Selecting for Health Sciences Library Collections When Budgets Falter BY STANLEY D. TRUELSON, JR., Librarian

Yale Medical Library New Haven, Connecticut ABSTRACT The economic plight of the 1970s often limits the librarian, who should be the final selector, to insufficient funds for acquiring essential publications. The librarian, in addition to making every effort to acquire the best possible collection, must provide access from other libraries, within and outside one's parent institution, to materials not acquired; for this purpose, an effective document delivery network has proved more significant than formal plans for shared acquisitions. Too much is published, but the choices become more manageable with selection criteria that include limiting subject scope and keeping within the English language. In regard to journals, new titles should be added only reluctantly; cancellation lists compiled with the help of selective lists, the librarian's judgment, and users' responses; and newsletters and state journals pruned to a minimum. As to books, selective lists should be consulted; congress proceedings generally ignored; and reprinted collections, multiple copies, and gifts considered with care. Book reviews are more useful selection aids now that lack of funds causes delays in purchasing than when new titles were acquired promptly with less discrimination. Audiovisual media, although widely pushed, do not replace printed materials, are not of central importance to many faculties, are expensive, and thus comprise a bandwagon which the impoverished library cannot afford to board without extra funding. The less money there is, the more need for a librarian's selection skills.

BUDGET Recent Trends 1960s were good years for library budgets, as for most other budgets, but the 1970s are a letdown all around. When the nation cannot afford to expand social and educational services, libraries

THE

suffer. The passage of the Medical Library Assistance Act of 1965 was a political breakthrough which could have happened only when the economy was favorable. Federal support for health sciences libraries is a result of political concern for better health care, just as federal support for other libraries results from national interest in education in general. In the 1960s the federal government heavily funded basic science research, but today such funding has been reduced drastically and atBull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(2) April 1976

tention turned to using better what we already know, to applying existing knowledge so as to provide health care most efficiently and economically, an alternative emphasis which is clearly an effect of inflation, depression, and unemployment as much as a deliberately planned change of the nation's social goals. While both research and application require library service, and some aspects of the 1965 Medical Library Assistance Act continue to be funded, federal support for health sciences libraries is now concentrated on seed money for demonstration projects or new libraries, which the recipient is expected to find other funds to continue, rather than on operating subsidies such as in the 1960s permitted the accelerated strengthening of research collections. At the same time, private institutions now lack the funds to maintain routine operations, let alone continue new projects seeded by federal grants. The demise of health sciences library resource grants ironically paralleled the decline of the private sector's ability to take up the slack.

Fight or Facilitate? It is difficult for a librarian to accept that the mission of his or her library should not be an exception to the general trend. We librarians entered the field of librarianship believing that rendering library service to society is a sacred cause, whether society wants to pay for it or not. The librarian who did not stand up for library programs and fight without letup for the money to fund them was supposed to feel guilty for being passive, lacking in initiative, and failing his present and future clientele. There is some truth to the charge that librarians should be more effective in the power struggle for program priority and funding, but the issues are not so simple as to call merely for crusading; there is that other matter of facing reality. When, for example, a long established private university, which always has prided itself on the magnificence of its libraries, 187

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finds itself, along with the rest of the country, unable to pay its fuel bills and at the same time carry on its activities in accustomed style, someone with overall responsibility has to decide how to match expenditures with income. If these highest officials, in full recognition of the consequences of their decisions, regretfully decree that their libraries, along with all other units, must share in budget retrenchments, it then becomes the librarian's duty, not to fight, but to facilitate the program cutbacks in the best possible way in order to accomplish the mission of both the library and the parent institution. One major program area which budget cuts are likely to affect is the acquisition of library collections. Even though the acquisitions budget is not reduced, it often fails these days to increase with the same speed as inflation. In addition to such direct reduction in annual purchasing power, libraries face the need to reduce their growth rate in order to lessen the pressure for continually expanding stack space, which generates another cost that institutions are becoming unable to fund as the years go by [1]. Even the largest of the nation's libraries are now urgently seeking ways to avoid continued growth at a pace which they can no longer afford [2--3]. A library that does not aim, at least in theory, to acquire all the books and journals its readers want? As a matter of fact, yes. The problem and the solution, of course, is to select wisely and to obtain alternative access for the less-needed materials not acquired. WHO SELECTS? Some nonlibrarians are reluctant to admit that the most logical and effective agent to select a library collection is the librarian. The originator of the famous Project INTREX wrote: It is neither fair nor sensible to assign to libraries the total responsibility for scholarly communications. Quality judgments concerning the substance of the printed record are essential elements of the total task. Such judgments will be accepted by scholars only if they are made by recognized authorities in the various fields. once that decision is made, it becomes the responsibility of the library profession to provide the best possible access to each item in the total record.... The task of controlling the holdings of central libraries and departmental book rooms at universities will be regarded as a responsibility deserving the close and continuing attention of the best available talent in each department [4].

