Medicine (General)

Taubman Health Sciences Library - Collection Policies

Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy

Primary Collecting Unit: Taubman Health Sciences Library

PURPOSE
[See also University Library Policy Statement, sections 3.1 - 3.3]

The Alfred Taubman Health Sciences Library owns one of the nation's finest medical collections. Its primary clientele are the faculty, students, research, clinical and administrative staff of the Medical School, the School of Nursing, the College of Pharmacy, and the hospitals and institutes of the Medical Center. It is also a campus and community-wide resource with most services open to all.

This collection policy describes the subjects and types of material that are of primary importance. The purpose of the policy is not to determine which individual items to acquire or provide access to, but to give a general framework within which choices can more easily be made.

The library's focus is on the research, education and clinical literature. The journal literature, both print and electronic is the most current record of advances in knowledge and is therefore emphasized over other published forms in this library.

The Taubman Library is both a working and a historical collection. Its contents reflect the current state of knowledge and practice in each successive period, thus preserving a record of both cultural and scientific development in medicine. Both the development of the general collection policy and the selection of individual titles are made within the context of these guiding principles.

Future developments will reflect an increasing emphasis on access to local and remote resources through traditional and electronic means, rather than just ownership. Some materials will be acquired in electronic rather than print format; funding for these acquisitions will be through the Library's collection budget as well as by shared arrangements with other institutions. The identification of remote electronic resources and the establishment and maintenance of linkages with these resources will become an integral part of the Library's collection development activities.

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LANGUAGE, GEOGRAPHIC AND CHRONOLOGICAL COVERAGE
[See also University Library Policy Statement, sections 3.4]

Language, geography and country of origin
The Library acquires basic research and clinical publications in the English language from publishers all over the world.

Date of publication
The intent is to maintain an up-to-date research collection and almost all regular allocations are spent on newly published material. Books that are more than one or two years old are ordered only if especially requested, of content that is unlikely to be out of date, or of lasting historical or reference value.

Current publication of proceedings from meetings held more than two years previously are acquired only if there is an obvious need.

Retrospective purchases are rarely made unless a major deficiency is identified and a current need for the material exists.

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FORMATS/TYPES
[See also University Library Policy Statement, sections 3.4]

All formats and types are collected except:
Annual reports, audiovisual programs, examination review books and study guides, fiction, pocket manuals, microforms, models, newsletters, programmed texts, reprints and translations of current monographs or journals.

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SELECTION CRITERIA
[See also University Library Policy Statement, sections 3.4]

Factors considered are:

1. Subject scope and centrality
2. Need
3. Readership, substantial authoritative monographs or journals reporting basic research and new findings in clinical medicine and nursing are a high priority. Periodicals that mainly report case studies, procedures, or are generally descriptive are subscribed to more selectively
4. Bibliographic access, availability through indexing in secondary sources is extremely important.
5. Quality, as judged by the reputation of authors or editors, their institutional affiliation, the title's relationship to a professional society; up to date references; the quality of illustrations; current holdings in the area.
6. Use or potential use

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INTERDISCIPLINARY RELATIONSHIPS
[See also University Library Policy Statement, sections 3.5]

The Alfred Taubman Health Sciences Library is a divisional library within the University Library system. It is one of the health sciences cluster libraries -- which also include the Dentistry and Public Health libraries -- and which work closely together to coordinate collection development, especially in areas of overlapping interest.
The Table of Collecting Levels shown below indicates the location of collections related to specific subfields in the Health Sciences.

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COOPERATIVE RESOURCE SHARING RELATIONSHIPS
[See also University Library Policy Statement, sections 3.2]

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine
This program is intended to provide health science practitioners, investigators, educators, and administrators in the United States with timely, convenient access to health care and biomedical information resources. The program is coordinated by the National Library of Medicine and is carried out through a nationwide network of more than 1000 health science libraries and information centers. The network includes eight regional medical libraries. The Taubman Health Sciences Library is a resource library in the Greater Midwest Region of the NN/LM. Through this network the library has access to the holdings of medical libraries throughout the country. OCLC provides information for borrowing books not available at Taubman. Both regional and national union lists of serials give locations for periodicals in the health sciences. A well-established communications network, DOCLINE, makes borrowing among health science libraries efficient.

HealthWeb
Is a cooperative project of the health sciences libraries of the member schools of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) which will provide organized access to evaluated non-commercial, health-related, Internet accessible resources. The resources include those currently available as well as new resources developed in collaboration with other organizations. The health sciences have been divided into discrete areas, and each CIC library has chosen areas in which it excels or plans to excel.

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COLLECTING LEVELS
[See also University Library Policy Statement, sections 4.0]

The collections of the Taubman Health Sciences Library encompass the biomedical literature - the science and practice of medicine and related health care fields. These disciplines form the core of the collection. Exceptions are the fields of dentistry and public health, which are covered by separate campus libraries.

Many other subjects touch upon the biomedical sciences or health care professions. Works in the behavioral and social sciences are often closely related to biomedicine, as are those in the biological sciences. The library selects those materials needed to support ongoing research, teaching, or clinical practice in the medical center.

Some disciplines that are generally out of scope or very peripherally related may have aspects or applications that pertain to core subjects. Examples include computer science, engineering, religion, and law. Only those individual items that are directly related to core areas are acquired.

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COLLECTING LEVELS AND ACCESS NOTES by specific subfield:

MEDICINE
C = Comprehensive level
R = Research level
I = Instructional support level
B = Basic level
M = Minimal level
* HealthWeb area of strength

Univ*PHL, Univ. Illinois-Chicago*