| THE IMPERATIVESIn recent years, health systems across the United States and around the world have faced persistent challenges including the underutilization of necessary care, the overutilization of inappropriate care, rising costs, disparities in access to care, patient safety concerns, System-level improvement requires a broad and diverse intellectual community. The necessary transdisciplinary community will be composed of scholars with expertise in social, political, technical, and clinical fields, along with many others who bring critical experience from practice. It follows that a third imperative is to form this community and provide it with a gathering place for its evolving scientific ideas and insights.

Librarian-provided services directed to participants in training programs (eg, students, residents) improve skills in searching the literature to facilitate the integration of research evidence into clinical decision-making. Services provided to clinicians were shown to be effective in saving time for health professionals and providing relevant information for decision-making. Two studies indicated patient length of stay was reduced when clinicians requested literature searches related to a patient's case.

Recognizing a need to be more relevant to its constituents, and aligned with institutional priorities, the Taubman Health Sciences Library redefined its mission, roles, and space. This transformation facilitated innovative, team-based collaborations within the health sciences community and the addition of new roles and responsibilities in academic and clinical engagement, research and informatics, enabling technologies, community outreach, and global health. Library space is being redesigned, and a branch library dedicated to interdisciplinary partnerships has been established. Information gained from this experience will be useful to other libraries faced with budget, resource, and staffing challenges and will offer practical ideas for becoming more integrated into the academic, research, and clinical work of the health sciences enterprise.