Collections management guidance

The aim of this guideline is to provide broad principles and recommendations for collection development for knowledge and library services in the NHS in England.

Purpose

The guidance covers stock acquisition with criterion to consider for books and journals, print and electronic; stock retention and withdrawal; as well as issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion.

The guideline is intended to inform local and nationally procured collection management.

It has been underpinned by a review of the literature and has been co-produced by a working group with knowledge & library staff representatives from each of the NHS regions in England and members of the NHS England Knowledge and Library services’ team.

Stock acquisition

Sources to support your stock selection include:

  • CILIP Health Libraries Group Core Collections series published by Tomlinsons – a series of peer-reviewed guides to the core titles that a health library should stock, covering medicine, nursing and midwifery, and mental health
  • reading lists from local universities and professional bodies
  • titles in demand on your interlibrary loan service
  • staff suggestions and recommendations which could be obtained via surveys or library committees
  • if you are part of a regional Library Management System (LMS), consider running a report on the most issued and reserved book titles reports for your system which can be useful for spotting popular individual titles and subject areas

There are various ways to keep up to date with new books published in healthcare:

  • monthly lists of new editions and titles in healthcare are available from Blackwell's and Tomlinson's
  • Blackwell's, Gobi, Tomlinsons' and Proquest also offer a service where if you send them a list of your collection, they will report on which titles have been superseded by new editions
  • set up searches on GOBI or Proquest Oasis 
  • for specialist collections, e.g., mental health, bookmark key publishers and charities.
  • find book reviews in key society journals
  • for wellbeing related titles, the Reading Agency provide useful curated lists

Things to consider when evaluating potential resources:

Books

Country of publication

This is important as US or other international publications will reflect different healthcare systems and practices to the UK.  However, it is also important to seek non-UK authors from, for example, the Global South to ensure a diverse collection.

Edition

Are there multiple editions?  If a text has multiple previous editions, the content has evidently been found to be valuable enough to encourage publishers to release new editions.  A new title may require closer scrutiny.

Currency

How old is the book at the point that you are buying it? How quickly does the topic move? E.g. management texts will have a longer shelf life than medication titles.

Specialism

Are there specialisms in your Trust that you should cover?

Quality

Liaise with subject experts.

Cost

How much does the book cost.  Does it represent value for money for the likely usage?

Journals

Electronic format should be favoured above print for journals to ensure 24/7 access and to reach a wider audience.

  • is the title indexed in a bibliographic database?
  • can the title be found in the Knowledge & Library Hub?
  • could you get this title via an aggregated collection which would then pick up other useful titles?
  • how many ILL requests have you had for the title?
  • is the journal easily available from other libraries in the NHS?  How many libraries are supplying it on INCDocs?
  • when renewing e-journal titles: what is the cost per download versus the ILL cost?
  • will you continue to have access to the content you have purchased if you cancel your subscription?
  • does the license allow you to supply it to other libraries via ILL?

e-Resources

  • is the resource OpenAthens authenticated? (Preferred)
  • can it offer IP authentication? (Desirable)
  • should be compatible with Edge as the default NHS browser)
  • is the resource listed as a resource in the Knowledge and Library Hub?
  • does it meet accessibility standards?
  • is it a Browzine enabled title?
  • are any platform accounts required?
  • can you do a trial to help you obtain user feedback and evaluate the content’s relevance and usability?
e-Books

A hybrid print and online service offer will continue to meet different user needs and as e-books are not always available or affordable.

Work is currently being carried out to improve the user experience on shared Library Management systems.  

Considerations:

  • what access model are you purchasing the books under?
  • consider licensing arrangements - do they allow for simultaneous use, does the publisher apply a multiplier that requires customers to purchase more than one copy of each title?
  • will MARC records be made available, of what quality are they, and is there a charge?  Who else is using these records that you could check with?
  • will Wayfless URLs be made available?
  • can you deep link to the book? (a link that takes the user directly to the title rather than a website). 
  • can you download the book onto a tablet or through an app?
  • can you download individual chapters?
  • how might you purchase the book through a consortium?
e-Book bundles

Considerations:

  • are the books the latest edition?
  • what arrangements are there for changes to editions in the bundle - are titles updated,  are old editions removed, are you alerted to the changes, will any costs be incurred?
Journal bundles

