Background paper – The “MAP CoP” (“Making Alignment a Priority Community of Practice”)

“MAP” is a group of library professionals who created a community of practice (CoP) and a toolkit to enable libraries in the NHS in England to demonstrate the value and impact of library services on their host organizations. The idea there are numerous local and national priorities simultaneously influencing NHS organizations is a key focus for the group; in order to demonstrate impact effectively, they assert that it is vital that library professionals have a clear understanding of the priorities that are driving NHS organizations and their implications for library services.

Established initially in the North West in 2008, the original aim of the group was twofold: to help NHS librarians to understand local, regional, and national NHS priorities and thus enable them to showcase examples of library impact aligned with these priorities. The CoP created an online toolkit to host the resources that it intended to produce: summaries of significant NHS policies and case studies of instances where NHS libraries had aligned their services successfully with NHS priorities. As the landscape of the NHS has changed and become ever more complex over the last few years, including the development of the Knowledge for Healthcare Development framework and the campaign “A Million decisions”, the MAP CoP has evolved and developed to work alongside these national programmes with the same aim.

Integral to any community of practice is the learning taking place. Learning occurs when members share their experiences, discuss problems, and use their expertise to learn from one another. The MAP CoP is no different; members meet regularly to reflect on experiences, share progress, and agree on future directions. Library professionals from the wider health sciences library community interact with the CoP by suggesting new drivers, contributing completed project plans, and case studies which are then made available online via the MAP toolkit. In this way, the MAP CoP captures the tacit knowledge of its members and the wider health sciences library community and repackages it for the benefit of a wider library audience.

The MAP CoP is not driven by an external organizational or policy agenda, but is influenced by the interests and desires of the CoP members. The MAP CoP supports its members, and while members have informal roles according to specializations or areas of interest, there is no defined hierarchy. The group has evolved; membership has broadened to include library professionals from outside the NHS, with a library professional from the public library sector (Andy Wright) joining the membership.