摘要：Objective: The research explored the roles of practicing clinical librarians embedded in a patient care team. Methods: Six clinical librarians from Canada and one from the United States were interviewed to elicit detailed descriptions of their clinical roles and responsibilities and the context in which these were performed. Results: Participants were embedded in a wide range of clinical service areas, working with a diverse complement of health professionals. As clinical librarians, participants wore many hats, including expert searcher, teacher, content manager, and patient advocate. Unique aspects of how these roles played out included a sense of urgency surrounding searching activities, the broad dissemination of responses to clinical questions, and leverage of the roles of expert searcher, teacher, and content manager to advocate for patients. Conclusions: Detailed role descriptions of clinical librarians embedded in patient care teams suggest possible new practices for existing clinical librarians, provide direction for training new librarians working in patient care environments, and raise awareness of the clinical librarian specialty among current and budding health information professionals. Highlights The often broad dissemination of responses to clinical questions by clinical librarians contrasts with the one-to-one interactions typical of in-library reference transactions. As team members, clinical librarians contribute expert searching, instruction, and content management skills and leverage those skills to support and advocate for patients. Being detached from hands-on patient care may allow clinical librarians to provide an objective and valuable perspective to clinical team. Clinical librarians perceive that their presence on wards and at team meetings enhances their visibility and understanding of clinicians' use of the information they provide. Implications Based on the participants' reports, it is possible to take on a clinical librarian role in addition to other duties and to be embedded without having dedicated office space in the clinical area being served. There is a need for additional research to confirm this study's findings with respect to information prescriptions, electronic health records, and the concept of emotional labor.
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