Skepticism about the ability of librarians to build library collections usually is accompanied by an unstated assumption that subject experts are

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more capable than librarians of balancing the need for materials in their own field against the needs in other fields or by an assumption even more remarkable that such experts will get together regularly to coordinate their requests after having taken the time to keep up with all new publications in their own field. It just doesn't happen that way very often. This is not to say that the librarian will not need to consult subject experts on occasion, and happy is the librarian who finds experts who will respond promptly and cheerfully when asked. But in the end it is the librarian at whose desk the buck stops, or he is not fully the librarian. When there is more than one librarian on the staff, the head librarian may want to delegate selection duties, but few health sciences libraries are so large that the head librarian is forced to relinquish all participation in what is perhaps one of the most important and professional aspects of his job, shaping the collections.

ALTERNATIVE ACCESS

Shared Acquisitions Within the Institution. In times of plenty, when a title was of interest to more than one of the various specialized libraries of a large institution, they would tilt the balance in favor of duplicate purchasing. Convenience to readers was worth the cost. In times of scarcity it is necessary to decide that the institution generally can afford only one copy and that readers will have to learn to use the several library facilities more fully. The medical library thus buys fewer chemistry, general biology, or social sciences titles than it did formerly, leaving their provision solely to the science or social science libraries. Outside the Institution. It has been fashionable to believe that libraries can achieve significant savings and at the same time insure full access to the literature by formal commitments for dividing among themselves the responsibility for acquiring all relevant publications. This achievement may be possible, but there are many problems in attempting to demonstrate it. One of the major efforts of the Research Libraries Group, a formal consortium of four of the nation's largest libraries (New York Public, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia) is to share the acquisition of serials and expensive monographs. An elaborate petitioning process, coordinated by a bibliographic center (which also performs various other services), has been established to keep the records and nudge the decisions necessary. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(2) April 1976

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Jones has proposed a regional program for cooperative purchasing of serials whereby each medical library would commit itself to continue a portion of the titles previously shared by all in common (presumably the most important ones) as well as a number of titles not held elsewhere in the region [5]. The theory is that each library can cancel some subscriptions to titles provided by the others and thus save enough to more than afford the less needed titles for which it has assumed responsibility. The chief difficulty when budgets are pinched is that a library needs to cancel every title it possibly can, regardless of whether the title remains in the consortium or region. Consequently, no funds are freed up to cover the less needed titles which are being divided among the cooperating libraries-the money freed is already needed elsewhere. Furthermore, it is difficult to justify cancelling needed titles and relying on an outside library for access to them merely in order to free money to acquire less needed titles assigned under a cooperative agreement. The assumption that it is important to keep a little used title somewhere in the consortium or region is the weak link in the theory of shared acquisitions. In view of the technology and functioning arrangements for shared access to collections, at least among health sciences libraries, it often is likely that one or a very few copies are enough in the entire country, and for this purpose the comprehensive collecting activities of a National Library of Medicine or a Center for Research Libraries offer a reasonable degree of security. There is, no doubt, a danger, when only one or a few copies of little used titles are maintained in the entire country, that such unique material may get lost or destroyed. If the National Library of Medicine should lose part or all of its collections through disaster, the absence of back-up duplicates would constitute a second disaster. Perhaps it is fear of such an occurrence that makes it seem useful to insure comprehensive collecting within each and every region or consortium. The sorry fact, however, is that this kind of insurance is too expensive; the institutions that have to pay the bills cannot afford today to buy the little used titles and hardly the moderately used titles which shared acquisitions plans would require.

