C A S E R E P O R T
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Evaluating a historical medical book collection
Karen R. McElfresh, AHIP; Robyn M. Gleasner
See end of article for authors’ affiliations.
Background: After several years of storing a large number of historical medical books that had been weeded
from the general collection, the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center
developed a set of evaluation criteria to determine whether the material should be kept and included in the
library catalog or discarded. The purpose of this article is to share lessons learned in evaluating and
processing a historical medical book collection. The authors share how we determined review criteria as well
as cataloging and processing procedures.
Case Presentation: Best practices for evaluating, cataloging, and processing historical library material were
determined through a literature search and then reviewed and adapted for application to this project. Eight
hundred sixty-two titles were selected to add to the catalog and were added to a shelving location in our
offsite storage facility.
Conclusions: These materials are now discoverable in the library’s catalog for library users who are
interested in historical research, and the materials have been processed for easy retrieval as well as
preservation purposes.
BACKGROUND
Preserving the history of medicine to help scholars
and clinicians discover errors and to connect
practitioners and institutions to the past are
important values for health sciences librarians [1–5];
however, libraries do not always have staff with the
expertise and resources to implement these values.
In addition to the difficulty in managing historical
collections, it can also be difficult for librarians to
find historical information. To remedy this, the
Medical Library Association (MLA) created a BibKit
that includes ready reference, primary and
secondary sources, and Internet resources that are
relevant to the history of medicine [6]. While this
resource was helpful, librarians at the University of
New Mexico Health Sciences Library and
Informatics Center (HSLIC) wanted to make its
modest collection of older print books, dating from
the early 1800s to the 1950s, more discoverable and
findable to support historical researchers.
In 2007, approximately 1,300 monographic
volumes were weeded from the general collection and
placed in offsite storage to be evaluated for addition
to the historical collection. The bibliographic records
were suppressed in the library catalog system so that
they would not display in the public catalog. Due to
personnel changes, no one was available to review
these titles for several years. In 2015, the library
migrated to a new catalog system that did not permit
a suppressed status. Because the collection needed
substantial review, we decided not to migrate these
records to the new system, which meant the books
would need to be re-cataloged in the new system.
Before we lost access to our previous catalog
system, we exported a spreadsheet with information
about the suppressed titles, including title, author,
barcode number, Online Computer Library Center
(OCLC) number, National Library of Medicine
(NLM) call number, and circulation information to a
spreadsheet. Because of the suppressed status, this
review project became known as the “Suppressed
Books Project.” At the time of this project, the
University of New Mexico HSLIC did not have an
archivist or special collections librarian, so the
collection development librarian evaluated the
books.
It was challenging to find current case studies
from health sciences libraries that documented
similar projects. There is a plethora of information in
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the professional literature regarding the importance
of writing policies for collection development as
well as determining standards for rare books, but
little information on selection criteria and evaluation
of books with historical value. The Association of
College and Research Libraries’ Rare Books and
Manuscripts Section offers guidelines on selecting
and transferring materials from general collections
to special collections that consider (1) market value,
(2) rarity and scarcity, (3) date and place of
publication, (4) physical and intrinsic characteristics,
(5) bibliographic and research value, and (6)
condition [7]. While the library has a collection
development manual that covers selection criteria
for the general collection and a separate special
collections policy, these historical titles did not fit
into existing documentation or procedures.
Our goal was to develop selection criteria to
help guide future decisions to include historical
information in the collection. The Cleveland Clinic
Foundation Library had a similar objective to
evaluate and provide selection criteria for its offsite
historical book collection to incorporate into the
general collection, explain the evaluation process
and rationale for criteria, and provide a written
collection development policy to guide future
decisions [8]. While our goal was to develop
selection criteria rather than a policy, their advice of
looking in the catalog to determine if the title was
already held, checking availability at consortia or
our university library systems, looking at the
number of titles available in OCLC’s WorldCat, and
investigating the dollar value of the book was
helpful. Other libraries focused criteria on
preservation, relevance, need for potential research,
quality, and type of publication, which also helped
determine our approach [3].
Our objective was to share our process and
experience to help other librarians in similar
situations, such as weeding projects or assessment of
donations of older materials.
CASE PRESENTATION
Setting
The University of New Mexico HSLIC supports the
academic, research, and clinical enterprises of the
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.
While the majority of our library resources are
electronic, HSLIC also collects monographs, serials,
and archival or historical material in print. To
support researchers who are interested in the history
of medicine and health, we maintain a modest
collection of older print books, dating from the early
1800s to the 1950s. The library also has a separate
special collection and archive with materials related
to the history of our institution and health care in
the state.
