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In 2019, the Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada (CHLA/ABSC) launched the first Leadership Institute for health librarians in Canada. This article provides an overview of how the Leadership Institute was developed and delivered, the content and structure of the Leadership Institute, lessons learned from evaluations of the program, and reflections of participants two years after the program was launched.
Why a Leadership Institute for health librarians?
The need for a Leadership Institute was driven by several factors affecting health science libraries, librarians, and information specialists:
* A rapidly changing health science and health information environment - including advances in artificial intelligence and personalized medicine - necessitating creative vision and energetic engagement of health science librarians and information specialists.
* A leadership gap because of baby-boomer retirements.
* A trend in academic health libraries to fill leadership positions from outside of Canada and rarely by people from visible minorities, as well as a disproportionate number of men in leadership positions despite the preponderance of women in the field.
* Under-resourced hospital libraries providing few leadership growth opportunities for their staff. With the merging of hospitals into larger health networks, librarians struggle to position themselves to be of obvious service in these newly structured organizations. Without adequate leadership to advocate for their important role in evidence-based decision making, library positions may disappear entirely.
* An imperative for health librarians to be leaders in the vanguard of innovation - professionals who are comfortable with and capable of measuring and articulating the value of library services.
These trends also have implications for the longterm viability of professional associations such as CHLA/ABSC.
Planning and designing the Leadership Institute
In the summer of 2017, the Association's Board of Directors formed a Leadership Institute steering committee2. During the following year the steering committee undertook several consultation and planning activities culminating in a formal proposal to the Board.
The steering committee explored programs of other leadership institutes for librarians, including the Canadian Northern Exposure to Leadership Institute and the United States-based Leadership Fellows Program sponsored by the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries and the National Library of Medicine [1]. The committee also informally discussed the idea with a variety of library leaders for input. In addition,...