or very few copies of a title, wherever they may be. In effect, a comprehensive document delivery network is far more significant in providing alternative access to publications than is formal sharing of acquisitions responsibility. That such an effective network among health sciences libraries is alive and well, copyright law revisers willing, does not need demonstrating here. Any network is in danger of overloading its apex with too many requests. It is necessary to spread the load, which usually is concentrated on a wellknown body of common titles rather than on a wide range of little-used titles. The natural needs of network members tend to insure that within any region the heavily requested titles are sufficiently available so as not to require their provision from the major back-up collection. Sometimes contractual arrangements for spreading government subsidies for document delivery are important to bring about necessary spreading of the service load. THE PROLIFERATION PROBLEM The complaint that too much is published is not new, but an echo from the beginning of publishing history which will only be touched on here. JAMA in 1966 quoted a 75-year-old passage mentioning "these days of numerous medical journals," while one of its 1966 editorials stated: "It is our credo that vastly too many books are being published" [6]. The soon-to-be editor of the New England Journal of Medicine addressed the Medical Library Association earlier that same year with a proposal that librarians hasten the elimination of poor quality journals by relegating them "to an inconspicuous area" of the library-"it would really be a boycott" [7]. And in 1974 the President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry wrote about "the fragmentation of science through the mushroom growth of new journals" and the concern of three colleagues whose memorandum on "the rapid and undesirable increase in number of commercial journals" proposed "that libraries should be urged to show more reluctance in buying new commercial journals" (italics in original) [8]. That is indeed a good suggestion, which will be explored more fully below.

SELECTION CRITERIA Some of the steps proposed here may involve The premise upon which this questioning of out on a limb, but then, it is necessary to for going an effective is rests system shared acquisitions borrowing or obtaining reproductions of those one take drastic steps to cope with a budget crisis.

Network Access

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What else can one do but make judgments and take chances?

Journals

General Principles Several general principles immediately reduce the universe of choices. Subject Scope. One already has been implied, that subject scope be limited mainly to fields of direct interest to the library and not of primary concern to libraries serving other types of clientele. Thus, while the behavioral sciences in all their branches of psychology, sociology, anthropology, management, and so on are sometimes essential for the health sciences, the health sciences library cannot afford to collect widely in these peripheral areas and regularly must refer its clientele to resources of other libraries. Even within the health sciences, subjects which are not taught, practiced, or investigated in one's own institution or which are done so only as adjuncts to primary interests cannot be covered except in a cursory way. If an academic health center has no dental, pharmacy, or veterinary school, even though its hospital may operate a dental clinic and an active clinical pharmacy service and its medical school a large laboratory animal care section, the library should not build a major collection in dentistry, pharmacy, or veterinary medicine. In all such cases, however, the existence of special gifts, such as annual allocations from the local dental society, can increase the degree of coverage possible. Language. A second general principle is that most selection should be limited to the English language. The major foreign-language journals of international reputation will be continued by the academic health center library, but seldom should it consider new journals or books not in English when budgets are inadequate. It used to be preached that the best publications in all languages should be collected in order to avoid provincialism and achieve scholarly balance. In practice there is no money for such luxury. The health sciences library must invest its funds on publications which its clients can and will read. Fortunately for us, in all our parochialism, the English language is becoming more and more the international language of science, as witnessed, for example, by the number of changes of journal title and content from German to English and by the practice of new European journals of adopting English as their "sole language of publication" in order "to assure the widest readership" [9].

