The Informationist

The Informationist: Ten Years Later

“…They include staffing, funding, and the integration of the informationist into clinical team (5). In the literature, the informationist service is not consistent across all institutions.…”

“…She argues that there are not enough CMLs or informationists to work on every health care team in a hospital setting (14). She also maintains that there is resistance even in the library field, where some are of the opinion that the informationist model is just another term to describe the current job functions of the CML (5,14). Plutchak and Schacher (11,14) discuss funding as a major obstacle in the retraining of librarians into Informationists.…”

“…Cunningham is more optimistic and sees the potential in the role, whereas Kronenfeld is more skeptical. Kronenfeld argues that the informationist concept has not reached beyond the Medical Library Association, the National Institutes of Health, and National Library of Medicine and the role is not concretely defined (5). It has been argued that the informationist will have different roles across different work settings.…”

“…It has been argued that the informationist will have different roles across different work settings. Cunningham argues that this "fuzziness" gives the profession its strength (5).…”

“…After Davidoff and Florance's short editorial piece in 2000, some responded in defense of librarianship (5,6). Kronenfeld argued that CMLs were already performing the duties outlined in their proposal.…”