Building the KMMS Library – my first weeks

As a health and medical librarian, the opportunity to build a new medical library doesn’t come up that often, and I consider myself very lucky that I was offered the position of the librarian for the new Kent and Medway Medical School (KMMS) this summer.

Of course, this will not be a completely new library. KMMS is a joint venture between the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University, and so is the new library. It will build on the physical buildings, learning spaces, resources and front line services of both libraries and it will not be possible to run this library without the help and support of colleagues from both universities. In addition, the NHS libraries at Kent and Medway will also play an important role in providing library services to KMMS students, particularly, when they will start hospital placements in year 3. Finally, students can also use the Drill Hall Library at Medway when they are on placement in this area.

This set up makes it essential for the KMMS librarian to understand how these libraries work and to establish good working relationships with colleagues on all of these different sites. I started this job on the 1st October and a main part of my work so far was to build these collaborations. I have worked as a Health Librarian at Christ Church University for five years, so I know this library very well. Therefore, I focused on the other libraries.  On my first day at Kent, I got a very helpful overview from my line manager and the faculty librarian for research support and sciences and over the following weeks I started to meet a lot of colleagues to better understand what they are doing and how this is related to the new KMMS library.

At the moment, the development of the KMMS Library is mainly driven by a joint project group chaired by Kent’s Assistant Director for Library Collections and Christ Church’s Director of Library and Learning Resources.  In this group, we try to look at all the main areas essential for the new library and I think we made very good progress over the last months. We have a governance structure, a budget and we can start to order books and journals. Last week we decided to initiate a project to create a KMMS Library Search that will allow KMMS students and staff to search resources at both universities using one single interface and we also agreed on a reading list software.  In addition, there is a very productive discussion between front line services from each library on how to support KMMS students.

Nevertheless, a main part of my work happens within KMMS. From the beginning, the concept was that I will be embedded in KMMS, that I will be part of the professional services team and will liaise with KMMS academics to build the library services. I have a desk at the KMMS office in Augustine House and I spend most of the time there, working with our school manager,  learning technologist,  IT business analyst, project manager and other members of the professional services team.

I consider developing students’ digital capabilities and their research skills as one of my main responsibilities. The academic team is very supportive and open to embed these skills into the curriculum.  I work closely with the programme director and the academic lead for scholarship in order to make sure that students develop them at the point of need and when they are relevant in their programme.

The next months will be very busy because we have to set up the main library systems until March 2020 and integrate them into the new Virtual Learning Environment. We will start ordering books, journals and other learning resources for all the first year modules. We also have to make sure that the library is part of students’ induction and work with the module teams to embed information and digital literacy into their courses.

I definitely enjoyed my first weeks working for KMMS. I like being part of the larger team that builds this new medical school and I enjoy working with colleagues across campuses to build the KMMS library. Their interest and support are highly motivating and I am looking forward to work with all of them in order to make sure that the library is ready for the first students coming in September 2020.

Manfred Gschwandtner
KMMS Librarian
Email: manfred.gschwandtner@kmms.ac.uk

About me

A long time ago, I started to work in health and medical libraries. First in Vienna, where I worked for fifteen years as a medical librarian at the Society of Physicians in Vienna,  a very old and traditional society with a beautiful building in the heart of the city. Then, about five years ago, I moved to the UK and started working as a Health Librarian for the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing at Canterbury Christ Church University, mainly providing information and digital skills support for students and staff and supporting research in the Faculty. In 2017, I finished my Masters in Library and Information Services Management at the University of Sheffield and I became a fellow of the Higher Education Academy this year.

As a medical librarian, my main interests are to provide students and staff with resources that reflect their learning, teaching and research needs,  to develop students digital capabilities and to support student and staff in their research projects. I also regularly submit papers to national and international conferences and develop my research around digital capabilities.   

Conference activities

• The support of digital capabilities by different stakeholders in a Health Faculty​: a qualitative case study. Digifest 2018. 7 March 2018  
• Reviewing the role of academic librarians in supporting student”s digital capabilities: a qualitative case study. Manfred Gschwandter & Pam McKinney. LILAC Conference. Wednesday 4th April 2018.
  
• Am I a Teacher? ​Teaching Qualifications for Librarians. RCOT Seminar for HEI Librarians and Information Professionals: ‘Working Together to Support OT Students and Each Other’. Thursday 5 July 2018. Royal College of Occupational Therapists, London
  
• Reviewing the role of librarians in supporting student’s digital capabilities. UHMLG Spring Forum. Royal Society of Medicine. Friday 8th March 2019. 

Papers

• Irons  JY, Coren  E, Young  MK, Stewart  DE, Gschwandtner  M, Mellick  GD (2019) ‘Singing for people with Parkinson’s disease’ Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2019, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD013279. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD013279. 
  https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013279/full?highlightAbstract=withdrawn%7Cparkinson%7Csing%7Csinging
• Coren E, Ramsbotham K, Gschwandtner M. (2018) ’Parent training interventions for parents with intellectual disability’,
  Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 7
  http://cochranelibrary-wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD007987.pub3/abstract 
• Gschwandtner, M. (2016) ‘Use of webinars for information skills training Evaluation of a one-year project at Canterbury Christ Church University’,
  SCONUL Focus, 66, pp. 56-61
  https://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/13_18.pdf 
• Kritz, M., Gschwandtner, M., Stefanov, V., Hanbury, A. and Samwald, M. (2013)
  ’Utilization and perceived problems of online medical resources and search tools among different groups of European physicians’,
  Journal of Medical Internet Research, 15(6).
  https://www.jmir.org/2013/6/e122/