Considerations:

  • if there are key titles in the bundle, when does the supplier’s agreement run until; are you informed when collection content changes?
  • what overlap is there with other packages you have access to nationally or locally? (Do a title search on EBSCO HLM which would show up packages with that title)
  • are there any existing consortium deals in place, whether regionally or nationally?
  • would a content on demand (token) model, where available, be more cost effective than a subscription? (Note that these can be time limited, so any unused credit cannot be carried over)

Other aspects to consider when speaking with suppliers:

  • are there any embargo periods?
  • does the license allow for the content to be used for document supply?
  • are there any platform fees or minimum annual spends?
  • other considerations could include whether continuing education is recorded

NICE purchasing framework

It is important to ensure that you are making correct use of the NICE Purchasing Framework when purchasing content so that you are benefiting from the correct negotiated license terms.  

For purchases outside the scope of the framework, remember that you can always negotiate the terms of a license.  It is also important to review the license terms as even if you are not the signatory for the organisation you will likely have more expertise in the area.

Other resources

Libraries may also purchase multi-media resources such as anatomy products in addition to resources such as board games.  It is outside the scope of this guideline to provide specific guidance related to these.

Resources which support leisure reading and audiobooks are also popular. These can also be made available by signposting and partnership working with your local public library service.

Some libraries will also have historical or archive collections which are also out of the scope of this guideline.

Resources out of scope of library budgets

Online exam resources and CPD platforms

Whilst some health libraries purchase online exam courses from their budgets, these can be funded through NHS England Workforce, Training & Education Study Leave budgets. This is something that trainees can elect to include as part of their overall study leave allowance budget, taking away an expectation on libraries funding this type of resource.  Postgraduate medical education departments in Trusts can claim exam resources by using the ‘trust courses’ tab of their monthly return with details of the trainees that each code has been assigned to.

Open Access Publishing

Libraries may be approached for support in funding Article Processing Charges (APCs) for open access publishing.  Users should be referred to the Trust’s Research & Innovation team or their own department

Stock retention and withdrawal

Weeding is an important activity to ensure that collections remain strong and relevant and will impact on users’ perception about the collection, with out-of-date editions potentially impacting on their confidence in the service.  Weeding is also a useful way to identify areas for collection building.

Refer to usage data for electronic resources such as the cost per download, and for print books look at your loan figures.  It is useful to include the price paid for a book when you are cataloguing it so that a cost per loan can be calculated.

Books

The importance of up-to-date information within healthcare is paramount and it is recommended that only the latest edition of clinical books is included in your collection, whether in print, or electronically.

A ’10-year rule’ has often been cited in collection management policies, and whilst no specific evidence has been found in the research review about it, it remains a good benchmark. 

Materials for which currency is paramount or longer:

Table showing subject retention periods
Subject Retention period
Subject Anaethesia Retention period 5 years
Subject

Exam revision texts

 Retention period 5 years
Subject Immunology Retention period 5 years
Subject Infection control Retention period 5 years
Subject Pharmacology/medicines management Retention period 5 years
Subject Law Retention period Check for any legal text changes
Subject Leadership and management Retention period A longer shelf life (15-20 years)
Subject ICT Retention period These will have a very limited shelf life. MS Office related texts will need to be in line with current NHS Trust systems.
Subject Psychology and psychotherapy Retention period No date limit, refer to subject experts.

There are a range of ways that withdrawn stock can be decommissioned: running a book sale (it is not recommended that titles in the areas highlighted above are included; they can be offered to an online book seller, or organisations like Better World Books, or simply discarded).

Practical notes:

  • Regional LMS Managers will be asked to run regular reports to identify older editions to assist libraries in weeding
  • your system manager can also provide you with a report on titles that are older than 10 years or have never been borrowed in the last 5 years
  • consider adopting a rolling programme on sections to be reviewed
  • for mental health titles which are less time limited, you might want to consider checking the current selling price on a site like Amazon to establish its current value
  • liaise with e-book suppliers for updates on any new editions and remove these from the LMS

e-Books

It is important to make the results that users retrieve relevant and up to date. The same criteria for weeding print books can be applied to e-books however e-books can present additional quality control issues. The ability to remove e-books can vary depending on vendor platform and may require additional steps:

  • check currency, paying attention to older, large collections bought in bulk as quality can be easy to miss and older e-books may contain references to websites that are no longer valid
  • review usage data

    NHS England will be exploring with publishers how individual titles can be excluded from bundles.

