Future Proving Libraries through Information Literacy Initiatives

In NHS Scotland we are on a journey to conceptually change the idea that patients should just receive information, like passive bystanders to their own health experience. We want patients, and their family, to be active participants in the way their care is formed. It is against this background the Opposite Ends of the Tay project really picked up. Sir Gregor Smith, the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, has spent much of 2025 speaking of ‘Critical Connections’ and preventative and proactive care. Patients understanding their options, having access to reliable information and having that at a time before they might end up in acute care settings is incredibly valuable, but how do we do that?

As a member of the Person-centred Leadership Group at NHS Tayside, I regularly read and analyse local and national policies. And this summer, the lights for collaboration with public libraries by the NHS were switched from amber: “interesting, but no funding available”, to a flickering green: “this is exactly what we need, let’s talk about how we can make things happen.” A key-driver in that is the Scottish Population Health Framework. The section on places and communities begins with this:

What surrounds us shapes our health. Having well-designed, connected and sustainable communities, where people can access the activities and services they need and are able to influence the decisions that affect them is important.

This paragraph effectively unlocked my work building an active bridge between public libraries and the NHS.

The Collective Force for Health and Wellbeing

In 2019, Scotland embarked on a joint approach that was formulated between Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland, a large voluntary sector organisation, the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and NHS Library and Knowledge Services.  The adoption of the Collective Force for Health and Wellbeing was hindered by the rise of Covid, but it was refreshed for 2021/2023 and that document can be found here. Eager to build on this initiative locally, I set about expanding relations with the various library partners in our region. And in the last year we’ve developed a joint-up approach between the territorial NHS board (NHS Tayside), AngusAlive, Leisure and Culture Dundee and Culture Perth and Kinross, the three public library providers in our region.

This framework agreement allows us to identify and deploy pilot activities related to Health and Social Care, funded by the NHS or external partners such as research institutes and charities, in three specific public libraries in our area. It is labelled ‘Opposite ends of the Tay’, highlighting the fact that it includes Arbroath, Aberfeldy and Dundee Central libraries, all very different places in character and healthcare challenges, geographically connected by the Tay from source (Aberfeldy) to sea (Arbroath).

Clinical directors, public health consultants and GPs started to reach out as word about this project spread and we have built up strong connections with academics in a variety of fields to identify research-led initiatives and projects that we could deploy in our partnered libraries.

A lot of these initiatives are about information literacy. The most obvious one is the development of a local information resource for the public, similar to Lancashire Health Hub which can be accessed in the libraries through digital kiosks. In contrast to the Lancashire version, this one will be co-created with the libraries and third sector. Building on the excellent ALISS.

It gives library staff a route to divert those awkward conversations about health can’t really answer. The patients get a way of accessing verified and verifiable information from their local healthcare providers. But more important than that, it unlocks access to reliable information for those that aren’t that digitally minded. Library staff can help navigate the resource. Eventually this work may lead to options to develop approaches that may be useful in NHS Scotland’s ‘Digital Front Door’ work. We are already identifying resources that may help people take proactive care of themselves, eventually reducing the pressure on the system.

Information Literacy as a Societal Need

The elevator pitch I use when discussing Opposite Ends of the Tay with clinical colleagues is ‘We want to shift the touchpoint of healthcare into the community.’ It is central to unlocking preventative and proactive care, which in turn is crucial to reduce demand on the NHS.

If we want people to be active participants in their care, not just passive recipients of leaflets and hurried explanations, then information literacy has to be treated as part of the health system, not as an optional extra. Public libraries are crucial to unlock health literacy in the community, we are aiming to design different systems and approaches to the patient journey and experience by unlocking libraries not just as a source for information, but of good and locally relevant information. A place where you can go to get small things done, checking of heart rate monitors, replacing hearing aid batteries, collecting sample-packs. Multiply that effect with the use of mobile libraries and the opportunity they unlock for people in remote communities like Kinloch Rannoch, it might aid the reversal of the population decline in these areas.

When public libraries are weakened, as they already have been in the past few decades, the knock-on effect isn’t cultural loss alone; it is a very practical loss of people’s ability to find, judge and use health information safely and with access to qualified specialists.

Opposite Ends of the Tay is our way of capitalising on what we have left in Tayside: bringing reliable information closer to where people already are, building connections between clinical expertise and community infrastructure. This work illustrates why information literacy should be seen as a societal need, or indeed a necessity, and taking a collaborative and structured approach can safeguard public libraries as the key custodians of that necessity.