Review criteria
We started the process by developing a set of criteria
to apply to the suppressed books to guide us in
deciding which books to keep. Because the books
were suppressed in the catalog and were not
accessible to library users, we did not have any
recent usage data to use in our evaluation. Even if
this information were available, it would not have
been a useful metric given that past use would not
necessarily dictate future use in cases of historical
research. While circulation data are commonly used
in collection assessment, they were not discussed as
a metric in any of the literature that we reviewed on
historical collections [1, 4, 8–11]. Essentially, the
books were evaluated in a similar manner to the
evaluation of donated materials.
Subjects
Much of the criteria that we developed were subject
based. The material had to be in-scope to be retained
in the historical collection, meaning it had to fall
within the same subject parameters that we applied
to the general collection as defined in the library’s
collection development manual. For material that
fell outside of the health sciences scope, we made a
note to offer it to the university’s main campus
library system. HSLIC is a separate entity from the
main campus library system, even though we are
part of the same institution and located on the same
campus. Each library system maintains its own
special collections, and any materials transferred
between the libraries are treated as donations.
We were particularly interested in any materials
in the health sciences subjects that documented the
history or foundation of a health profession or an
area of study. An example is History of Cardiology by
Bishop and Neilson (1927).
We also kept all materials related to specific
subject areas that were of local interest, including
Native American health, Latin American health,
health care in New Mexico and the American
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Southwest, rural health, tuberculosis, military
medicine, and midwifery.
In the 1990s, the library decided to keep all
editions of certain textbooks that were considered
“core” in their specialties to allow researchers to
track the development of a specialty over time. A
textbook was chosen for each NLM classification,
and all editions of that text that the library owns are
kept in perpetuity. Some of these editions were
mistakenly pulled and placed in the suppressed
book collection. This error was corrected, and the
items were added back to the catalog.
Any book that was included in Morton’s Medical
Bibliography: An Annotated Check-List of Texts
Illustrating the History of Medicine [12], also known as
Garrison-Morton, was kept. Garrison-Morton is a
comprehensive and authoritative resource on the
history of medicine and has been maintained since
1912. We chose to use the online version of this
resource as it allows searching by title, author,
subject, publication date, or entry number [13]. The
web version contains all the information from the
print editions of Garrison-Morton and is updated
with new information [14]. When a book on the
Garrison-Morton list was cataloged, a note including
the Garrison-Morton entry number was added to the
catalog record. The note will allow us to retrieve a
list of all Garrison-Morton books that the library
owns, which could be helpful in future collection-
review or weeding projects.
Availability at other libraries
As suggested in the literature and standard
collection analyses, we searched for each book in
WorldCat to determine the number of copies
available worldwide. However, this did not prove to
be especially useful. HSLIC is the only health
sciences library in New Mexico that is open to the
general public, and it was very unlikely any other
local libraries would have historical medical
materials. Even copies available at libraries in our
regional consortium would not be accessible to our
users, as the closest member library is more than 250
miles away, and most libraries will not loan
historical or special collections materials via
interlibrary loan.
Languages
The majority of the books in the collection were
written in English or were English translations of
work originally written in other languages. We also
had a fairly large amount of material in German and
some in Spanish and French. We kept non-English
material, provided it was the original language of
the material and not a translation.
HathiTrust
Many of the books in the suppressed book collection
were published before 1923 and, therefore, no longer
under copyright. For the books that were in the
public domain, we checked the HathiTrust Digital
Library to see if a scanned version was available.
Because our library uses OCLC’s WorldShare
Management Services (WMS) as our catalog and
electronic resources management tool, we were able
to search the OCLC Collection Manager to see if a
scanned version was available to add to our
collection. We added the scanned versions—which
display like e-books in our discovery layer,
WorldCat Discovery—to provide an additional
access point for our users. In most cases, we still
kept the print edition because the electronic scans in
HathiTrust can be inconsistent in quality and
difficult to navigate.
The process of adding items from HathiTrust to
our catalog was fairly straightforward, but we did
have some problems. Some titles were in HathiTrust
but were not available in the OCLC Collection
Manager and had to be added by our cataloger.
There were also records that linked to the wrong
item in HathiTrust, and in some cases, HathiTrust
had the incorrect information on their site. These
errors were reported to HathiTrust using their
feedback form.
Cataloging and processing
Our goal was to integrate the selected books into our
offsite storage shelving location. The books that
were not selected were discarded by marking an “X”
through the call number and barcode to show the
item had been evaluated. They were then put in our
recycling bin for weekly pick-up. Books that were
selected to keep were cataloged.