New Titles. As already mentioned, the choice of new journals should be made reluctantly. Instead of rushing to add every new title that comes along, fearful that early issues will go out of print or that clients will be impatient at a seeming unawareness of what is new, it is better to consider carefully the quality, relevance, and need for a new title; to ask for advice as to whether the title is really top priority, merely an essential addition (in which case, funds still may not permit its purchase), or an obvious loser; and to keep listening for the clamor of unsatisfied clients or the silence which implies no great loss. It might be argued that library users cannot be expected to know what they are missing if the library does not call it to their attention, but beyond searching continuously for the truly important new title the library cannot afford to be a showcase for new publishing ventures. Cancellations. A library's existing subscription list must not only be pruned of dead wood but also trimmed of live branches when inflationary increases in journal prices race ahead of the conservative increases of most budgets. Various facts can help identify the most important titles and thus by a process of elimination the candidates for cancellation: whether a title is indexed by relevant indexing services, such as Index Medicus, Abridged Index Medicus, or the several selective services of the Institute for Scientific Information [10] or Information Retrieval Limited [11]; whether it is included in relevant selective lists [12-23]; or how high it may be ranked in studies of circulation [24] or citation [25] counts. When all this information has been gathered and the librarian's personal judgment based on experience and intuition has been applied, a list of low priority titles will have developed which can be circulated to department heads and/or other experts with an explanation of the urgent need to reduce expenditures. Sometimes all or most objections to cancelling specific titles can be honored and still leave sufficient room for the needed cost saving; at other times, particularly when more than just obscure titles are being proposed for elimination, the librarian will have to cut where it hurts but hurts the least. The reality which strengthens the librarian's resolve is the realization that if not everything needed can be afforded, then for a reader to assert merely that a title is essential is not sufficient justification to prevent its being can-

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celled. If the clamor continues, reconsideration may be appropriate, but one approach is to ask the petitioner to find the money for his request, whether through new income or suggestions of other titles to cancel. Newsletters. In compiling a cancellation list, entire categories of journals may be included with few exceptions. One is newsletters, particularly those prolific and expensive services which purport to keep one up to date with what is going on in Washington or wherever. If the grants officer or hospital administrator needs any of these, he is likely to have his own copy, anyway. One or two of these services may be worth the cost to a limited number of readers, but many of them seem to be serving up generally available information, even if from scattered sources otherwise slower to report, at an enormous price as a quick moneymaker for the publisher, and libraries should be wary of them. State Journals. Another category for arbitrary cancellation is the state and local medical (or other health field) journal, except for one's own. It has been long recognized that the substance of most of the state journals has been thin. A few outstanding exceptions, like the New England Journal of Medicine, do not alter the fact that the state journals usually are not basic sources of research information. The Editor of the New York State Journal of Medicine describes well the useful role which state journals could play: The state journals should . . . become an important asset in continuing medical education. . . That is their true mission.... the state journals can do a better job than the 'throwaways' in keeping physicians abreast.... The state journals are not appropriate vehicles any longer for primary publication of experimental or even outstanding, esoteric clinical research. Such material now goes to the specialty and basic science journals. The state journals should stress continuing medical education; that they can and should do [26].

It is not essential for most health sciences librarians to buy or give stack space to this kind of repackaged information, when there is not money or space enough to acquire the basic sources.

Books Textbooks and Monographs. When I first began choosing books for a health sciences library, some faculty members advised that research monographs be favored over textbooks. In an active research environment where in-house library resources were relatively minimal, they were Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(2) April 1976

