Rolf Schafer, AALIA (CP) Partnerships and Collaboration Lead, Health Libraries Australia; Manager, Library Services | Walter McGrath Library, St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, email: rolf.schafer@svha.org.au
Celebrating Canadian Health Libraries Association / Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada (CHLA/ABSC’s) 50th Anniversary: Congratulations from Health Libraries Australia
Rolf Schafer, representing Health Libraries Australia, attended the annual conference of CHLA/ABSC in Québec City, Canada (June 2-5, 2026), where he personally presented to CHLA/ABSC a congratulatory letter on the occasion of the association’s 50th anniversary. The theme of the conference was Honouring the Past, Shaping the Future: 50 years of health expertise and was attended by 224 delegates, the largest in the association’s history.
Following the presentation, Rolf provided an update on recent initiatives and achievements of Health Libraries Australia, which are shared below:
Advocacy – National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Good Institutional Practice Guide (GIPG)
Zero to eight mentions supporting how health librarians play an important role in the Australian research landscape – by providing expertise, evidence-based resources, research education and support.
Accreditation – National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (NSQHS)
Health Libraries contribute to hospital accreditation – examples and templates
This quality improvement intervention aims to provide a standard toolkit that can be easily adapted and utilized by hospital libraries, to demonstrate to the respective hospital patient experience, quality, risk, and safety team standard leads (and other groups responsible for the administration and implementation of the ACSQHC’s NSQHS standards) that hospital libraries play a key role in ensuring quality evidence-based practices.
Value – Demonstrating value by measuring success: audit checklist tool
ALIA HLA Library Value Checklist
Designed to help health libraries and librarians systematically collect evidence to demonstrate the success & the value of their services by:
- Tracking progress on the implementation of new services
- Ensuring observance of codes of conduct
- Demonstrating conformity with standards of practice
- Monitoring compliance with new legislative requirements, as well as with organisational policies, procedures or guidelines
Workforce – ALIA/Health Libraries Australia (HLA) Competencies for Health Librarians & Health Library Technicians (2026)
The ALIA/Health Libraries Australia (HLA) health specialist competencies apply to all Australian health librarians and health library technicians, who are library and information professionals who have obtained qualifications from an ALIA-accredited, post-secondary educational institution and are eligible for professional librarian membership or professional library technician membership of ALIA.
The health specialist competencies build on and extend the foundational ALIA Framework of Skills, Knowledge and Ethics for the Library and Information Services Workforce (July 2025). (See a graphic representation of the Framework’s relationship to the HLA Competencies at the end of this document.)
Health librarians and health library technicians have unique responsibilities within the organisations in which they work, where the related concepts of evidence-based healthcare and clinical governance are fundamental features of the environment.
Health librarians and health library technicians must understand and be competent in the information skills associated with these two concepts – that is, they must know how to find the evidence and manage evidence-based information and knowledge resources that are used in clinical decision-making and policy development.
Health Libraries Group 