Proposal for a Consumer Health Library

Creating a New Reference Library

Malibu, California has a population of 12,575 citizens and a good size public library as well as two libraries at Pepperdine University. I lived in Malibu over 20 years ago (and it isn’t what it is cracked up to be, believe me) and I can not recall ever walking into the public library nor the Pepperdine University libraries. I think a consumer health library would be of valuable assistance to the 12,757 citizens of Malibu.

I decided to see what health information at Pepperdine University Library’s website - http://library.pepperdine.edu/ and the Harnish Law Library - http://law.pepperdine.edu/library/. Both libraries are open only to current students, alumni, dependants of faculty and staff and Friends of the Pepperdine University Library. I attempted to get into some of the Medicine and Health databases but was unable to access any information which was not a surprise. Most citizens of Malibu would be out of luck as well if they were trying to find information on a drug or a disease.

I searched the Malibu public library’s catalog at http://www.colapublib.org/libs/malibu/ using “medicine” as a search term and received 100’s of results. Most of the results were not consumer health related – many history of medicine texts, information on how to get jobs in healthcare and alternative medicine books were available. I was happy to see they had Dorland’s Medical Dictionary and an English/Spanish medical dictionary. I then clicked on the Collection link and found out this library has a large mountaineering collection, a Jewish history collection and a nautical collection but could not find any information on consumer health.

Using information I obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2000 American Community on www.factfinder.gov I found out that 94.4% or 11,876 of Malibu’s citizen them are “white alone or in combination”; the median income for a household is $102,031; the majority have a obtained Bachelor’s degree (32.7%) & 11.5% have a Master’s degree; only 3.5% did not receive a high school diploma.

My proposal for a consumer health library in Malibu would include most if not all of the reference resources from the Brandon/Hill selected list as the majority of citizens of Malibu have a college education and would probably be able to grasp the information. The majority, 75%, of the collection would consist of print resources with 25% available online. In print I would include some these books: The Official ABMS Directory of Board Certified Medical Specialists; Dorland’s and/or Steadman’s Medical dictionaries; Dictionary of Medical Syndromes by Magalini et al; Steadman’s Abbreviations, Acronyms & Symbols; Mosby’s Medical, Nursing, Allied Health Dictionary; The Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine; A Breast Cancer Journey: Your Personal Guide by the American Cancer Society; Merck Manual, Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment and the American Cancer Society Consumer’s Guide to Cancer Drugs and the last few editions of PDRs (Physician’s Desk Reference).

I would also include most if not all of the Brandon/Hill list journals in print like the American Family Physician, American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, JAMA, Journal of the American Dental Association, Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Electronic resources would include PubMed including LinkOut in PubMed so patrons doing research and be able to get full text of articles and links to the journals available at www.freemedicaljournals.com and www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov. I would also include links to free consumer health information at resources like www.MedlinePlus.gov and www.healthfinder.gov

For library staff I would like to have at least four full time librarians with at least two of them medical librarians, 3 technicians and a clerk.

I believe that with the print and electronic resources as well as the right staff the people of Malibu would be able to find the reliable health information they need.

Print vs. Online

If I woke up tomorrow morning and I was magically given $5,000 to spend on reference materials what would I do? Hmm… Would I spend it all on online books? Would I spend it on print books? Should I divvy the money 50/50? Or 100/0?
There are so many great things about print books. Images, photos, graphs, charts and the like are much easier to read. The price of print materials is usually less expensive, especially in these difficult budget times, than online content. Print books do not require patrons to be computer literate. And as far as library staff goes there isn’t the hassle of update/changing/deleting links. I also happen to believe that most people still
However, print books do have a few cons: they aren’t accessible anywhere but in the physical library and only one patron at a time
If I went with all online content patrons would able to get access from anywhere with Internet access. I have to say that accessibility is the only thing I like about online books. Some of the downsides about online books: print content, as I mentioned before is usually less expensive; photographs, charts, graphs and other images can be thumbnail size, or you have to click 2 or more links to print them out full-size or an image may not be included in the online content;
I realized I said that one of the cons to print is that it can only be viewed by one patron at a time but some online databases allow one or maybe two people to view an e-book at a time. As a library employee I know all too well that e-books frequently have their URLs change which means you have to change the link in more than a few places most likely.
Not to mention that there is a lot of patrons who are not computer literate or even if they know how to use the computer they are not always familiar with using an OPAC/IPAC to get to the content they need.
So if someone miraculously gave me $5,000 to spend on reference materials at my library I would use 75% of the money on print and 25% on e-books. That might seem crazy in this computer-centered world but I believe it makes the most sense.