#blogjune Day 11: I’m often asked, ‘how do I become an evidence-based professional?’ and ‘how do I know I’m being evidence-based?’ Here are the first of my top tips for getting started with evidence-based library and information practice.
Transcript
G’day, and thanks for joining me in this chat about evidence-based library and information practice. As you can see I’m in my ‘Mummy uniform’ today and what I’d like to talk about is becoming evidence-based.
Where to start being evidence-based?
I often get asked, how do I get started? How do I know I’m being evidence-based? Or, how do I become an evidence-based professional? At first evidence-based practice might be a conscious or an unconscious thing that happens in your professional practice. I know when I first heard of the concept it gave a label to how I was already conducting myself as a professional. And so by becoming aware of, or increasingly aware of my evidence-based practice I could then start to hone my skills and knowledge.
My top tip here is to start where you are. What I mean by this is to begin to notice – what evidence do you encounter in your professional practice or service? Notice what evidence is being used to inform practice and service. Notice how decisions are being made and the evidence that is used to make decisions.
Prioritise EBP thinking
The other part to this as well is to prioritise this conscious thinking – thinking about and reflecting upon professional practice and services. If it’s not a priority it doesn’t happen. I know that as a Mum, it’s a sure-fire way to work out what your priorities are and how you spend your time definitely. If it doesn’t become a priority there is no way for EBP to advance or improve.
So when you’re noticing in, within your workplace, within your local context, noticing evidence and how it’s being used in professional practice and services, you could note this down in a little notebook or journal. You could have a conversation with your colleagues, and that sort of gets the thinking going. It gets the critical thinking happening with the questions that might arise out of that noticing, in that reflection.
In the next video I’m going to talk about another aspect of getting started as an evidence-based library and information professional. So until then, take care.
Questions?
If you have any questions at all about EBLIP, do get in touch. I’ll try to address them in this video series (or a future blog post).
You can also view Day 11 (Becoming Evidence-Based Part 1) video here.
Catch up on all the videos here.
