Introduction to Health Sciences Librarianship: a Management Handbook

Citation

Goodier, J. (1999), "Introduction to Health Sciences Librarianship: a Management Handbook", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 95-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.2.95.1

At one point in this book Frank Kellerman leads us through a complex bibliographic check, where most of the customer’s information is slightly wrong. At the end of it he asks if this was the best way; his answer is “probably not, but it was fun”. His enthusiasm for helping customers find the information they need comes through in much of the book. Introduction to Health Sciences Librarianship covers all the areas that one needs to know to be a good health librarian. He starts with the journal and its function in the research community. Next he covers the Index Medicus, including the story of how it, and the National Library of Medicine, came to exist. Computerised bibliographic services are then dealt with. Then on to the librarian’s tasks of collection development, acquisitioning and what he calls cataloguing, but I would call classification. Reference services and sources are covered. He includes a wonderful example of lateral thinking. A customer wanted to know the average area of a human armpit and none of the standard references provided an answer. I wonder if you can come up with the answer? The next chapter covers computerisation of medical information; telemedicine, medical infomatics, electronic journals and more. The final chapter covers the habitat of the health science librarian in which he shows how the medical librarian forms a vital part of the health care provision service provided for patients.

Despite having worked in medical and science libraries for years I picked up some tips and learnt some useful information. For any one setting out to run a “one professional library” this book will set them out on the right track. Librarians in other specialist fields will probably get some good ideas. If you have not yet been converted to pro‐active librarianship this might encourage you. It is an easy and enjoyable read. Kellerman is critical of reviews as a source of suggestions for collection building because of the unavoidable delays in their appearing. But I will forgive him that and strongly recommend his book.

By the way the librarian phoned a deodorant manufacturer to find the size of an armpit.