Integrating e-collections following the merger of two specialist hospital libraries: a case study.

BACKGROUND: Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust was formed in February 2017 following an acquisition. The Library and Knowledge Services (LKS) merged while operating across two hospital sites. A priority for the merged Library and Knowledge Service was to integrate e-collections. A literature review identified six papers reporting health libraries that had merged and integrated e-collections. OBJECTIVES: A priority for the merged Library and Knowledge Service was to integrate e-collections. METHODS: To ensure equitable and cost-effective access to an extended collection, an audit of pre-existing e-collections was conducted. Electronic licence agreements enabling cross-site access were negotiated. A new OpenAthens ID was created. RESULTS: The integration of e-collections enabled Trust staff access to a greater number of e-journals and additional e-content, and an overall cost-saving was achieved. DISCUSSION: This case study supports existing literature stating that integrating collections increases the number of e-journals. It further identifies cost-difference in acquiring cross-site access to e-journals compared to databases providing full-text e-journals and additional e-content. CONCLUSION: Integrating e-collections enables equity of access and value. A national co-ordinated approach to procurement of e-collections will further support equity and best value throughout NHS LKS.

Books, children, dogs, artists: library programs for the entire family.

The promotion of library resources and services is a continuous process for all libraries, especially hospital family resource center libraries. Like public libraries, a family resource center can utilize programs as a pathway for connecting with and developing awareness of library resources and services available to patient families. This column describes the programs currently offered for All Children's Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine patient families, marketing initiatives to promote these programs, and utilization of grant funding to supplement a program.

A women's resource center in a rural setting.

Many health care consumers have become their own advocates in seeking information. In search of health information, consumers' choices vary--from the Internet, the news media, national and local associations, the public and health sciences libraries, to a growing number of consumer health libraries. To meet consumers' needs for reliable and current health information, the former Geisinger Health System developed the Women's Resource Center at the Geisinger Medical Center, a 548 bed teaching hospital in central Pennsylvania.

Children in hospital: II. Reading therapy and children in hospital.

Following the survey of book and library services described in the first of these two articles (Health Libraries Review, 8, 210-219), a research project funded by BNB Research Fund in 1991 investigated the theory and practice of reading therapy with children in hospital. Hospital play staff had been identified as the therapists most commonly involved and a number of them were interviewed using advance notice questionnaires and structured discussion. The following aspects were investigated: definitions of reading therapy, children in hospital, the reading therapy process, materials used, evaluation, services to facilitate and promote reading therapy, training and the role of libraries and librarians. Recommendations relate to practice, to provision and listing of materials, to evaluation procedures and to training. The final conclusions relate to the role of librarians in the processes and development of reading therapy with children in hospital.

The old library of the Pennsylvania Hospital.

The first medical book acquired by the Pennsylvania Hospital was William Lewis's Experimental History of the Materia Medica. Dr. John Fothergill of London donated it in 1762. The next year the Managers resolved to establish a library, and the physicians assigned their fees from hospital students for the purchase of books. Books were regularly ordered from William Strahan in London, and gifts and bequests added still more volumes. From 1790 to 1810 Dr. John Coakley Lettsom of London was the hospital's principal adviser on purchases. As the library grew, it expanded beyond purely medical works to include some in natural history, many purchased in 1817 from the estate of Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton. Catalogues were printed in the years 1790-94, 1806, 1829, and 1857. At midcentury the hospital library numbered about 9,000 volumes. At that time it was the largest medical library in the United States.

Access to the scholarly record of medicine by the osteopathic physicians of southeastern Michigan.

This paper is one part of a continuing study to determine the availability of library service to physicians in southeastern Michigan not associated with academic institutions. The institutional affiliations of the 800 osteopathic physician community of the area were identified. As the availability of library service at these institutions was known, the conclusion is patent that 60 percent of these physicians do not have dependable access to the library resources of the area. Further, it is apparent from the way the institutions are distributed and the responsibilities physicians have, that the only hope of providing library service to the practicing physician is through hospitals.