I started working in NHS libraries in 1997 as a volunteer at The Christie Hospital library following a placement from Manchester Metropolitan University.  What inspired me to volunteer at The Christie was a talk given to students about a typical day in an NHS library by Nigel Rainford, a “Systems Librarian” who did searches for medical and nursing staff.  Nigel eventually moved on to public libraries and I was fortunate to get the chance to be the full time Systems Librarian at The Christie in February 1999.  A lot has changed since then.…

Read this article

A personal view of the development of health libraries over the last twenty years? As it happens, I joined the NHS in spring 2000, so the development of health libraries and my career have travelled in parallel. Let me say now, I came into health libraries by accident; only moving across from business support because the DTI decided to close the Business Link network, and I needed a job. What that meant was that I came in as an experienced manager, but with no knowledge of or experience in health, and equally no baggage or preconceptions.…

Read this article

I was invited to write about the development of health librarianship over the last 20 years from a national perspective. Handily, by June this year, I'll have been working in health libraries for 20 years, with 17 of those in a national organisation - it's like it's fate, or something!…

Read this article

There are some moments in your life that are incredibly important but at the time feel like they are going to be incredibly trivial. Naturally as this is the David issue of Northern Lights I’m going to share one that involves him and probably one which he has absolutely no memory of.…

Read this article

You are the same, the role is different. Times too Stepping up to management is always a challenge, but especially during COVID-19. I was appointed Library Manager at Bradford District Care NHS FT in June 2020. This is my personal experience transitioning from librarian to manager. There are two elements that helped me navigate this new role.…

Read this article

Staffing changes: In the summer, Library Technician Sylvie Seton left the trust. The decision was made to appoint an Assistant Librarian role instead of a Library Technician role and Jessica Waite joined the library service in October.…

Read this article

Feb 2020 – LKS strategy 2020-2025 accepted by Workforce Assurance Committee on behalf of the Trust…

Read this article

As we have all learnt to do things in different ways due to the pandemic, we’re increasingly using platforms such as MS Teams to deliver training. Back in September 2020, Heather Steele organised a session in Leeds (for NHS and Public Health Resource Centre librarians) to share our learning of delivering training virtually. We all had different ranges of experiences (some good, some not so good), and we just wanted to learn together.…

Read this article

My name is Linda Kalinda, and I'm an enthusiastic believer in improving the world through Knowledge, and hold closely the notion of continual learning throughout life. Inherently underpinning these beliefs is the concept of knowledge sharing which I fully endorse and hope to achieve through our networks.…

Read this article

This was the year that LKS ASE became “normal” having been delivered virtually by staff working from home since 2012. Not surprisingly we haven’t needed to make too many changes to adapt to COVID19. It was business as usual. However, we did contribute some work to the LKS North Blog to share some of the LKS ASE experience. We also produced a guide to COVID19 resources and each month we send out a COVID19 Special Issue of our Current Awareness Service.…

Read this article