Cataloging the material was more challenging
than we had anticipated. We consulted the
spreadsheet from our previous catalog for the OCLC
number and NLM call number. We expected to be
able to use the call numbers that were previously
assigned and then use the OCLC number to pull in
the appropriate master bibliographic record using
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OCLC’s Record Manager. Unfortunately, this
method was not always effective. Many of the OCLC
numbers were no longer accurate, as the records had
probably been merged with a more complete record
and given a new OCLC number. We developed the
following process to find and select the best record:
1. Look for the OCLC number listed on our
spreadsheet in WMS Record Manager.
2. If not available, use WMS Record Manager
Advanced Search to search WorldCat for the
title, author, and year of publication.
3. From here, select “Book - PrintBook” as the
material format and “English” as the cataloging
language.
4. Select the record with the correct publisher.
Because our original method did not work as
expected, cataloging the suppressed books took
much longer than anticipated. Many of the
suppressed books still had the call numbers and
spine labels intact, so we reused them; however,
there were a number of books that had to be
reclassified.
We first noticed some inconsistencies in how
reprints were cataloged in the previous system.
According to NLM’s Shelflisting Procedures for
Monographs and Classified Serials, the year of the
original publication should be used followed by the
letter “a” in the call number for reprints [15]. We
were able to correct this in WMS and on the spine
labels to differentiate this material from originals in
the collection.
We also noticed that previous catalogers were
not consistent in following NLM’s Classification
Practices for the nineteenth century schedule. The
schedule consists of “A simplified subject
classification derived from the letters that represent
the preclinical and clinical subjects used for
nineteenth century (1801–1913) monographs” [16].
This includes classification notations W1–6, W600,
and WX2 as well as the entire WZ schedule for
History of Medicine. It was unclear whether
previous catalogers entered a zero where a blank
should have been for the classification number or if
the integrated library system did not allow blanks
and forced a zero.
The blank classification number or the zero
should be shelved before actual numbers, but library
staff seemed to have trouble shelving these items
because they were mixed throughout the call
number range. Previous catalogers were also not
consistent in using the schedule, so previous
editions of titles were not always classified together.
We asked the cataloging community how they dealt
with the schedule via a Facebook cataloging group
and by directly emailing the Cleveland Clinic
Foundation Library [17]. While there were not many
responses, the schedule seemed to be used for rare
book collections, but librarians saw no reason not to
use the regular schedule in place of the nineteenth
century schedule. Because new labels had to be
printed anyway, we decided not to use the
nineteenth century schedule in the hope that it
would promote findability on the shelf as well as
make shelving easier for library staff.
Processing and preservation
Processing these books was also a concern. While we
wanted to make the books findable, we also wanted
to protect them and limit the amount of processing
needed due to the age and fragility of the material.
Because we were integrating these books with books
that were already on the shelf in offsite storage, we
decided to continue the processing practice already
in place, including spine labels covered with a label
protector and property stamps.
Many of the books were damaged and needed
repairs before being shelved, but our library has
limited preservation expertise and resources. We
were able to repair corners and loose spines using
polyvinyl acetate (PVA) glue, waiting for the glue to
dry, and then testing the repair. If the repair was not
successful, the repair process began again. For the
books that we could not repair, we made book boxes
to better protect them on the shelf. We repaired
around 100 books and made boxes for about 40
books. We also discovered around 35 books affected
by leather or red rot, meaning the leather was
decaying and turning into a powder. We are
considering using a product to consolidate the
leather on the covers but are not sure how to use the
product, and the library might not have the
appropriate ventilation. If we are not able use the
product, we will make boxes for these books. An
additional benefit to moving these books to offsite
storage is that the location is temperature and light
controlled and, therefore, a better environment for
preservation.
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Shelving
Before shelving the material, we wanted to ensure
that we had room for the collection to grow. To
calculate the potential growth of the collection, we
created a spreadsheet that listed the call numbers of
the books that had been suppressed and those of the
books currently in the offsite shelving location. We
added these together to show which call numbers
had the most material. WB and QV were the highest,
followed by WH–WK, and so on. We left space at
the end of the call number ranges that had the most
items in the hope that other uncataloged older
material could be added to this shelving location.
RESULTS
To make this project possible, careful planning,
strong communication, and teamwork were
imperative. The team included the collection
management librarian to make selection decisions;
the cataloger to catalog material and create a project
plan for shifting and shelving material; another
technical services employee to repair material and
create boxes; and a student employee to transport
material from the offsite storage facility to the
library for review, shelve cataloged materials, and
integrate the materials with the existing collection.
We added 862 titles that met the criteria for
selection into the new offsite storage location to the
catalog. We shifted 970 linear feet to integrate the
additional 144 linear feet of the selected formerly
suppressed books. The project took approximately 1
year to complete, including 2–3 months of prep time
to determine the process and evaluation criteria.
Team members worked on the project as time
allowed, while managing day-to-day work functions
and other projects. While we did not have a clear
time frame in place to complete the project, it did
take longer than we expected due to other projects
and staff changes.
