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As the Medical Library Association (MLA) enters its second century, its role in providing leadership and focus for the education of health information professionals in a changing environment will be critical. MLA members face dramatic changes in the health care environment as well as significant opportunities and must position themselves to thrive in the new environment. This paper examines new roles for health information professionals, new approaches to education and training, and related issues of credentialing, certification/and licensure.
At the University of Ilorin Medical Library, sixty-one randomly selected medical students with overdue books were surveyed using a questionnaire with a view to (1) finding out why they had not returned the library books in their possession, (2) determining their perceptions of eight given overdue measures, and (3) seeking suggestions on how else to reduce overdue books. Most of the overdue books were as a result of (1) the students not finishing with the books and (2) the students being forgetful. Providing for renewals was the most favored overdue measure, while the need for increased multiple copies and extended loan periods for students were also stressed. Thus, a notice urging readers to return or renew borrowed library books was mounted on the issue desk as a reminder to all readers borrowing books. The library is being automated, which will facilitate timely generation and sending of overdue notices. More copies of some titles were purchased, while a copy each of others was transferred to the reserve collection. The need for an extended loan period will require further investigation, while the judicious use of other overdue measures to complement providing for renewals is recommended.
Collections librarians from academic libraries are often asked, on short notice, to evaluate whether their collections are able to support changes in their institutions' curricula, such as new programs or courses or revisions to existing programs or courses. With insufficient time to perform an exhaustive critique of the collection and a need to prepare a report for faculty external to the library, a selection of reliable but brief qualitative and quantitative tests is needed. In this study, materials-centered and use-centered methods were chosen to evaluate the toxicology collection of the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) Library. Strengths and weaknesses of the techniques are reviewed, along with examples of their use in evaluating the toxicology collection. The monograph portion of the collection was evaluated using list checking, citation analysis, and classified profile methods. Cost-effectiveness and impact factor data were compiled to rank journals from the collection. Use-centered methods such as circulation and interlibrary loan data identified highly used items that should be added to the collection. Finally, although the data were insufficient to evaluate the toxicology electronic journals at the U of S, a brief discussion of three initiatives that aim to assist librarians as they evaluate the use of networked electronic resources in their collections is presented.
Planning a new health sciences library at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a tremendous challenge. Technology has radically changed the way libraries function in an academic environment and the services they provide. Some individuals question whether the library as place will continue to exist as information becomes increasingly available electronically. To understand how libraries resolve programming and building design issues, visits were made to three academic health sciences libraries that have had significant renovation or completed new construction. The information gathered will be valuable for planning a new library for the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and may assist other health sciences librarians as they plan future library buildings.
The Louis Stokes Health Sciences Library attributes its successful move to early planning and preparation. Professional literature on the subject as well as consultation with other experienced library personnel also proved beneficial. Utilizing these resources, the committees devised a strategy that supported the library's mission to provide excellent and complete information services for the advancement of health sciences. This paper describes the Howard University Health Sciences Library move experience and offers practical advice for planning a library move. We hope that the information shared will assist other libraries facing a similar challenge.
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The Standards Committee of the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section was appointed in May 2000 and charged to create standards for the ideal academic veterinary medical library, written from the perspective of veterinary medical librarians. The resulting Standards for the Academic Veterinary Medical Library were approved by members of the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section during MLA '03 in San Diego, California. The standards were approved by Section Council in April 2005 and received final approval from the Board of Directors of the Medical Library Association during MLA '04 in Washington, DC.
Economic and political factors have had far-reaching effects on hospital libraries in the last decade, but quantitative evidence of these changes is not readily available. Through periodic evaluation surveys within its multistate region, the Pacific Southwest Regional Medical Library Service, the Regional Medical Library for Region 7 of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (formerly the Regional Medical Library Network) has monitored hospital library changes over the years. This paper compares data from a 1989 survey with similar information gathered in 1984. Longitudinal analysis was performed on responses from 188 hospitals that responded to both the 1984 and the 1989 survey, as was cross-sectional analysis of all responses from both surveys. Results showed a small decrease in the number of hospitals with separate library collections. Staffing patterns had changed considerably, with a drop of approximately one entire full-time salaried equivalent per library and a decrease in libraries managed by a librarian with an M.L.S. The libraries that provide all of a set of predefined core services and resources decreased from 61% in 1984 to 44% in 1989. Libraries with M.L.S. staff were more likely to have core services than those without professional staff.