  • delete from your regional/local catalogue as required.

Journals

With the primary purpose of NHS libraries being to provide access to relevant information, and with technological advances, the strategy should be to move from a ‘just in case’ to ‘just in time’ approach with electronic holdings the preferred option.

With regards to historical print holdings, as Andrew Booth reminds us: “Doing nothing is not cost neutral, unused items using up space have ‘opportunity costs’”. 

There have in the past been arrangements for ‘regional retention’ (i.e. to ensure at least one library in a region holds a title / bundle / back-run) when journals were largely in print. These were abandoned as they became too onerous to administer. If you are concerned that you may hold a unique title, check the British Library catalogue.

User involvement

As our review of the literature confirmed, considering user needs and engagement are paramount in collection development and management.

Ways to consult and engage with users:

  • local faculty groups
  • contact with those leading learning and development courses in your Trust
  • a library committee with representatives from different professions and specialties
  • encouraging recommendations through outreach work

Some suppliers offer Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) whereby you can enable your users to view and recommended e-book titles for purchase.  This can be librarian mediated so that the team can review these. Things to consider with PDA include:

  • can you select from a defined selection e.g. NLM, Dewey Decimal etc (and are these potentially too wide) or do you need to cherry pick titles?
  • check the focus and where the titles are published, e.g. is it too US-centric.
  • what triggers a purchase?
  • are the latest editions available?
  • what is the process for downloading Marc records and removing old records when they are no longer available?
  • are the links Athenised?

There is a Collections Management space on FutureNHS where NHS library staff can share user feedback on subject areas and titles so that this knowledge can more effectively be shared in our community.

Using the data available to support making evidence-based acquisition and retention decisions is also important. As one research paper identified, user preference for print books was not reflected in usage statistics.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

It is important for collections to reflect the population and communities that we serve. Having a diverse, representative collection can be a powerful tool in achieving improved clinical outcomes through contributing to the reduction of health disparities, in addition to fostering equity in your organisation.

In 2020, the GMC made a commitment to updating medical curricula to reflect the diversity of the UK population. Equitable diverse representation in images and information resources are important to support information efficacy and accuracy.

Taking a sample of your collection, review how representative the authorship of your staff or service user base is.  Points to consider include:

  • whether the content of the books is representative, including medical images of different skin tones or any relevant differences in treatment based on gender, disability, race, economic/cultural background etc.
  • whether most authors in the sample are from a majority background
  • whether the authors in your collection from minoritised communities are integrated into all aspects of your collection rather than just in the sociology section

Consider purchasing outside of the larger publishers and focus on smaller or independently owned organisations.  Publishers supporting equality, diversity and inclusion include:

  • sources of diverse material – a padlet put together by the Academic Liaison Team, University of Kent
  • Lived Places Publishing – an independent publisher that aims to publish ‘applied, concise course readings’ focusing on lived experiences in the context of place. Collections include Black Studies, Gender Studies, Disability Studies, and Queer and LGBTQ+ Studies
  • The Other Side of Hope – a literary magazine edited by refugees and immigrants
  • Cipher Press – an independent publisher of queer fiction and non-fiction.
  • Marginal – a publisher that elevates young, marginalised voices, the UK’s first youth-led publishing house
  • Jessica Kingsley – a publishing house that has specialised in autism, social work, and arts therapies since their inception,and more recently they have broken ground on mental health, gender diversity, adoption, and neurodiversity

NHS England will advocate to publishers the need for editors to work towards an authorship that reflects a wide demographic and a global health community.

It is recommended that you engage with your users, especially any workplace equality groups or networks that can recommend resources.

Consider how this work can support clinical quality improvement work, using for example, the Race and Health Observatory provides a good reference point for identifying deficits and work in progress.

It’s important to analyse your collection and take actions based on its unique composition, as each singular collection reflects the values and history of its organisation. There are, however, existing projects that will help inform your own:

The Wessex Classification Scheme sub-groups have examined parts of the classification scheme requiring updates, including the terms relating to LGBTQ+ and gender identity issues, and to ethnicity and diversity. Work is ongoing on other identified areas. Suggestions for further changes can be made via the suggestions form on the SWIMS website.

