Introduction

The learning outcomes in this chapter include a greater understanding of advocacy as a skill that all knowledge and library staff should utilise to promote and develop their service; the importance of identifying key stakeholders and understanding their needs; and how advocacy skills can be nurtured in knowledge and library specialists.

This chapter will explore the importance of advocacy for knowledge and library staff working in healthcare and how health knowledge and library specialists can use their advocacy skills to tailor services for stakeholders. In healthcare knowledge and library services, the need to advocate for services, skills and space is linked to the large, changeable organisations and workforces they serve.

Most knowledge and library specialists working in a health service will have had to defend their service at some point in their career. This may have been in relation to the need for physical or electronic stock, for an appropriate budget, a suitable space and, in some extreme examples, the existence of the entire service. However, the advocacy undertaken in health knowledge and library services also incorporates an element of selling and promotion and many knowledge and library specialists will have developed an internal script they use to sell their services – for example, by showcasing the electronic resources that will benefit the particular person they are speaking to. It is a skill to know what you can use to tempt a new service user, for example, timely current awareness bulletins, time-saving searches or help with a journal club. There is an element of intuitiveness in understanding your service users’ needs, but work should also be undertaken to map your service users and their potential needs for more effective promotion and for service development. Often, the advocacy and promotional activities undertaken lead to the enhancement of essential library services for healthcare staff.

The case studies throughout this chapter will showcase how different knowledge and library services in England have been able to advocate elements of their provision to new groups and then tailor their services to them. A number of themes emerge showing that advocacy in the right situations and circumstances can lead to successful projects and engagement from wider groups. Almost all case studies show that one project will often snowball and lead to further engagement with new service users.