Integrated but Separate: An Integrative Medicine Program (PIM) & Health Sciences Library (AHSL) Partnership

Abstract

This poster highlights a collaboration between a health sciences library and an integrative medicine program, to organize the latter's collection, offer its content via the library's online catalog, and allow limited circulation while maintaining the physical collection in the program. With limited library staff and a need to maintain availability of materials to the program, numerous issues needed addressing. First, the library did not have a cataloger with sufficient subject expertise and available time to handle the project in a timely manner. The solution was collaboration between a reference librarian with subject expertise and technical services personnel. Technical issues involved creating new locations in the online catalog and suppressing cataloging records from public view until the program is ready to share resources with the university community. NLM call numbers and Medical Subject Headings were used to achieve complete integration with the library's catalog. Some original cataloging was needed; subject headings in older records were updated (i.e., changing the old heading alternative medicine to the current complementary therapies). Some titles falling outside of health sciences fields needed Library of Congress call numbers. Future plans include: completing work on existing volumes, the library continuing to catalogthe program's materials, and setting up a circulation station in the program's library, with materials circulating according to policies determined by the program in consultation with appropriate library units. The collaboration between reference and technical services librarians has offered benefits both for the librarians involved and for the library as a whole. The integrative medicine program has not yet opened its doors to public use, so it is too early to report on feedback from users outside the program. However, the program is finding that NLM cataloging allows more efficient organization and retrieval of materials. All university departments benefit by access to a more extensive collection in this specialized area. The integrative medicine program and the library are finding this collaboration fruitful, and the programs's faculty and staff look forward to sharing resources with the university community.