Library and knowledge services team

The library and knowledge services team in the School of Oncology are the winners of The Christie’s You Made a Difference Award for October 2024. The following comments were made about the team in the September nominations.

“The team continue to work so hard to progress the service adapting it to meet the needs of all users. The facility was isolated, but the team constantly work with colleagues on engaging with other team members and encouraging access to the facility. They provide personalised support to researchers and all those undertaking education programmes. They also ensure that Christie staff have access to the latest knowledge resources (where this is possible), often when other services across the UK are withdrawing these. This includes resources to bring the evidence closer to the bedside (and the patient) with the use of digital resources.

“Particular reason for the award was a nice balance between their highly successful review from NHS England and also the work undertaken on the book giveaway as part of World Mental Health Day. The Library manager Dan Livesey in particular worked closely with public library colleagues to ensure that the visit was successful. The team had some moving feedback from patients and their carers – many of whom did not see the giveaway as for them but were encouraged to think differently due to Dan’s intervention. Dan demonstrated the diversity of approach of the library to the different audiences and practically how all education services should approach their commitment to patient care. They have been shortlisted for an award for this work by the regional library network. A particular aspect of this was the way that Dan also supported public libraries colleagues in their visit to meet patients on this day – we often forget how daunting this can be to people outside healthcare, specifically when meeting inpatients and their families. Dan noted the stress on him with this, and also recognising the impact that this has on our clinical staff.

“A further example of their work is repurposing an old office into a training room, which is particularly used by people undertaking key skills training sessions before progressing onto apprenticeships and other courses.

“Dan and the team work incredibly closely with postgraduate and undergraduate medical education to make the facility welcoming for all our students – being an enthusiastic supporter of the computer loan programme which is run from the library.

“I could go on. They really are a fantastic team who are an absolutely credit to this organisation.

“Dan Livesey – Library manager: Getting married next summer, very keen climber and has recently become a trainer for other climbers. An excellent manager of the team, very professional and knowledgeable and a great ambassador for resources. Very keen to develop the services and create the balance between providing highly specialist support to researchers and providing an open door to those requiring support for vocational courses or just need space to use a computer.”

“Tim Jacobs – Specialist librarian: Very interested in technical issues. Leading a working group in the School on AI. Spends a lot of time working in training researchers in literature searching.”

“Kathryn Shuttleworth-Graham – Clinical librarian: Working in a fixed-term post to embed librarian services into clinical areas, has been involved in a project with Radiotherapy and looking to extend services to haem unit to pilot ward-based librarian services.”

“Janet Oliver – Nursing librarian: Has a fine art degree. Worked for The Christie for some time. Supports literature searching and front of house services.”

“Asma Ahmed – Library assistant: Been with us for about a year, coming from Manchester Foundation Trust. Primarily focuses on front of house.”

  - Friday Knight, Head of Education Business Development

“On 10 October, for World Mental Health Day, The Christie library and knowledge services team decided to work with Manchester City Council Libraries, Read Manchester, and The National Literacy Trust to hold a book giveaway, to engage with visitors, staff, and patients about the benefits of reading, particularly on mental health.

“The team was keen to visit wards and gift books directly to patients and managed to secured books for our sites in Oldham, Macclesfield, and Salford also, even though these were outside of the remit of Read Manchester.

“On Thursday 10 October, the team opened a stall near to The Christie Restaurant and visited Palatine Ward, Ward 4, and Wards 11 and 12, creating an amazing response. They gave away 2,000 books from the stall, 300 books via our other sites and around 70 books to our patients on wards.

“Here are some anecdotes from the day:

• An outpatient handed me a Post-it that she had written a message on. She did not want to talk because she did not feel well enough, but she wanted us to know how much reading meant to her.
• We encountered some of our TYA patients on Palatine and after chatting about PS5 games that they were playing, we found a selection of teenage horror books that they were interested it. They said that being on the Ward was a bit boring sometimes and having a range of things to do was important.
• We met an elderly patient on Palatine who was too unwell to read but her husband really loved Wilbur Smith books. At first, he said he did not read at all but then told us that he had read most Wilbur Smith books and he really enjoyed stories set in Africa. We did not have any on our trolley, but we went back to our stall and one of the volunteers managed to find 3 of the newest Wilbur Smith books in hardback. We went back to Palatine and gave all three to the family member. He was delighted and had not read any of them. He said that he spent many hours on the ward with his wife and the idea of gifting books to patients was amazing. He really appreciated the extra length that the volunteers went to, just for him.
• We met two patients who were physically active but could not speak. We communicated through a series of Post-it notes and found out what sorts of stories they enjoyed. We managed to find a selection of funny/light-hearted stories for both of them.
• We met a female patient who said that she read all the time, but she had been rushed into hospital and her son had not had time to pack any of her books. We left her with 7 books in total and she thought she would finish within a week.
• Finally, we met a young mum who had been on Ward 11. She was going home that day and knew that she would need some reading to occupy her over the next few weeks. She took 4 or 5 books.

  - Cathy Heaven, Director of Teaching, Learning and Quality

Has a staff member, team or volunteer at The Christie gone above and beyond in their work? You can nominate them for the monthly You Made a Difference Award.