Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

Adjunct faculty instructor on the Medical Student 1st year Foundations course.

Deliver instruction and orientation programs to GWU students on Himmelfarb Library electronic resources.

Populate the faculty publications database.

Library liaison to the Departments of Emergency Medicine, and Health Policy.

Perform literature searches for faculty systematic reviews & student assignments.

1 hour per day on the library reference desk.

A typical day might see me arrive 8:30am to attend a two hour tutorial with 1st year medical students.

Following lunch I will spend an hour on the library reference desk. I will moderate the student listservs.

I will have a consultation at my desk with a faculty or student about their literature search. I will attend a meeting with librarian colleagues - could be about collections management, scheduling instruction sessions, or writing a library guide.

I leave at 5:00pm.

I enjoy teaching students and faculty how to search the medical literature effectively, and how to save time, by using databases, tools such as RefWorks & LibGuides.

Technology limitations are a challenge, primarily access to subscription databases and ebooks. Also the students are focused on their medical and scientific studies and sometimes find it difficult to juggle librarian-set assignments with studying for exams.

My job is in my chosen career. Before emigrating to the US in '05, I worked for two years at two London hospital libraries teaching nurses how to search the medical literature using the resources in the online NHS Library.

I enjoyed learning about health sciences librarianship at Sheffield University. I entered the medical library field while working as a library assistant for Imperial College London libraries who are contracted to provide library services at several London hospitals.

Every day I put into practice the database search skills I learned at Sheffield and my subsequent career in medical libraries.

Programming languages particularly R and RegExpressions would be useful for analyzing data sets and creating data visualizations however this was not on offer at the time I was studying at Sheffield.

Teaching is a big part of my job and I use adult learning principles to design how I will teach orientations and instruction sessions.

Masters degree in Education.

National Maritime Museum Library (6 months) library assistant.

Imperial College London Library including 1 year at the Hammersmith and Charing Cross Hospital Libraries (18 months).

George Washington University Masters in Education (2010-2013).

Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library (2006 to present).

I see myself staying at Himmelfarb Library for the foreseeable future. I present occasional posters at local chapter meetings of the Medical Library Association.

It is unlikely you will be regarded as qualified to take an assistant librarian job right out of library school. I spent 6 months interviewing at that level to be told repeatedly I did not have the experience.

I took a library assistant job in London, although it was not until I worked in the two hospital libraries that I continued my professional development.

Imperial College London sponsored my attendance at 1 year of CILIP pre-chartership training which was useful education.

I thought the Sheffield Masters was a good program, and the influence of the health sciences librarianship class run by Dr Peter Bath who brought in visiting speakers such as Dr Andrew Booth, really opened my eyes to a potential career in academic health libraries.

Helen  MSc Information Management (2001)
Associate University Librarian  (Information technology and communications)

Accepts questions from students about their career

Chaminda  MSc Information Management (2002)
University Librarian  (Education)

Accepts questions from students about their career