Brandon-Hill and Doody's Lists

Are you interested in contributing to HLWIKI International – hlwiki.ca? contact: dean.giustini@ubc.ca To browse other articles on a range of HSL topics, see the A-Z index. Last Update 16 May 2013 Introduction See also Abbreviations including journal abbreviations | Collection development | Print ordering | Reference collections | Top Information Sources in Biomedical Reference, 2013 Brandon-Hill and Doody's are two names inextricably linked to collection development in biomedicine. The Brandon/Hill core lists are well known to collection development librarians serving professional audiences in the fields of medicine, nursing and allied health. They also conjure up two rather different eras of library acquisitions, pre- and post-web. From the beginning, the Brandon/Hill selected lists have always been based on the opinion of the compilers. There is no model or scientific method employed. 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; however, there is increasingly a move to evidence-based collection development in health libraries. Selection guides are still useful as tools for derived cataloguing and reference processes in health libraries. The books and journals purchased for health and medical libraries that were listed in the Brandon & Hill lists have been superceded by Doody's Core Titles and other methods. Brandon-Hill Lists Alfred N. Brandon began the "selected book and journal list" in 1965 to assist librarians in their evaluation of medical textbooks. He built upon the usefulness of the core holdings lists sporadically published by the American Medical Association between 1940 and 1959. His experience in building collections in medical libraries and his participation as an active member of the medical librarians’ association in Baltimore occurred when he was director of the Welch Medical Library at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The first BH list for small medical libraries was published in 1965. Many decades later, the Brandon-Hill lists are no longer being updated; in fact, the last version that was updated came in 2003 and was given the title "Brandon/Hill Selected List of Print Books and Journals for the Small Medical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." She joined the effort of making biennial updates to the Brandon selection list and later the original BH list had two spin-offs; nursing in 1979 and allied health professions in 1984. 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~!) Brandon Hill Selected Lists http://library.mssm.edu/brandon-hill/ 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/ WHO List of Basic Sources in English for a Medical Faculty Library. 14e, 2010 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. Levine-Clark M. Developing a multiformat demand-driven acquisition model. Coll Manage. 2010;35(3-4):201-207. Shearer BS, Nagy SP. Developing an academic medical library core journal collection in the (almost) post-print era: the Florida State University College of Medicine Medical Library experience. J Med Libr Assoc. 2003;91(3):292-302. 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.