Ekaterini Papadopoulou, MLIS, MA, AHIP  
Health Science Librarian  
Lemieux Library  
Seattle University   

Editor’s note: This month, we are celebrating Ekaterini Papadopoulou, who serves as a Doody’s book reviewer and the LIS Content Specialist for Doody’s Core Titles. Thank you, Ekaterini! 

Provide a brief description of your library and its services.  

Seattle University’s Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons, where I serve as the Health Science Librarian, supports undergraduate and graduate students across all programs. We work in partnership with two other campus libraries that support the Law School and the Cornish College of Arts at Seattle University. The Lemieux Library provides in-person drop-in reference services, 1:1 research consultations, and embedded information literacy instruction. The space offers study rooms, computer access, and 24-hour study spaces, as well as access to the print collection, technology lending, and our growing anatomical model collection!  

How did you get started in health sciences librarianship? What brought you to the profession?  

In my first library position after completing my MLIS, I was assigned to the liaison area of psychology at the University of Washington’s Tacoma campus. I had also completed a quarter TA-ing a quarter-long information literacy course in an Applied Behavioural Science program, so had started to get to grips with health, allied health and social science librarianship. I found I enjoyed the real-life impact of these fields, and the rigor and depth that a disciplined health science librarian can bring to these kinds of questions. At the conclusion of my contract, I actively sought roles that might allow me to continue to work in health or allied health sciences and secured a librarian role at Bastyr University where I worked with naturopathic doctorate, midwifery, nutrition, sports science, psychology, counseling, and public health programs. At Bastyr I had the privilege of working with an incredible library team, who team-taught an embedded EBM curriculum alongside faculty, and supported systematic reviews. The rigor and generous curiosity of those colleagues helped me truly build the expertise to call myself a health science librarian.    

Share two of the most important issues facing the profession today and why they’re important to address.  

I’ll avoid the obvious hallucinated elephant in the room and attempt a more nuanced answer. I’ve spoken with colleagues and many of the things I want to point to would require a full essay of explanations, so I think I will distill two issues that face the profession as “value” and “cost.”     

The cost of resources, the cost of subscriptions, the cost of education, and the shift in funding structures for research and health care are some things that librarians are already grappling with, and it only is getting worse. If the ballooning costs of resources and shrinking library budgets aren’t balanced soon, the role of the academic library as a democratizer of information access is at risk.    

The other issue is that of “value.”  There are technological and social shifts that are leading to fewer industries valuing the importance of the expertise that libraries provide alongside access to resources. In health sciences librarianship, we have long known and addressed the need for consumer health literacy. We have long addressed medical misinformation among the general public, but emerging technologies that bypass traditional review and selection processes are now extending that challenge to expert practitioners as well. Multiple industries – and society at large – are being swept up in the promise of the quick, easy and abundant production of content. This move towards valuing speed and volume over valuing rigor, information integrity, and professional expertise is something that librarianship needs to address with our patrons and the sectors that we serve. Technologies that remove barriers and improve access to information have always been incorporated into librarianship, but the current emerging crop of resources need librarianship’s critical eye to help ensure a balance between the promise of new technologies and maintaining human-centered systems that don’t bypass critical thinking, education, and independence of thought.  

What is one innovation, product, or service in your library that you’re excited about?  

I am most excited about the impressive reaction and usage statistics we have seen by returning back-to-basics.  We are “back on the desk,” we don’t have AI chat bots, we are providing a person-centered service that is true to the university mission but also aligns with my values as a librarian. I’m not a through-put for a full text article – I am a collaborator, an educator, and a student. By centering and investing in services that highlight the transformative role working with a librarian can have, our patrons see and speak about our values.  

What aspects of your work keep you most professionally motivated?  

I hate not knowing things. If someone has a question, it becomes my question. If something is not working, I will read, ask, and try things until I figure out why. I am genuinely excited about the impact this kind of work can have when we hold ourselves to the highest standards, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback I get from students makes me feel like I might be helping folks become better practitioners.  

Why do you select titles and review books with Doody’s?  

A library may only be as good as its librarians, but a librarian is only as good as the resources available to them, and the wider information landscape that they are part of. I rely on the expertise of others, and I want to be able to rely on professional publications like Doody’s. After relying on Doody’s as I build my knowledge and expertise, it is important to me to give back to ensure I support the tools and the community that support my professional needs.  

A recent book you’ve enjoyed or anything else you’d like to share?  

I would not say “enjoy” is quite the right word, but I found Gardiner Harris’ No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson to be a fascinating and horrifying read. I teach students to respect EBM, to learn and engage in rigorous approaches to reduce risk of bias, and I educate students about research ethics. To see so many egregious failings of these tenets of EBM laid bare was sobering. The lessons from this book seem timely: a warning of the dangers of pandering to investor or corporate interests even when the product is not delivering. For me, this lesson seems pertinent as we watch the “rush to market” of a myriad of products, the value of which are measured in monetary speculation, rather than patient outcome data.