The Health Sciences Library maintains a broad collection of online journals, print and electronic books, databases, and tools to meet the information needs of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), comprised of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, College of Dental Medicine, Mailman School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, the health sciences programs at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and CUIMC research centers and institutes. Resources are selected by the Library to meet the varied information needs of faculty, students, clinicians, researchers, and staff across the entire CUIMC enterprise. We welcome suggestions from the community for resources we might add to help meet those needs.
The Library prefers to acquire information resources in electronic format, but will purchase print resources if such resources are not available electronically or cannot be secured at a reasonable price or with reasonable licensing terms.
Decisions about additions and cancellations are made by the Director for Collections and Access Services, in consultation with the Deputy Director for Library Operations, the Associate Dean of the Health Sciences Library, and subject experts in the Library.
Journals
Decisions about additions and reductions to the Health Sciences Libraries' serials collection are based on expressed need and funding. The Library cancels or swaps titles to remain within budget, identifying and and canceling lower use titles to free up funds for new subscriptions. Since journals are a long-term spending commitment, the Library only adds new titles when it expects to continue to be able to afford them for several years into the future.
The majority of the journal collection (75%) is part of large publisher packages (such as ScienceDirect) or small smaller collections (such as that from the American Medical Association). While these packages provide access to a wide array of journals, they lock the Library contractually into a particular set of titles at a set cost for a set number of years. The Library keeps packages in stasis by swapping out lower-use titles in order to add new titles.
Because journal package agreements allow very few cancelations, the Library must cancel titles falling into the small part of the collection not constrained by package licenses.
Journal additions
When faculty, researchers, and staff at CUIMC recommend new journal titles, the Library adds the titles to a list of requested resources. The Library monitors journal articles requested via interlibrary loan, adding highly requested journals to the list. The Library also monitors publications by CUIMC faculty and researchers and citations to those publications to determine whether any of these journals warrant being added to the list based on high citation counts or publication numbers.
The Library reviews this journals list annually. When funds are available to add new journals, the Library uses a number of factors – such as the Journal Impact Factor, the journal’s Journal Citation Report ranking within health sciences specialties, the number of citations from the CUIMC community to articles within that journal, and the number of articles authored by members of the CUIMC community published by that journal – to evaluate the existing list of requested journals. This process is conducted at the end of each fiscal year, but exceptions to the timing of the review can be made on an ad hoc basis.
Journal cancellations
The Health Sciences Library has limited flexibility when it becomes necessary because of financial constraints or budget cuts to cancel journals. The Library considers journals for cancellation based on the number of times articles within that journal have been downloaded, using this number as one indicator of use of that title. Final cancellation decisions consider the number of downloads, the citing and publishing patterns of CUIMC authors, the Journal Impact Factor, and other datapoints.
Books
The Health Sciences Library acquires print and e-books in the areas that are its sole responsibility, such as medicine, dentistry, nursing, allied health, and public health. Books outside of these areas may also be added to the collection if they are deemed relevant to the CUIMC community.
Book acquisitions
Books are purchased throughout the year based on recommendations from the CUIMC community and lists from publishers of new titles published in the health sciences. Members of the CUIMC community can submit requests for books purchases using our Recommend a Resource form.
New purchases focus on current titles, defined as those published within the last two years.
Subscription ebooks
Some ebooks are only available as part of a subscription package. Because of their typically high price and the ongoing nature of the financial commitment, subscription ebook packages undergo a review process similar to the journal review process.
Onsite print collection
The Health Sciences Library retains a print collection on site that consists of the newest and most frequently used titles. The print collection is mostly a circulating collection (i.e., the books can be checked out), although a few titles are non-circulating. These non-circulating books are usually very high-use titles, such as Goldman-Cecil Medicine. Many of the non-circulating titles are also available as ebooks and can be found using the library catalog CLIO.
The Library retains new books in its onsite collection based on recency and use. Older and less-used titles are transferred to ReCAP, Columbia University's offsite shelving facility in New Jersey.
Databases and tools
Databases and tools to which the Library subscribes are evaluated each year. The review takes place along with the journals review and that of other subscription resources, such as ebook packages. Each database or tool is evaluated based on usage, CUIMC user feedback. and its relevancy to the CUIMC mission.
For more information, please contact Ricardo Andrade, Director for Collections and Access Services, at ra2891@cumc.columbia.edu.