Today was my day to work with Tillie and learn about Clinical collection development. Tillie is a para-professional who also holds the title of library informationist -- by virtue of the professional duties she performs and performs well. She has worked in the library for 18 years and sits at the front desk. She takes care of many things in addition to collection development, of course -- including customer service, circulation, ILL (interlibrary loan), book sales, and some cataloging (plus much more I would guess) . The library uses Horizon, an integrated library system from SirsiDynix for circulation and cataloging. Book selections are made with a combination of knowing the patrons and reviews. Tillie has a good feel for what will circulate. The library subscribes to Doody's Reviews and receives weeeky alerts based on the library's profile. There is a core title list that includes "essential titles". Tillie is a librarian selector -- scoring books on: content, relevancy, value for dollor, reputation, and reviews. The librarian selectors provide input for choosing the essential titles as well as recommendations for books that should be on the core title list. Books are purchased from Majors with a discount provided to hospitals.
For those of you non-librarians reading this blog, I apologize for all this library stuff, and absolve you of any guilt if you choose NOT to read further in this post. That is if there IS anyone reading this blog. . .
And then there's everyone's favorite job, next to the budget, that is -- weeding:) Tillie has a good system that involves shelflist cards and circulation statistics from Horizon. Since for the most part, it is not advisable to keep medical books longer than 5 years (outdated medical information can be dangerous), the books are reviewed and removed from the collection basically as follows. Books that circulate well but have an update available will be weeded when the update has been ordered and received. Books that do not have an update available but continue to circulate are retained. On the other hand, even if there IS an update, if a book has not circulated in two years, it will be weeded and the update will not be purchased. Of course, there are other factors to consider when deciding whether or not to purchase the update -- such as the cost of the book vs. the number of uses of the preceding edition. My impression is that a good collection and weeding process involves both a solid set of guidelines AND a knowledge of the library clientele combined with a feel for what works best.
(Spent a lot of time with Tillie today -- but almost finished:)
Sherlock: A handy-dandy hard copy (also available online on the "g" drive) binder containing basic information including phone numbers, policies and procedures. Great idea to have this available -- since every once in a while I get a chance to watch the desk and answer the phone when someone steps out.
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