Merging silos: collaborating for information literacy.

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Information Science
• Interprofessional Collaboration

Background:

• Interdisciplinary collaboration offers significant teaching and learning advantages.
• Effective collaboration requires understanding and addressing potential challenges.
• Previous work has not fully explored librarian-nursing educator partnerships in practice-based education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the collaborative process between nurse educators and health sciences librarians.
• To identify challenges and strategies for developing interprofessional learning products.
• To create workshops for community-practicing nurses.

Main Methods:

• Nurse educators and health sciences librarians co-developed educational workshops.
• The process involved identifying core content, contextualizing learning with practice examples, and structuring content delivery.
• Discipline-specific content and presentation styles were analyzed.

Main Results:

• Collaboration revealed distinct disciplinary approaches to content and presentation.
• Strategies for effective integration included streamlining content, using practice-based examples, and alternating responsibilities.
• Successful knowledge transfer required negotiation of teaching goals and understanding of disciplinary 'silos'.

Conclusions:

• Effective interprofessional collaboration in education requires explicit negotiation of goals and methods.
• Understanding and bridging disciplinary differences is crucial for developing impactful learning resources.
• This partnership model can be adapted for other health professions education initiatives.