members and assisting in the administrative changes that Magnet hospitals undergo. These opportunities can foster recognition of the importance of librarians and libraries, opportunities for additional library services, and new respect for librarians' roles on the health care team. While it may be possible to achieve Magnet status without a librarian, it will be extremely difficult to achieve redesignation without the services of a qualified health sciences librarian and access to resources and published literature. Numerous initiatives by MLA, NAHRS, HLS, and individual librarians have been undertaken to collaborate with ANA and the ANCC Magnet Program and support librarians serving nursing, and information about them is available for review on the respective websites as noted in Table 1. These groups should also continue to work with the Interagency Council on Information Resources in Nursing (ICIRN) [25] to identify key resources for the nursing profession, as well as ways librarians can work with nurses to improve access to published research and support EBNP.