intersections in healing: academic libraries and the health humanities

Healthcare professionals and health science librarians need to know more than research practices and clinical knowledge to become transformational individuals and leaders in their field. Empathy and compassion; appreciation for the various social and cultural contexts of health, care, and illness; and utilizing the contributions the arts, humanities, and humanistic social sciences can add depth and dimension to their work. While librarians are not usually the healthcare professionals themselves, they serve an important role in the development of healthcare professionals through their work in educational and/or healthcare settings, helping train others in the goals of the curriculum and in lifelong learning-related habits of mind. This book offers librarians an opportunity to learn about and develop approaches to the health humanities, for their benefit and the benefit of their constituents and stakeholders, as well as for impacting the future health care professionals of our global community.

In addition to foundational contents on the history of the health humanities, this book approaches the health humanities from a wealth of angles including archives and special collections, collection development, privacy, biases, empathy, skills development through writing and programming engagement, and through consideration of special populations and more. Beyond essential health humanities grounding and topical perspectives, this book shares valuable pedagogical and instructional approaches and outreach strategies for bringing librarians into conversation with campus departments, curricular pathways, instructors’ goals, and learners’ needs. These modifiable, adaptable techniques will allow readers to develop the confidence and tools they need to bring the health humanities to their institutions, and will help the perspectives and skillsets of the health humanities flourish among the next generation of health care professionals.

Laureen P. Cantwell earned her MSLIS with a specialization in Academic Librarianship from Drexel University in 2011 after having spent several years in the field of non-profit fundraising (including a stint at Carnegie Hall). While attending Drexel she interned at the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library of the University of Pennsylvania, directed a toybrary, marketed cheese, conducted research for Rolex, and held several other exciting part-time jobs. She is currently Head of Access Services & Outreach at Colorado Mesa University (Grand Junction, CO); previously, she worked at the University Libraries of the University of Memphis (Instructional Services Librarian) and Grinnell College Libraries (Research and Instruction librarian). Fall 2020, Laureen began working toward a PhD in Information Science through the University at Buffalo (advisor: Dr. Amy Van Scoy), where she plans to focus her dissertation research on the information-seeking behaviors of undergraduate nursing students, in particular as they intersect with uncertainty tolerance and curiosity. Her interests in the health humanities, as a librarian, tend toward arts and music; literature and creative writing (her baccalaureate background); cultural competence, humility, and diversity; graphic medicine; community and public health; bioethics; and instructional activities. (That said, her role as editor of the book would involve ensuring a wide coverage of health humanities settings, topics, and engagement strategies geared toward librarians.)

Laureen’s areas of research and publication include librarian engagement with institutional review boards, information literacy and nursing, librarian outreach to STEM students and disciplines, MOOCs and librarianship, embedded librarianship, digital badging in higher ed, and librarians working with entrepreneurship programs. She is also co-chair of the ACRL HSIG subcommittee revising the IL Standards for Nursing to align with the Framework, which has led to several publications (see Cantwell et al., 2021, and McGowan et al., 2020), one of which won the 2021 Ida and George Eliot Prize from the Medical Library Association for works published in the preceding year judged most effective in furthering medical librarianship.

Laureen has served in the role of book editor before as well, most recently with Susan M. Harnett for a title in MLA’s book series, entitled Finding Your Seat at the Table: Roles for Librarians on Institutional Regulatory Boards and Committees (anticipated Feb. 2022).