The importance of the hospital library for nurses' information literacy : A qualitative study from the perspective of librarians and nurses

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the importance of the hospital library for nurses´ information literacy. The hospital library can play a key role for nurses interested in evidence-based approaches to their work. Two main research questions are posed: In what ways does the hospital library work to support nurses´ information literacy? How do nurses view the hospital library as an information resource? To address these questions three hospital librarians and three nurses are interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Christine Bruce’s Seven faces of information literacy were used in the analysis to examine varying experiences of information literacy. The results show that the most important categories relation to information literacy are; information technology, information sources, information process and information control. What seems to be of great significance for the nurses is the possibility to use the hospital librarians as a resource. Their competence is regarded as invaluable and of significant importance to nurses that are library users. Context also seems to be important for information seeking processes. The hospital library seems to be more important for nurses when they are doing research or studying, than in the context of clinical work