Serviço de referência na área da saúde em contexto universitário: o papel de mediador do bibliotecário de referência

The Academic library plays an important role within the organisational mission of the university, since it helps in the development of its inner values and contributes to the achievement of the pedagogical and scientific plans. In the above context the reference librarianship is no longer an information provider, he becomes an assertive and pro-active part of scientific knowledge growth. In this dissertation, the intention is to examine and evaluate the intermediary role played by the health area reference librarianship. This evaluation will be done under an academic and medical perspective. The reference librarianship should have the users‟ needs at the centre of his role. He should always use the information and communication technologies available; however, the ethical part of the process cannot be forgotten. In this dissertation, the study approach used was similar to the one usually used on case studies. Our case study basis is the 250 health area teachers of Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde de Lisboa. The inquiry was the method used in order to obtain the data for this research. Our case study conclusions may give some idea about the new profile of the reference librarianship of the academic context within the health area, which are as follows: 1) the reference librarianship has to co-operate with the students and teachers in the classes, in other words, they have to start working in the field instead of being „closed‟ in the academic library; 2) within the library, the reference librarianship should support the increase of information consultancy; the librarian should have the capacity to use his skills in order to help the user; 3) the user would prefer the librarian to assist/guide in the research process rather than using the librarian‟s skills to provide the research material; 4) the user should be aware that a fee may be payable if he requires an urgent and quality research service which is/can be provided by a skilled professional (reference librarianship); 5) the reference librarianship can be helpful in the field, when working with a health care team (hospital) based on their access and capacity to have the latest news on health research discoveries and being able to resolve medical doubts due to their capacity to deal with problem-based learning