Repurposing Medical Library Standards: Effects of Covid-19

Objectives
The year 2020 has been an exceptional year for the mankind. Medical librarians are experiencing several health information adversities during this rapidly evolving phase of Covid-19 pandemic such as infodemic, proliferation of misinformation, disinformation, retraction of published papers and mushrooming predatory journals. In such situations, the medical librarian's role as a purveyor of authentic information to diverse communities, and assisting health professionals in synthesising evidence from the previously published studies have become intense. To understand extent and coverage given to these aspects of health information in medical libraries , we studied the library standards designed by medical library associations and related research papers published in past two decades.

Methods
Over a period of six months (June 2020 to December 2020) author did several searches on PubMed and Google Scholar to find research articles on the standards of medical libraries. The search was also conducted on Google search engine for medical library association and the standards were combined to get the desired results. Only those professional medical library standards and research papers published since 2000 from advanced nations were finally considered for this study.

Results
Considering increasing information disruptions taking place in the health ecosystem, these is need to repurpose existing medical library standards by the respective associations in all countries. Seeing the deficiencies in medical library standards in the low and middle income countries including India, author proposes set of standards to develop medical libraries in all these regions. These are based on available standards from advanced nations, also incorporating the latest advancements in public health information environment.

Conclusions
Revision of medical library standards and their adoption in low and middle income countries including India will fortify medical librarianship education and enhance the existing vision of medical libraries in academic health institutions and hospitals across the regions and countries.