hungry for in-depth reports rather than the often too brief surveys that are the content of teaching tools. If book purchases are cut to the bone, however, it turns out that research monographs are too numerous to be covered equitably, while a look at any "core list" will show that the books considered most essential by experts in all fields are usually textbooks or other works of summary or encyclopedic nature. It is the textbook, after the "revolutionary new concepts" in a field have "become consolidated," which "attempts to contain the avalanche of recent information under one roof" [27]. As with journals, a number of selected or core lists of varying authoritativeness exist to guide in the most important purchases [12-14, 16, 18, 20-21, 28-32], including reference aids [33-34]. Congresses. One entire category of publication may a priori be treated as low priority and its acquisition, with few exceptions, postponed until, if ever, a reader asks for a particular title. That category is the proceedings of meetings, whether called symposia, conferences, workshops, or, as the National Library of Medicine's subject headings identify them with a subheading, "congresses." The reason that congresses are arbitrarily suspect is that as a class the proceedings of congresses are routinely published without refereeing of individual papers or an evaluation of the need to publish even the overall results: the meetings often are held mainly to give colleagues an opportunity to keep in touch with each other, without regard to whether the papers will be important; the papers often report the authors' work in progress at preliminary stages where it would not otherwise warrant a paper; and the one advantage of timely reporting usually is lost through the year or two's delay in publishing. Is it really worth all the effort and cost to produce ... all these contributions which, if valuable enough ought to be made more readily available in regular journals, and if not, ought to sink unobtrusively into oblivion? Short conference contributions are not usually, and certainly should not necessarily be, as complete as papers published in the normal way, and one is never certain when referring to them that they are quite reliable. If they are complete and reliable, and are not published elsewhere because the authors consider them to be published already as proceedings, they are often ignored or forgotten [35]. The contemporary symposium has become the spawning ground of many books in the biological and social sciences. Symposiogenesis usually entails a short breeding period, and it presents scientific hemlines in the passing fashion. Symposiogenetic offspring usually are

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STANLEY D. TRUELSON, JR. snuffed out in a short period of time--frequently only after begetting another symposium--ad infinitum. Symposiasts on the other hand, are a more durable kindred.... [36]. ... why bother to publish the proceedings from such a gathering... ? Much of what was presented summarized material that the speakers had published previously elsewhere. That which was new, is new no longer. The subjects themselves span such a wide range that to compress them between the covers of a single volume ensures that no one will read the entire work (except, perhaps, the editors and an occasional reviewer). Unorthodox as it might sound, perhaps such symposia could simply be attended, enjoyed, and learned from. Whatever insights they might provide would then live on in the minds of the participants, rather than becoming entombed on the shelves of their institutions' libraries

[37]. It surely seems as if publishing the proceedings of congresses has become an unthinking routine, whether for the profit of commercial publishers or the vanity of the congress participants. It is amazing how many standing orders for serials can be cancelled by identifying the serial as a succession of congress proceedings, whether of the same or various groups. Some congresses are outstanding exceptions, of course, and even some series of congresses should be continued, such as the Cold Spring Harbor Symposia or the various CIBA Foundation Symposia. But a book selector immediately can reduce the quantity of his selection with reasonable assurance that quality is receiving due consideration if he automatically passes over those titles which are "congresses." Reprinted Papers. What to do about collections of reprinted papers can be a dilemma. While it seems most economical to rely on the original papers if they appear in the journals a library already owns, there are instances where the new physical arrangement in one place, by suggesting relationships and saving access time, may be worth the cost of what ordinarily would constitute unwarranted duplication. If the collected papers are revised or are supplemented by new introductory material, there may be added reason to acquire them. The importance of the material to the library's readers must guide the selector in balancing convenience versus cost. Multiple Copies. It may be more important to acquire multiple copies of a few heavily-used works than to buy additional new titles. As funds become scarcer, however, multiple copies become less important in the overall picture, and most of them, too, have to be gone without, in spite of the decreased availability that results. While the percentage of readers' unfilled requests for books in

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the collections but off the shelves may be high, as engineering studies of library circulation alarmingly indicate [38], this unavailability at least may be corrected upon the return of the circulated volume, in conjunction with an effective system for holding the book for successive requesters. It is helpful to welcome gifts of duplicate current volumes, perhaps of the latest five years, to increase general availability of volumes most likely to be used. (As a parallel practice, it is desirable to weed all duplicates older than five years unless they show signs of active, recent use.) Gifts. Even gifts, which seem to be free, must be carefully screened, however. Most libraries have never had space to accept everything in scope, but those few which have been building large historical collections have tried to keep all editions of all substantive works. When the future of stack expansion becomes bleak, even those libraries must pass up superseded editions (except the first) and those other outdated books of the current century which are not of mainstream importance. Using Book Reviews The usefulness of book reviews in guiding selection is much greater in times of restricted budgets than when the typical large library strives to acquire all relevant new titles as soon as they are published, sometimes through automatic approval shipments from a dealer. Automatic approval shipments cease to be sensible for libraries which can buy very few of the newly published titles. For these libraries, the delays in receiving reviews of new titles can be tolerated more easily than before, because they are withholding action on most new titles anyway. Reviews can help distinguish very important or very poor titles from the majority. The unusual titles can be acted on immediately, while the majority become for the impoverished library a pool from which to fish only as bait becomes available. In the press of daily activity the librarian cannot read every word of a review. In many cases the subject complexities described will be beyond him, as also beyond the library users whose expertise is not in the field in question. What the librarian looks for is the reviewer's overall judgments of the book, which often can be ascertained by scanning merely the first and last paragraphs of the review. If the review states that a book is useful or contributes new information, the book is a candidate for the holding pool from which possible future selection may be made. It is only when the review is ecstatic and uses phrases such as "the Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(2) April 1976

