The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences

Abstract

For nearly 10 years, there has been a need to replace the long-revered Brandon/Hill list that ceased publication in 2003 1. The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences does an excellent job replacing that tool and lives up to its title as a master guide. It is 8.5-inches-x-11.25-inches and 2 inches thick, covers 34 broad-based subjects, and is organized logically around the “Health Occupations” and “Biological Sciences” tree structures of the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). More than three-quarters of the contributors are librarians (the rest are experts in their domains), and each contributor has reviewed and selected essential books, journals, and databases in their areas of expertise. The book covers a broad range of the expected clinical areas, but also chiropractic, dentistry, environmental health, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, and administration. It also includes some basic sciences and ethics and ends with a general reference section. This single volume makes no claim to be comprehensive; instead expert contributors were explicitly asked to identify up to ten of the most valuable books and journals in their field. The design follows the intention of Brandon/Hill in that it seeks to offer the most value for selectors in small-budget medical libraries, but the Master Guide expands its scope to include databases and electronic resources. The Master Guide is well organized and designed. The table of contents is constructed with broad categories and subdivided by specialties. Subcategories are numbered in a way similar to many style guides (for example, Chapter 11 is “Surgical Specialties,” followed by subspecialties: “11.1 Colorectal Surgery,” “11.2 Gynecology,” “11.3 Neurosurgery,” etc.). Three indexes in the back (monographs, journals, and databases and electronic resources) facilitate easy look-up of particular resources by name. This feature will be useful when considering requests to add a particular volume or subscription to a library's collection. Each section or subcategory begins with a definition of the discipline, mostly from MeSH and occasionally from a medical dictionary, and names the contributing authors. Overview encyclopedic works are presented first in the main section, followed by specialties within the field. Up to 20 resources are presented, in consistent order of monographs, then journals, then databases. Each individual entry includes title, edition, author, publisher, publication date, 13-digit international standard book number (ISBN), and uniform resource locator (URL) for online versions, where available, either for free or by subscription. When items were selected by more than one discipline, there is a “See” referral to the primary section. Listings offer recommendations for hospital, academic, or consumer health libraries. If the selection was included in the Brandon/Hill List or Doody's Core Titles 2, that is also indicated. Entries then offer a brief (100–200 words) description emphasizing the importance and value of the work. For books, if Doody's Core Titles recommended it as an “essential purchase,” that information is included. For journals, the entry includes indexing information. The presentation of the material in this book will make sense to librarians. The final section on general reference extends the usefulness of this work by including free and subscription bibliographic sources that help librarians find and evaluate information resources. There are sections on databases, dictionaries and medical terminology, statistical sources, biographical directories, and finally a section on grant sources. An online version of this excellent resource is intended, but no current URL, as of this writing, could be located. The Master Guide offers more in-depth annotation than the New Walford Guide to Reference Resources volume on medicine 3. The New Walford is a dictionary or catalog of resources offering only brief descriptions and borrowed review blurbs from publisher sources. Their purposes are different,. Like the Introduction to Reference Sources in the Health Sciences 4, the New Walford seeks to support the new librarian who has no idea what sources exist in a field. The Master Guide, on the other hand, is written and edited by librarians mostly for an audience of directors of hospital libraries or bibliographic selectors in academic institutions who must make difficult collection development decisions within tight budgets. The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences is highly recommended for hospital libraries. It would also be a core resource for academic libraries at all levels with medical, pharmacy, nursing, dentistry, allied health, or veterinary schools. Frankly, it would be a highly useful desk reference for medical librarians involved in collection development or needing a resource for reference questions outside their areas of expertise.