As a Consumer Health Librarian at the East Brunswick Public Library, Lycett Thiel MI’25 is passionate about connecting her community of patrons to health information and resources, including providing medical reference services, partnering with health professionals and organizations on informational presentations, and tabling at community events.
To further assist the library’s patrons, Thiel builds themed displays around specific health topics, which gives community members a private way to find information they might be too shy to ask about or hadn’t even thought to look for. Providing health information in this format, Thiel said, “helps people make informed decisions about their health and feel more confident asking questions.”
Thiel decided to pursue a Master of Information (MI) at SC&I because, in addition to the academic opportunities, the program also gave her the chance to expand her professional experience by working as a student assistant for Rutgers University Libraries & Archives. She also took advantage of the MI study abroad program, British Collections and Archives, in England.
Thiel said she also benefited from taking classes offered on special topics. “These classes helped me develop a deeper understanding of the areas of librarianship I was most interested in, while also exposing me to different types of librarianship I hadn’t previously considered.”
“The key to providing research and information services as a consumer health librarian is finding reputable sources that would provide accurate and easy-to-read information,” she added.
What she finds most rewarding about her career is hearing how patrons she’s assisted have used the information she gave them, for example, to talk to their doctor, make an informed decision, or just get through a difficult moment by gaining the support they needed.
Read our Q&A with Thiel to learn more about her career and her advice for prospective or current MI students.
What initially sparked your interest in librarianship?
As many prospective librarians do, I always dreamed of a career where I would be surrounded by books. But I always also dreamed about being a health professional. It was during my time as a research assistant in my undergraduate health science program at Rutgers University–Camden that I discovered my passion for researching questions and helping people find the answers they are seeking. That is when I started to look into medical and health science librarianship.
Did any MI classes or faculty members continue to have a lasting impact on your career (for example, do you still apply the knowledge you gained at SC&I directly to your work, or do you still network with a SC&I faculty member)?
I always think back to taking Information Literacy Learning and Teaching with Professor Eamon Tewell since information literacy has a huge impact on health information literacy. I think back to how what I learned helps me effectively locate information for community members and also helps me teach patrons who might have a misunderstanding or have been misinformed about a health topic. For example, I’ll get a request about how a medication works and its side effects, but sometimes the patron is confused about the medication’s name or what they are actually taking it for. In those cases, I use what I learned in that class to clarify and provide information on similarly named medications while always stating where the information came from.
Did you receive advice from anyone at SC&I that has continued to serve you well and/or is there any advice you'd like to share with current or prospective MI students about how to succeed at SC&I and professionally?
My advice for any current or prospective MI student is to think about how you want to impact the future community you serve. Many people believe that librarianship is simply about reading books and checking them in and out. However, as librarians, our jobs are really about getting to know the needs of our communities and figuring out how to serve them. Find what you are passionate about and figure out a way to apply it to librarianship. Start by finding ways to apply it to your homework and studies, and if you’re already working within a library or volunteering, find a way to use it there. Each library is a community built of smaller ones with various needs.