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best present text on the subject," "it has no equal," "should become the standard work" that the librarian is prompted to buy immediately. Even a title from arbitrarily excluded categories such as congresses may rise on the selection scale when a review describes it as "a monumental effort ... the most ambitious publication in the field so far." The selector has to choose first the review media at which he can take the time regularly to look. Among the general titles which warrant top attention are Nature, Science, Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, British Medical Journal, and, for nursing, American Journal of Nursing. AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA

In all this discussion there has been a decided silence about audiovisual media: motion pictures, audiotapes, videotapes, slides, filmstrips, and the like. It is not because there is any slackening in the volume of such material being produced. Nor is it because of any lack of publicity, pressure, or even euphoria regarding the merits of AV. Rather, it is because these media do not replace but only supplement printed materials; are not, in spite of current fashions, regarded at all institutions as of overwhelming importance; and are very expensive. AV media are undeniably useful in enriching the effect of the printed word with motion and sound or at least in reproducing the color and form of the still picture for group viewing. It is generally accepted that the multisensory stimulation provided by such media facilitate the processes of teaching, persuading, and entertaining. They are particularly useful in introducing a new concept and in creating a sense of the whole situation. Some teachers skillfully exploit AV media to save time in the presentation of often repeated segments of lectures or demonstrations and to permit their review on demand. Just as lecture hall and laboratory are the first focus of most courses, with the library as a backup facility, so AV media can replicate or supplement what goes on in the lecture hall and laboratory, as well as the world outside, and add to the background provided by the book or journal. But, on the other hand, for intensive study or reference purposes, the printed word is usually the most efficient medium for recording and conveying the message. It would be very difficult, for example, to convert the contents of Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(2) April 1976

Goodman and Gilman to a color videotape performance. Teacher demand for AV media is widely different from one institution to another, as well as within any single institution. Some faculties are reluctant by tradition or training to use someone else's product in their courses. The particular films or tapes available do not accomplish what they want, and it is a costly nuisance to produce one's own AV materials. Overcoming this lethargy is a constant battle for the media man in some schools, yet in others he cannot keep up with the demands for his services. Certainly at an institution where apathy toward media predominates over enthusiasm, the librarian is advised to think more than twice before boarding the AV bandwagon out of a sense of duty or zeal to convert. And the clinching reason, again, is cost: AV media are very expensive. It is good practice for an administrator not to embark on new programs unless they either replace the need for old programs or bring new funding; otherwise, the old but still needed programs are in trouble. For the school or hospital that wants an AV operation, it makes sense to set up the AV unit administratively separate from the library, not only because of the different technical skills required, but also because library funds are most likely to be safeguarded by a clear separation of library and AV budgets; fiscal policy makers may then be less likely to lull themselves into dreaming that AV allocations make up for weaknesses in library budgets. Coordination between the library and the AV unit is undeniably important in cataloging AV materials so that users may be able to find them and in providing central facilities such as wet carrels for their use in conjunction with printed materials. But all of this coordination should presuppose a commitment of the parent institution to fund the AV program without taking money from other needed programs. No matter the supposed expectations of the television generation of students (who might surprise us by revealing that AV media sometimes can bore them and books turn them on), the missionary appeals of AV devotees to get something going somewhere, the "every library should do it" stance of grant purveyors (who want to withdraw their money as soon as the seed is planted), or the fond wish of higher administrators to save money by merging AV media in the library (if not submerging the library in AV media), it remains true that libraries in budget trouble can193