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Data from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) automated Master Serials System and its MEDLINE database were used to chart the growth of NLM's serials collection and of the journals indexed in Index Medicus from 1966 to 1985. The number of live serial titles in the subset of NLM's collection examined increased 30% in the twenty years. The average number of articles per Index Medicus journal increased 56%. The average number of articles in U.S. Index Medicus journals grew more rapidly than the average number in journals published elsewhere. The NLM data provide clear evidence that the years from 1966 to 1985 saw a substantial increase in the percentage of the biomedical serial literature published in English. The period from 1966 to 1985 saw substantial but uneven growth in the number of serial titles in the NLM collection and in the average number of articles in Index Medicus journals. Although data on the number of articles published in Index Medicus journals is unlikely to reflect the number of articles in other journals, the pattern of growth in the number of serials held by NLM probably reflects trends in the universe of all biomedical serials.
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Primary care physicians use patient data, medical knowledge, logistic information, and population statistics. They rely on their personal knowledge to care for their patients, their top priority. When they seek information beyond this personal knowledge base, they frequently want information in the context of the care of a specific patient. They also continually add to their personal knowledge base. Less frequently, they seek logistic information and population statistics. For patient-specific questions, physicians most often seek medical facts or medical opinions. A physician may be persistent in seeking information if the patient's problem is perceived to be urgent and the doctor believes a definitive answer exists. Information resources for answering clinical questions should be readily available, familiar, and quick to use. Lifelong learning activities should also be readily available, and they should require a minimum of time, effort, and expense. Minimal cost in time and effort is particularly important when knowledge is sought as a part of ongoing medical learning, since there is less immediate benefit to balance the time and effort invested in information seeking.
Two important sets of standards affecting hospital libraries were significantly revised in 1994, those of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). As part of its continuing efforts to monitor library services within its region, the University of California, Los Angeles Biomedical Library, Regional Medical Library for the Pacific Southwest Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) conducted a survey in late 1994, in part to determine the effects of these revised standards on regional hospital libraries. Data from the survey were also used to provide a view of hospital libraries in the Pacific Southwest region, and to make comparisons with similar data collected in 1989. Results showed that while libraries remained stable in overall number, size, and staffing, services, especially those associated with end-user searching and interlibrary loan, increased enormously. With respect to the MLA standards, results show a high compliance level. Interesting differences were seen between the perceptions of library staff concerning their rate of compliance with the JCAHO standards and their actual compliance as measured by the MLA criteria. While some libraries appear to measure up better than their own perceptions would indicate, others may be fully aware of their actual compliance level.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: Budget pressures, combined with the growing availability of resources, dictate careful examination of reference use. Two studies were conducted at the University of Maryland Health Sciences Library to examine this issue. A twelve-month reshelving study determined use by title and discipline; a simultaneous study analyzed print abstract and index use in an electronic environment. METHODOLOGY: Staff electronically recorded statistics for unshelved reference books, coded the collection by discipline, and tracked use by school. Oral surveys administered to reference room abstract and index users focused on title usage, user demographics, and stated reason for use. RESULTS: Sixty-five and a half percent of reference collection titles were used. Medical titles received the most use, but, in the context of collection size, dentistry and nursing titles used the greatest percentage of their collections. At an individual title level, medical textbooks and drug handbooks were most used. Users of abstracts and indexes were primarily campus nursing and medical students who preferred print resources. CONCLUSION: The monograph data will guide reference expenditures in canceling little-used standing orders, expanding most-used portions of the collection, and analyzing underused sections. The abstract and index survey identified the following needs: targeting instruction, contacting faculty who assign print resources, increasing the number of computer workstations, and installing signs linking databases to print equivalents.
The Florida State University (FSU) College of Medicine Medical Library is the first academic medical library to be established since the Web's dramatic appearance during the 1990s. A large customer base for electronic medical information resources is both comfortable with and eager to migrate to the electronic format completely, and vendors are designing radical pricing models that make print journal cancellations economically advantageous. In this (almost) post-print environment, the new FSU Medical Library is being created and will continue to evolve. By analyzing print journal subscription lists of eighteen academic medical libraries with similar missions to the community-based FSU College of Medicine and by entering these and selected quality indicators into a Microsoft Access database, a core list was created. This list serves as a selection guide, as a point for discussion with faculty and curriculum leaders when creating budgets, and for financial negotiations in a broader university environment. After journal titles specific to allied health sciences, veterinary medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, library science, and nursing were eliminated from the list, 4,225 unique journal titles emerged. Based on a ten-point scale including SERHOLD holdings and DOCLINE borrowing activity, a list of 449 core titles is identified. The core list has been saved in spreadsheet format for easy sorting by a number of parameters.