The Medical Library Association Guide to Developing Consumer Health Collections

by Claire B. Joseph (Author)

The Medical Library Association Guide to Developing Consumer Health Collections guides both library graduate school students and seasoned librarians from academic, health sciences, and public libraries, to develop, maintain, nurture, and advertise consumer health collections.

This authoritative guide from the respected Medical Library Association covers all that is involved in developing a new consumer health library including:
Conducting community needs assessments and forging community partnerships
Concerns about physical space, computers, and materials
Funding, budgeting, and staffing
Privacy and confidentiality concerns
Publicity and advertising

This book guides both graduate library school students and seasoned librarians from all types of libraries—academic, health center, hospital, public, and school–to develop, maintain and nurture not only consumer health collections, but also community partnerships and outreach programs. Examples of librarians’ innovative and creative consumer health initiatives are included.

Chapters include all that is involved in developing a consumer health collection including conducting community needs assessments; concerns about physical space, computers, and materials; budgeting, licensing, and staffing; privacy and confidentiality concerns; and community partnership and outreach.

Review
This book is the new core text for any librarian building or recreating their consumer health collection. This book steers librarians & their patrons to top notch information, with the end goal of improving your community’s health and building with them a positive and helpful relationship. (Becca Billings, leadership team member, Health InfoNet of Alabama)

The Medical Library Association Guide to Developing Consumer Health Collections provides a perfect starting point for any library that is beginning or updating their collection. It provides comprehensive and practical ideas as well as examples from libraries that can serve as models. Important topics that impact collection decisions, such as health literacy and multiculturalism are discussed and resources are listed where the reader can learn even more. This is a valuable contribution to the consumer health literature at a time when patient education and engagement in their health care is of particular importance in the environment of health care reform. (Sandy Oelschlegel, director and associate professor, Health Information Center, Preston Medical Library)

About the Author
Claire B. Joseph is director of the Medical Library at South Nassau Communities Hospital, Oceanside, Long Island, New York. She has been a librarian for more than 40 years and a health sciences librarian for nearly 30 years. She is active in the Medical Library Association, serving as Chair of the Hospital Libraries Section, Chair-Elect of the Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section, Secretary of the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section, and Chair of the New York—New Jersey Chapter, along with serving on a variety of committees. In addition, she is Book Review Editor for the Journal of Hospital Librarianship.