Meet Latasha: National Medical Librarians Month
Every October we celebrate medical librarians for their invaluable contributions to furthering the work of healthcare providers, researchers, and medical educators. In this fast-paced, quick information, AI world, health science librarians are the best resource for timely, verified health information. In this blog series, we delve into the experiences and insights of some of our outstanding Lane Librarians.
This week we are highlighting Latasha Means, our new Metadata Librarian. Learn more about how Latasha works behind the scenes to make sure everyone in the Stanford Community can discover and access the resources they need!
Learn more about Latasha!
What inspired you to become a medical librarian, and how long have you been in this field?
My love for helping people contributed to my decision to become a librarian. I have been in the library field for over a decade now, but recently, I accepted the incredible opportunity to shift my focus to medical librarianship. It is inspiring to be part of a group professionals who serve our medical and health communities. From the graduate student who needs to brush up on clinical terminology to the Stanford MD who needs resources to better care for a patient, I have a hand in providing these researchers access to the information resources that they need and that brings me joy.
Can you describe a typical day in your role as a medical librarian?
Being a Metadata Librarian is not only rewarding, but it is also especially enjoyable! There is no real typical day in my role as each day can bring a new adventure. There will be some days where I’ll need to organize and delegate data creation or cleanup projects, others where I’ll research and train to use new technology to enhance our data and/or workflows, and many days in between! Although I am mainly “behind the scenes” in the library, the work that I do directly affects our electronic and print resources and helps to provide our researchers with access.
What emerging trends in medical librarianship do you find most exciting or impactful?
Medical librarianship is an exciting career as we serve health leaders and scholars who work on the bleeding edge of innovation in patient care. The emerging trends that I am currently finding the most exciting are those that affect user visibility and access to the library’s electronic and print resources. Specifically, librarians are now engaging in crucial conversations regarding the use of linked data in our information resources. With linked data, librarians could organize and connect data in an alternative way that would connect library users with additional, relevant resources in a single catalog record. As with most emerging technologies, linked data has been in the works in recent years and with more testing, development, and research, has the potential to change how libraries create and display resource metadata as well as how library users search and retrieve resources. It’s all very exiting!
Want to connect with a librarian for help? Find out who your liaison librarian is and how to reach out on our liaison webpage.