Practical Note: If concerns should be raised about a particular text it should be evaluated.  Consider calling upon subject matter experts and NHS library staff to help with this evaluation.

Once a decision to withdraw an item has been made, other library services should be advised to withdraw it from their collections.  This information will be disseminated via the regular NHS England (NHSE) Resource Discovery bulletins and regional LMS managers.

Dicoverability and cataloguing

The NHS Knowledge and Library Hub (KLH) can be the single best source to signpost users to.

It is not recommended to catalogue e-journals on OPACs as they are available via the Knowledge & Library Hub.  If they are included, ensure that records are suppressed so that users don’t retrieve duplicate records.

E-books can be catalogued to both Library Management Systems and the Knowledge and Library Hub via EBSCO Holdings Links Management (HLM).  Progress with KOHA e-book linking points to the benefit for those on this system to catalogue e-book on their OPACs.

Not all e-books are discoverable on the Hub despite being in HLM; it is important that the e-book is either indexed in your LMS or that a relevant partner database that includes these details has been turned on.

Please also see the NHSE Roles & Responsibilities guide for good practice on managing e-resources within your service.

It is not recommended to add staff publications/articles to regional Library Management Systems as these are better handled via a repository or specific database.             

It is suggested that the Wessex Classification Scheme is used to classify books as it best reflects UK Health practice, and an active working group is ensuring that it is kept up to date.

Collections Management Working group members:
 

Alice Cleaver EDI perspective
Jason Curtis Wessex Classification Lead
Jenny Emmell Yorkshire and the Humber
Suzanne Ford North West
Helene Gorring NHS England
Sarah Lanney East of England
Paul Lee/Helen Alper London
Preeti Puligari Midlands
Jenny Richardson North East
Sharon Springham

Kent, Surrey and Sussex
Helen Watts South West

Our thanks also go to Grace O'Driscoll and Ramona Naicker for their advice for the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion section.

Recommended reading

CILIP HLG Core Collections

Health information equity: Rebalancing healthcare collections for racial diversity in UK public service contexts

NICE Framework for Books, Journals and Databases

Bibliography

AMERICAN LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION., 2017 Selection Criteria. [Accessed April 3, 2024].

BOOTH, A. 2009 Health Information & Libraries Journal Fahrenheit 451: a burning question on the evidence for book withdrawal, pp.161-165.

CISNEY, L. 2023, "Active learning: a consideration in collection development in health sciences libraries?",Collection and Curation, Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 41-45.

INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS (IFLA) 2001 Guidelines for a Collection Development Policy Using the Conspectus Model.

LI, J. 2016. Is It Cost-effective to Purchase Print Books When the Equivalent E-book Is Available? Journal of Hospital Librarianship, 16(1), 40–48.

MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION (MLA) 2019 Collection Development Best Practices.

NOVAK, J, A. OHLER,A. and DAY,A., 2020 “Ebook Collection Development in Academic Libraries: Examining Preference, Management, and Purchasing Patterns.” ACRL/Choice.

WAUGH, M., DONLIN, M. and BRAUNSTEIN, S. 2015 ‘Next-Generation Collection Management: A Case Study of Quality Control and Weeding E-Books in an Academic Library’, Collection Management, 40(1), pp. 17–26. doi: 0.1080/01462679.2014.965864.

EDI

DENG, S., 2021. Supporting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Library. Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

GIBNEY, MICHELE. PARIS, MICKEL. WELLS, VERONICA., 2022. A Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Approach to Collection Development in a University Library. Scholarly Commons, , pp. 1-32

O’DRISCOLL, G. and BAWDEN, D., 2022. Health information equity: Rebalancing healthcare collections for racial diversity in UK public service contexts. Education for Information, 38(4), pp. 315-336.

WILSON, K., 2022. Decolonising library collections: contemporary issues, practical solutions and examples from LSE. In: CRILLY,, JESS. EVERITT, REGINA., ed, Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries. Cambridge University Press, pp. 225-250.

Literature Search: Collection development including stock acquisitions, retention, withdrawal, currency and quality. Katie Nicholas. (18 September 2023). UK: Workforce, Training and Education Knowledge Management Team.