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The purpose of this paper is to report on the development of a flexible and robust academic library structure that meets the demands of an ever changing user community and remains relevant and fit for purpose in a technology-driven age. The new structure makes provision for the delivery of new and innovative services responding to the need for a paradigm shift in twenty-first century academic librarianship. The move away from subject librarianship, which has been the bastion of South African academic librarianship, is significant.

This paper used the exploratory method to gain new insights into library structures that have restructured for the twenty-first century. The exploratory study was used to gain new insights into functional librarianship. Despite the short comings of the exploratory method, the method was deemed most appropriate as UCT Libraries was not seeking definitive answers but a process that would provide opportunities to explore possibilities for subsequent processes.

The move from subject librarianship to functional librarianship has given the library the opportunity to restructure. The restructured library can now offer new and/or radically expanded services to meet the demands of a twenty-first century academic library.

The development of new and future roles and responsibilities commensurate with a robust and “future-driven” structure will consolidate the library’s role as a collaborator in the teaching and learning, and research agendas of a higher education institution.

This paper will be of interest and value to library managers and staff wanting to develop a library structure that responds positively to the redefinition of the professional roles and functions of the library and to strategically position the academic library for the future. It will also be of interest to library and information science academics who may want to re-examine their curricula for the incorporation of new trends.

Describes evaluation of the LISCE (Library and Information Support for Clinical Effectiveness) project, at University College London Hospital Trust (2000‐2003). The evaluation used an action research framework as the researcher was also the clinical librarian in two clinical teams. Methods included a reflective practice diary kept by the researcher, questionnaires to all 104 staff in the two departments involved, interviews with ten staff. Findings indicated that the concept of clinical librarianship was accepted by most staff, but team working routines, e.g. for clinical guideline development, took some time to establish. Clinical librarians may need a different set of skills from other health librarians.

This chapter reviews significant advances in health sciences librarianship, highlighting developments between 1970 and 2005. During this time Advances in Librarianship published two chapters that dealt with health sciences librarianship. The first appeared in 1971 with volume two. Written by David Bishop (1971), then at the University of Arizona, it focused on developments in the 1960s and provided a review of the MEDLARS (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System) system, the beginnings of the regional medical library (RML) program and advances in library services and information resources. The second chapter devoted to health sciences libraries appeared in the ninth volume of Advances in Librarianship. In it Donald Hendricks (1979) from the University of New Orleans highlighted collaborative programs among health sciences libraries, the growing reliance on computer applications, professional development programs, clinical medical librarian services and the accomplishments of the Medical Library Association (MLA).

Attempting to incorporate research into decision making raises several questions about the research that currently exists in librarianship, areas that are most in need of research, obstacles to conducting research, and possible solutions for nurturing a professional environment in which conducting and using research becomes an accepted and expected part of our practice. This article attempts to answer some of those questions.

A general overview of the research base in librarianship is given. Compilation of content analyses and systematic reviews present an argument relating to the need of further research in librarianship. Further examination of potential research questions is conducted, and potential obstacles and solutions to research barriers are presented.

There is still a need to establish a solid evidence base within our profession. With support from all sectors of librarianship, progress can be made.

This paper points out gaps in our research knowledge, and areas that need to be explored via research in library and information studies. It is hoped that this paper will encourage librarians to think about how they can incorporate research into their daily practice.

Area Health Education Center (AHEC) librarians are first, and foremost, outreach librarians. Improving health care and the distribution of health‐care professionals in rural and under‐served areas is the origin of the AHEC program. AHEC librarians play an important role in clinical education and patient care. Their role has characteristics of both academic medical center and hospital librarians. Their primary clientele are clinicians and administrators who have patient care, professional development, or educational needs for information access. In addition, they provide curricular support to the clinical education of undergraduate and graduate health sciences faculty and students. AHEC librarians provide reference service, interlibrary loan, collection management, and perform many administrative tasks for the AHEC. Three areas of librarian expertise are particularly important. clinical reference, educational support, and outreach services.

The importance of “information literacy” in the education of nursing students continues to increase. In response, partnerships between nursing faculty and librarians are developing. The shortage of nurses and the rapid changes in information technology have created opportunities for librarians to educate nursing faculty and students about locating information, evaluating resources, and managing information. The type of instruction and support needed varies, depending on the level of the nursing student. Become a partner with the nursing faculty by attending meetings, having an office in the college of nursing, participating in social networking, and exploring ways in which a librarian can provide assistance. These partnerships provide benefits to nursing programs, nursing faculty and librarians.

Clinical medical librarians stepped out of the library and joined the patient care team in the early 1970s, beginning in Kansas City, Missouri and then Hartford, Connecticut. Now they are present to report the literature, take literature search requests and, most importantly, perceive information needs at Morning Report, bedside rounds, or weekly conferences. Within 24 hours or less, they return to the patient care team with literature to aid in patient planning. Clinical medical librarians also teach online searching in an evidence‐based way and help patient care team members with other research needs. In 2000, the concept of the informationist was introduced. It can begin with clinical medical librarianship and expand to this information specialist in context, being based and salaried in a clinical setting, having information‐seeking skills, knowledge of informatics and the clinical subject area. Both the clinical medical librarian and the clinical informationist contribute to better patient care, medical education and clinical research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

Introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2013.

Provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

As the concept of “embedded librarianship” is gaining acceptance globally, and a surplus amount of literature is available for the aspiring practitioners, it would be supplementary to carry out such a literature review and bring alike and crucial works together within one piece of writing. This paper aims to gather realistic instances in LIS literature, where embedded librarianship has been practiced successfully.

While the focus of this review paper is on embedded librarians in curricular contexts, the phrase embedded librarian has a variety of meanings, including librarian involvement and integration at the macro levels such as college, department, programme, research team and micro levels such as course designing, semester assignments and competitive preparation etc. List of relevant literatures was collected from Scopus and LISTA database. Later, full text of the listed document was retrieved from different sources. But the literature that included practical role of an embedded librarian was prioritised and the one which incorporated proposed theories was excluded, and hence, 67 of them were found to be fitted for reviewing purpose in the current case.

While planning for any extensional service besides the usual housekeeping ones, a vigorous transformation in the attitude has to be engulfed. Though the conception of embedded librarianship as a whole is an extended version of service deliverance, it can be alienated into sections according to the contextual outline and areas of embedding such as in the research context, pedagogical participation and offering information literacy.

This paper provides a panoramic view on the emerging notion of this extended version of librarianship. By successfully practicing the embedded librarianship model, the user group would be benefited and the professionals could justify the ethics of their professionalism. Embedded librarianship in the university context can be a very important endeavour for the future challenges. The proactive initiatives of the librarian along with a handy support from authorities might ensure continuous and effective partnerships.

This paper is expected to be one of the initial and review articles in the area of embedded librarianship in academics. It is a highly informative paper on embedded librarianship and will be most useful for researchers to refer this paper for individual study and also will promote the academic librarians for taking initiative to work as effective embedded librarians.