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not afford to be distracted by pressures to invest in what are for them not the primary media. After all, in spite of far-reaching proposals to centralize in the library such diverse materials as pathological slides, radiology films, patient records, and every other kind of record or artifact used to convey knowledge, there really is no more reason to insist that all media belong in the same unit than to insist that all physicians serve in the same department-there is such a thing as useful specialization. For the library to try to stretch insufficient acquisitions funds for books and journals to buy into the vast, complementary field of AV media and machines would be disaster. THE ART OF SELECTING

If libraries had enough money, they could expand instead of retract in many of these areas. Perhaps then there would be overwhelming advantages in combining AV operations with libraries that could also buy all needed books and journals, as well as explore many other dreams for information processing and transfer [39]. Then the librarian's challenges would be in exciting new directions. But now the challenge to the librarian is to optimize the insufficient. Perhaps it is consoling that it is more of an art to select library materials when money is scarce than when one can obtain everything wanted. The librarian's selection expertise is more needed and has more impact in times of trouble than in times of plenty. Let us take heart that although we are poorly funded at least we are greatly needed. REFERENCES 1. GORE, DANIEL. The view from the Tower of Babel. Libr. J. 100: 1599-1605, Sept. 15, 1975. 2. ROGERS, RUTHERFORD D. New approaches to old problems. In: Yale University Library. Report of the University Librarian, July 1971-June 1972. New Haven, 1973. p. 5. (Bulletin of Yale University, ser. 69, no. 2, 15 Jan. 1973.) 3. DEGENNARO, RICHARD. Austerity, technology, and resource sharing: Research libraries face the future. Libr. J. 100: 917-923, May 15, 1975. 4. OVERHAGE, CARL F. J. Science libraries: Prospects and problems. Science 155: 802 -806, Feb. 17, 1967. 5. JONES, C. LEE. A cooperative serial acquisition program: Thoughts on a response to mounting fiscal pressures. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62: 120-123, Apr. 1974. 6. Books and book reviewing (editorial). JAMA 198: 1118, Dec.5, 1966. 7. INGELFINGER, FRANZ J. Austere librarians-volteface! Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 55: 1-4, Jan. 1967.

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8. TFIOMPSON, HAROLD W. Proliferation of journals in chemistry. Spec. Libr. 66: 172, March 1975. Reprinted from Chem. Eng. News 52: 2, Oct. 7, 1974. 9. To our readers. Eur. Urol. 1: 1, 1975. 10. INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION: List of Journals Covered by Current Contents. List of Journals Covered by SCISEARCH. Source Publications, Automatic Subject Citation Alert (ASCA) and ASCATOPICS. Source Publications, Science Citation Index

(SCI). I 1.

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22.

Source Publications, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). All: Philadelphia (updated annually). INFORMATION RETRIEVAL LIMITED. Primary Journals Monitored and Abstracted by IRL and Associated International Organisations. London, Nov. 1971 (updated annually?). ALLYN, RICHARD, and STEARNS, NORMAN S. A library for internists. Ann. Intern. Med. 79: 293- 322, Aug. 1973. BRANDON, ALFRED N. Selected list of books and journals for the small medical library. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 63: 149- 172, Apr. 1975. ENNis, BERNICE. Guide to the Literature in Psychiatry. Los Angeles, Partridge Press, 1971. 127 P. FELTER, JACQUELINE W. 500 Selected Periodicals for the Medical Library. Teaneck, N. J., Franklin Square Subscription Agency, n.d. LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. Medical Section. Books and Periodicals for Medical Libraries in Hospitals. 4th ed. London, 1973. 53 p. MOLL, WILHELM. Basic journal list for small hospital libraries. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 57: 267 27 1, July 1969. STEARNS, NORMAN S., and RATCLIFF, WENDY W. An integrated health-science core library for physicians, nurses and allied health practitioners in community hospitals. New Engl. J. Med. 283: 1489 1498, Dec. 31, 1970. TIMOUR, JOHN A. Selected lists of journals for the small medical library: A comparative analysis. Bull. M ed. Libr. Assoc. 59: 87-93, Jan. 197 1. U.S. VETERANS ADMINISTRATION. Central Office Library. Basic List of Books and Journals for Veterans Administration Medical Libraries. 1971 revision. Washington, 1972. 35 p. (Department of Medicine and Surgery Program Guide, G-14, M2, part XIII, revised July 31, 1972.) Medical and General Reference Library Staff. Medical Specialty Checklist for Veterans Administration Medical Libraries. Washington, 1968--70. (Department of Medicine and Surgery Program Guide, G-15, parts 1-11; M-2, part XIII.) [Eleven subject parts published Sept. 1968-Sept. 1970.] WENDER, RUTH, and LEHR, KAREN. Study of medical journals used by individual Oklahoma physicians. J. Okla. State Med. Assoc. 66: 426-429, Oct. 1973. As cited in: MOLL, WILHELM. A comment on another core list. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62: 327-328, July 1974.

Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(2) April 1976

LIBRARY COLLECTIONS WHEN BUDGETS FALTER 23. YAST, HELEN T. 90 recommended journals for the hospital's health science library. Hospitals 41: 59-62, July 1, 1967. 24. KOVACS, HELEN. Analysis of one year's circulation at the Downstate Medical Center Library. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 54: 42-47, Jan. 1966. 25. GARFIELD, EUGENE. Citation analysis as a tool in journal evaluation. Science 178: 471-479, Nov. 3, 1972. 26. ANGRIST, ALFRED A. A plea for selective library service: to bring advances in library science to the practitioner. New York State J. Med. 74: 2055-2058, Oct. 1974. 27. AUGUSTIN, R. [Review of] Immunological Aspects of Allergy and Allergic Diseases. Edited by E. Rajka and S. Korossy. Nature 257: 342, Sept. 25, 1975. 28. INKE, GABOR. A list of most frequently recommended medical textbooks. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 59: 589-598, Oct. 1971. 29. KERKER, ANN E., and MURPHY, HENRY T. Biological and Biomedical Resource Literature. Lafayette, Ind., Purdue University, 1968. 226 p. 30. LARocco, AUGUST, and JONES, BARBARA. A bookshelf in public health, medical care, and allied fields. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 60: 32-101, Jan. 1972. 31. MENNINGER, KARL. A Guide to Psychiatric Books in English. 3d ed. New York, Grune & Stratton,

Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 64(2) April 1976

1972. 238 p. (Menninger Clinic Monograph Series, no. 7.) 32. WEST, KELLY M.; WENDER, RUTH W.; and MAY, RUBY S. Books in clinical practice 1971-1975; a selected and annotated list for medical practitioners, indexed by subject and author. Postgrad. Med. 56: 60-81, Dec. 1974. 33. DUNCAN, HOWERTINE FARRELL. Selected reference aids for small medical libraries. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 58: 134-158, Apr. 1970.

34. INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON LIBRARY RESOURCES FOR NURSING. Committee. [8th rev.] Reference sources for nursing. Nurs. Outlook 22: 331-337, May 1974. 35. BREWER, D. F. Weighing words in conference proceedings. Nature 253: 666, Feb. 20, 1975. 36. HAASE, GUNTER R. [Review of] Epilepsy: Its Phenomena in Man, edited by Mary A. B. Brazier. JAMA 229: 339, July 15, 1974. 37. CALLAWAY, WAYNE. [Review of] Nutritional Problems in a Changing World, edited by Dorothy Hollingsworth and Margaret Russell. JAMA 229: 1664, Sept. 16, 1974. 38. TRUESWELL, R. W. Analysis of Library User Circulation Requirements, Final Report, January 1968. NSF Grant GNO 435. As cited in [1]. 39. MILLER, JAMES G. Design for a university health sciences information center. J. Med. Educ. 42: 404-429, May 1967.

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Selecting for health sciences library collections when budgets falter.

Selecting for Health Sciences Library Collections When Budgets Falter BY STANLEY D. TRUELSON, JR., Librarian Yale Medical Library New Haven, Connecti...
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