DISCUSSION
The main goal of this project was to re-catalog the
books so that they would be discoverable in our
catalog/discovery interface, WorldCat Discovery.
Now that the project is complete, our users have
more access to a collection of materials that they
would not have known about previously. They now
have a way to request access to the materials
through our catalog’s hold system. Despite the fact
that the books are more discoverable, we have not
seen an increase in use of the collection.
The collection is housed in our offsite storage to
alleviate space issues in our main collection. The
downside to the collection being located offsite is
that it makes the collection noncirculating. The only
way someone can access it is to contact the library
and make arrangements to visit the library and view
the material. We have not received any such
requests as of the time this article was written. One
of our goals for the future is to explore ways to
market and promote the use of our historical book
collection.
When we started this project, we discussed
creating a new shelving location for the historical
books and new loan rules. We debated dividing the
historical books into two locations: one circulating
and one noncirculating. While many of the historical
books were rare or in poor condition and should not
circulate, others were in good condition and we felt
circulation was appropriate. However, it became too
complicated to determine what could and could not
circulate and how to shelve materials in two
locations, so we decided to create only one,
noncirculating shelving location. This decision may
need to be revisited in the future to promote use. On
the other hand, many of the titles are now also
available electronically through HathiTrust records
that have been added, so users could be opting to
use the titles electronically.
Now that we have completed the review of the
suppressed titles, we plan to use the review criteria
and methodology to deal with other uncataloged
books in our offsite storage. The majority of these
uncataloged books are donations that were never
processed into the collection due to lack of staff.
Similar to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation Library,
the suppressed book project allowed us to test our
criteria and process so that we can more easily review
the other uncataloged books as time allows [8].
Many health sciences libraries do not have
positions dedicated to special collections and
archives but may still maintain historical collections.
Additionally, because the majority of users in health
sciences libraries are interested in current
information, librarians may not be fully comfortable
assisting users with queries about the history of
medicine. Despite many libraries having this issue,
there is not a large body of literature on this topic or
sufficient resources specific to health sciences
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historical collections. By sharing our decision criteria
and process, we hope to provide a helpful resource
to other libraries with similar collections of historical
books.
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collection development policy for a variety of older medical
books. J Hosp Librariansh [Internet]. 2010 Jul 28;10(3):251–
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9. Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), Rare
Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS). ACRL RBMS
guidelines on the selection and transfer of materials from
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Med Libr Assoc. 1984 Apr;72(2):150–4. (Available from:
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12. Morton LT, Norman JM. Morton’s medical bibliography: an
annotated check-list of texts illustrating the history of
medicine (Garrison and Morton). 5th ed. Aldershot, Hants,
England, UK: Scolar Press; 1991.
13. Norman J. History of medicine and the life sciences
[Internet]. HistoryofMedicine.com; 2018 [cited 6 Dec 2018].
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AUTHORS’ AFFILIATIONS
Karen R. McElfresh, AHIP,* kmcelfresh@salud.unm.edu,
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1404-9764, Health Sciences Library
and Informatics Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Robyn M. Gleasner, rgleasner@salud.unm.edu, Health Sciences
Library and Informatics Center, University of New Mexico,
Albuquerque, NM
Received January 2019; accepted April 2019
* Current contact information: kmcelfresh@rice.edu, Fondren Library,
Rice University, Houston, TX.
Articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This journal is published by the University Library System
of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe
Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the
University of Pittsburgh Press.
ISSN 1558-9439 (Online)
Karen R. McElfresh, AHIP; Robyn M. Gleasner
See end of article for authors’ affiliations.
Background: After several years of storing a large number of historical medical books that had been weeded from the general collection, the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center developed a set of evaluation criteria to determine whether the material should be kept and included in the library catalog or discarded. The purpose of this article is to share lessons learned in evaluating and processing a historical medical book collection. The authors share how we determined review criteria as well as cataloging and processing procedures.
Case Presentation: Best practices for evaluating, cataloging, and processing historical library material were determined through a literature search and then reviewed and adapted for application to this project. Eight hundred sixty-two titles were selected to add to the catalog and were added to a shelving location in our offsite storage facility.
Conclusions: These materials are now discoverable in the library’s catalog for library users who are interested in historical research, and the materials have been processed for easy retrieval as well as preservation purposes.
BACKGROUND
CASE PRESENTATION
Setting
Review criteria
Subjects
Availability at other libraries
Languages
HathiTrust
Cataloging and processing
Processing and preservation
Shelving
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
References
Authors’ Affiliations
Karen R. McElfresh, AHIP,* kmcelfresh@salud.unm.edu, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1404-9764, Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Robyn M. Gleasner, rgleasner@salud.unm.edu, Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Received January 2019; accepted April 2019