Brandon-Hill and Doody's Lists

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Introduction

see also Collection development in biomedicine, Print ordering & Top Information Sources in Biomedicine, 2012

Brandon-Hill and Doody's are two names inextricably linked to collection development in biomedicine. They also conjure up two rather different eras of library acquisitions, pre- and post-web. In the 21st century, many health librarians continue to rely on recommendations from colleagues and a variety of other selection tools to build print and digital collections. In addition, selection guides are very useful as tools for derived cataloguing and reference processes in health libraries. For almost forty years, books and journals in health and medical libraries were listed for purchase in the Brandon & Hill lists which are superceded by Doody's Core Titles and other methods and metrics.

Brandon-Hill Lists

Alfred N. Brandon began the "selected book and journal list" in 1965 to assist librariansin their evaluation of medical textbooks. Many years later, the BH lists are no longer being updated and the last version was the 2003 "Brandon/Hill Selected List of Print Books and Journals for the Small Medical Library". Dorothy Hill became involved in the "Brandon List" during the 1970s. At Mount Sinai Hospital (New York), she worked as an Acquisitions Librarian; Brandon was Director. Hill drew attention to books for the "Brandon List" and became coauthor of the 1979 "Selected List." In time, the "Brandon List" evolved into the "Brandon/Hill List." First published in 1965, the list contained 358 books and 123 journals; in 2001, 630 books and 143 journals were selected. The project speaks for itself and will never be duplicated. The Medical Library Association passed a motion in 2003 to outsource this tool to Doody's but the tool is no longer openly accessible (ie. it is subscription-based).

Doody's Core Titles

Doody's Core Titles in the Health Sciences online offers an overview and analysis of major titles relevant in health libraries. It includes an overview, the purpose of the list, Doody's core titles and the web, objectivity of the selections, notes on how titles are listed, scoring, interpreting the scores, breakdowns of titles by specialty, score and copyright year, and average cost of core titles by specialty. The website also offers additional information on the selection process, selectors, and history and background of the list. Essential core titles and Key core titles (based on scores) are indicated by symbols.

Usefulness

Without a proper replacement of BH, some health librarians have called for a move to more mixed evidence-based models ie. quantitative methods, rather than qualitative alone. Doody's strengths and weaknesses are best illustrated by an analysis of the rating of monographs in the various categories. In many disciplines, the DCT is more or less complete, but the rating system has too little variation (1-3) to measure meaningful differences between sources. For instance, what is the true difference between mean scores of 2.5 and 2.6? or between 2.9 and 3.0? This overly restrictive range results in a system that is decidedly less useful than the Brandon-Hill lists. Text ratings for the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) or Sadock, Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry are somewhat helpful - but problems exist. The first book is given a rating of 3.0 and the latter 2.9. It is hard to understand how these classics are not rated similarly. With 3.0 being the highest rating of the most important psychiatric texts (two Essential Core texts are given 3.0), the mean score for all Key Core titles is about 2.75. Therefore, the mean difference between "Essential" and "Key" is barely noticeable for the collection librarian who looks to Doody's for guidance.

Key websites

• BP/Majors Report for Medical Librarians (includes a hybrid updated Brandon-Hill list~!)
• http://www.doody.com/corp/LibraryBoardofAdvisors/tabid/123/Default.aspx
• MLA Collection Development Section http://colldev.mlanet.org/resources/professional_resources.htm
• MLA Consumer Health Information Specialization Program http://www.mlanet.org/education/chc/

References

• Hill DR, Stickell HN. Brandon/Hill selected list of print books and journals for the small medical library. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 2001;89(2):131-53.
• Shedlock J, Walton LJ. Developing a virtual community for health sciences library book selection: Doody's Core Titles. J Med Libr Assoc. 2006;94(1):61-6.
• Spasser MA. Review of Doody's Core Titles in the Health Sciences 2004 (DCT 2004). Biomed Digit Libr. 2005;2:5.
• Ugaz AG. Assessing print and electronic use of reference/core medical textbooks. J Med Libr Assoc. 2008;96(2):145-7.
• Vaughan K. Changing use patterns of print journals in the digital age: impacts of electronic equivalents on print chemistry journal use. J Am Soc Inf Sci. 2003;54(12):1149–52.