The Role of a Health Sciences Librarian in Nursing Education in Canada

Abstract

In 1964 Dr. Vern M. Pings, who still continues to conduct well known in-depth studies of libraries in the health field, was requested to investigate the possibility of indexing the periodical literature in nursing. The result was one of the most valuable bibliographic tools we have: the International Nursing Index. In his report to the American Nurses Foundation Pings (1965) said that: This growing body of literature is only one indication of the fact that, during the past 60 years, the nursing profession has been working toward recognition as an academic discipline...although the profession can point to a body of literature identifiable as the scholarly record of nursing, scholarship is not confined to one specialization...the human knowledge with which today's nurse should be acquainted covers everything which may affect the health of any individual, community or nation, (p. 116) This statement still holds true today in Canada, where the nursing profession is working toward an expanding future, increasing control of its destiny, and an intensified understanding of its role in the delivery of health care. The trends, as Mussallem (1973) puts it, are toward broader and deeper clinical knowledge for the nurse in practice, with a return to patient-centered care and increased attention to social issues. With the support of research in the field, Mussallem hopes that the progression of nursing from its primarily private duty role in the 1930s through its primarily institutional role in the 1970s, both essentially illness-oriented, will now move out into the community where illness can be forestalled by appropriate health-oriented interventions.