july08b.indd


the way I see it 
Mary Francis 

The issues facing librarians 
and physicians 
Facilitating quality research in the Internet age 

Recently while listening to Talk of the Na­tion on National Public Radio,1 I heard 
a doctor comment on how his patients were 
turning to the Internet to conduct research 
on their health. My thought, “Welcome to 
my world.” As a reference and instruction 
librarian, I have continually been faced with 
students who use the Internet as the end all 
and be all of their research. I spend time 
during each instructional session I teach 
to note how the Internet will not provide 
the same quality material as that found 
within the academic journals indexed in the 
library’s databases. Physicians face a similar 
problem when patients fi nd poor­quality 
health information online. The American 
Medical Association in 2000 went so far as 
to send out a press release asking patients 
to make a New Year’s resolution not to go 
online.2 This call, like the desire of many 
librarians for an Internet ban on research, 
went unheeded. 

It is not surprising that both students 
and patients are turning to the Internet for 
their needs. Try as we may to offer quality 
services to our patrons, it remains practically 
impossible to offer the 24/7 service available 
from the Internet. To those librarians who 
still hold out against the evil of Google, I 
send out a call to accept the inevitability of 
the Internet as many physicians have done. 
In a shift from the 2000 call, a 2005 study by 
the National Cancer Institute noted that most 
physicians want to hear about the research 
their patients have done online.3 This is not 
to say that we must give up our patrons to 
the Internet, but rather, we must accept their 
use of online sources and incorporate it into 

our interactions with them. 
In the interview, Ted Eytan notes that a 

good doctor will embrace the information 
brought in by the patient as a starting point.4 

Likewise, librarians cannot simply scorn the 
student who comes to them with a Wikipedia 
article. Rather, we must take the information 
from that article and use it with the student in 
a productive way. We must give credit to the 
student for starting the search within their 
own knowledgebase, but then it is up to us 
to help extend that knowledge of where to 
search. Does the bibliography give us new 
places to find information? Does the content 
provide unique keywords to be applied in 
our searches? 

Physicians will encounter patients coming 
to them declaring they need a prescription 
for drug X or claiming they have disease Y. 
Librarians also face this situation when a stu­
dent asks for a specific journal or book on a 
particular topic. At this point, both librarians 
and physicians must step back from giving 
out the journal or prescription and conduct 
a reference interview in order to ask why. 
Both groups must have a complete picture 
of the problem before they can offer advice. 
Will it really help the student to know that 
the back issues of Southern Literary Journal 
are bound in the stacks, when their paper is 
concerned with how slave narratives gave a 
voice to early African Americans? Librarians 
cannot simply give out location information 
and hope the students fi nd what they need, 

Mary Francis is reference/instruction librarian at Dakota 
State University, e-mail: mary.francis@dsu.edu 
© 2008 Mary Francis 

C&RL News July/August 2008  402 

mailto:mary.francis@dsu.edu


just as physicians cannot give out a prescrip­
tion and hope it makes the patient better. 
Both groups must apply their expertise to the 
given situation in order to determine what 
will be the best material/diagnosis. 

The Internet with its good sites and bad 
sites, has forced librarians and physicians to 
go beyond their comfort zones and to in­
novate. The breath and reach of our services 
can now extend far beyond the library or 
hospital. We are no longer the simple pro­
viders of information, but we are needed to 
help interpret that information. Evaluation 
and critical thinking skills have become vital 
components in choosing information. This is 
seen throughout the library and referenced 
by Susannah Fox, associate director at the 
Pew Internet and American Life Project, who 
notes that three fourths of individuals do not 
check the source or date when looking at 
health information online.5 

To combat this, one caller on the Talk 
of the Nation show made the suggestion 
that doctors provide their patients with a 

list of Web sites they would recommend as 
containing quality material. Fortunately, this 
list has already been compiled by the Medi­
cal Library Association.6 With the Internet 
continuing to impact the daily workings of 
librarians and physicians, it is up to both 
groups to rise to the challenge and show 
that they truly are professionals. 

Notes
1. Neal Conan, “Do­It­Yourself Diagnosis 

on the Web,” Talk of the Nation, December 
13, 2007, www.npr.org/templates/story/story. 
php?storyId=17214066. 

2. Joseph Shapiro, “Patients Turn to the 
Internet for Health Information,” Morning 
Edition, October 11 2007, www.npr.org 
/templates/story/storyphp?storyId=15166387>. 

3. Ibid. 
4. Conan, Talk of the Nation. 
5. Ibid. 
6. MLA User’s Guide to Health Infor­

mation, see www.mlanet.org/resources 
/userguide.html. 

July/August 2008  403 C&RL News 

www.mlanet.org/resources
http:www.npr.org
www.npr.org/templates/story/story