A prescription for faculty librarian collaboration: Updating a pharmacy book collection and matching curricular changes

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Fall 2001 by lyons-Mitchell, Kimberly, Ferrill, Mary J

In the days of shrinking book budgets and increasing book prices institutions must make careful decisions for purchasing. In this paper, we show how collaboration between a librarian and teaching faculty works to define the library's needs and makes purchases that both reflect the changes in curriculum and update an aging collection while remaining within a budget. We compared the existing collection to standard book lists such as the Brandon Hill List of Books for the Small Medical Library and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Basic Resources List. Through collaboration we then decided on books to purchase, and compared the collection again. The findings showed that our collaboration was successful and our book collection had improved. Collaboration between librarian and teaching faculty is a reliable way to update an aging collection as well as to assure new purchases are in line with the curriculum.

INTRODUCTION

Faculty collaboration is an important part of the overall structure of a university working system. While collaboration within similar disciplines is commonplace, interdisciplinary collaboration can be rare. Library/academic unit collaboration is necessary to purchase the appropriate library books on a limited budget(I -3). With the academic book budget shrinking at many institutions, or at best remaining static, and the price of books escalating rapidly with inflation, it is necessary to make accurate decisions regarding book purchases. There are many ways to accomplish this, allowing either faculty or librarians to make decisions alone, using standardized lists to guide acquisitions, or to use all three techniques in concert with one another to obtain the best possible collection scenario. The driving force for this project was the concept of faculty-librarian collaboration to update and add to the pharmacy book collection at the Health Science and Chemistry Branch Library in an effort to monitor and match curricular changes.

BACKGROUND

In the 1992 Reference and Adult Services Division (RASD) of the American Library Association Guidelines for Liaison Work, liaison work is defined as "...the relationships, formal and informal, that librarians develop with the library's clientele for the specific purpose of seeking input regarding the selection of materials"(4). Suresh et al., in a 1995 paper gives many of these definitions and states that a liaison program is an "...activity in which professional library staff systematically meet with teaching faculty to discuss stratagems for directly supporting their instructional needs and those of their students." According to Suresh et al., a library liaison is assigned to an academic unit as the contact person for faculty and works with representatives regarding issues of collection development, research and teaching in the liaison area. A library representative is a faculty member of a particular unit who acts as the communicator between the library and the academic unit. The library representative and the liaison work closely to reach various set goals for the library and its programs. It is further asserted that a liaison program is designed to improve communication between faculty and the library, provide public relations and facilitate in collection development(5). In the case at University of the Pacific, the librarian (liaison) works with the Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Library Committee (library representatives) rather than just one individual.

The environment for our ongoing collaboration is the University of the Pacific's Health Sciences and Chemistry Branch (HSCB) Library and the Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. University of the Pacific is a small liberal arts university with a large school of pharmacy. The HSCB is a branch library of the main campus' HoltAtherton Memorial Library. The major emphasis of the HSCB collection is pharmacy and health sciences, and the primary users of the HSCB are the pharmacy students, with approximately 410 students on campus and 205 off campus, completing their rotations. The curriculum in the school of pharmacy is currently undergoing a major revision, many courses are being added, new subjects are being taught, and some are no longer being offered. The library's collection must be able to continually meet the needs of the curriculum. Collection review through collaboration is one way to accomplish that task. We systematically reviewed and updated the pharmacy book collection of the HSCB through the comparison of the collection to published standard lists and faculty and librarian input on purchasing decisions, and through collaboration we achieved a well-balanced book collection.

METHODS

The library committee within the school of pharmacy, comprised of representatives from each pharmacy department and the sciences librarian, discuss library issues including those relating to pharmacy curricular reform. One of the current concerns of the library and the library committee was that the book collection needed updating and should match the revised pharmacy curriculum. The current holdings and needs of the library were assessed by the librarian based on the Brandon Hill List of Books and Journals for the Small Medical Library (Years 1997-1998 and 1999-2000)(6,7) and the AACP Suggested Book List for Libraries Serving Pharmacy Colleges/Schools (Years 1998 and 1999)(8,9). The use of standard lists or bibliographies is probably used often in practice, however this method only appears in the literature in a few instances(3,10). These types of lists exist in many disciplines and act as benchmarks on which to guide one's collection development activities. The library committee received copies of the results of the book list assessment and subsequent potential new acquisitions. The lists were initially discussed at a library committee meeting. The discussion topics and a short list of old book editions were distributed to the faculty. At this point in time the librarian was also appointed to the pharmacy school's curriculum committee to be able to include the library in curricular changes to ensure cohesiveness between the library collection and the new pharmacy curriculum. The librarian considered the information from the library committee and individual faculty input, and discussion from the curriculum committee, to make decisions on new book purchases, and choices for updated editions while remaining within the existing book budget. Multiple copies of certain books were also considered for purchase based on student enrollment in courses and extensive use. After the end of the fiscal year, the collection was assessed again using the same measures. The purpose of this was to use quantitative measures to see if the collaboration resulted in an improved and updated collection.