Table of Contents

Chapter 1: How and Where to Begin: The Main Ingredients
Chapter 2: Your Neighborhood and Its Effects on the Health of your Community
Chapter 3: Building the Collection
Chapter 4: Grants
Chapter 5: Staff Customer Service
Chapter 6: Library Privacy and Confidentially
Chapter 7: Community Outreach Planning
Chapter 8: Health Literacy
Chapter 9: Multicultural and Inclusive Consumer Health Information
Chapter 10: Where Customers go to Find Health Information: Apps, Social Media and Wikipedia
Chapter 11: Consumer Health Information Programs & Outreach for Every Library

About the Author

Claire B. Joseph is director of the Medical Library at South Nassau Communities Hospital, Oceanside, Long Island, New York. She has been a librarian for more than 40 years and a health sciences librarian for nearly 30 years. She is active in the Medical Library Association, serving as Chair of the Hospital Libraries Section, Chair-Elect of the Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section, Secretary of the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section, and Chair of the New York—New Jersey Chapter, along with serving on a variety of committees. In addition, she is Book Review Editor for the Journal of Hospital Librarianship.

Reviews

Joseph does a good job of writing for and providing examples from all three types of libraries. These types of libraries are quite different from each other, but as consumer health libraries vary significantly themselves, the differences in setting are less important. . . I recommend this book to those interested in beginning work on or improving on consumer health information resources and services in their library.
*Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association*

This book is the new core text for any librarian building or recreating their consumer health collection. This book steers librarians & their patrons to top notch information, with the end goal of improving your community’s health and building with them a positive and helpful relationship.
*Becca Billings, leadership team member, Health InfoNet of Alabama*

The Medical Library Association Guide to Developing Consumer Health Collections provides a perfect starting point for any library that is beginning or updating their collection. It provides comprehensive and practical ideas as well as examples from libraries that can serve as models. Important topics that impact collection decisions, such as health literacy and multiculturalism are discussed and resources are listed where the reader can learn even more. This is a valuable contribution to the consumer health literature at a time when patient education and engagement in their health care is of particular importance in the environment of health care reform.
*Sandy Oelschlegel, director and associate professor, Health Information Center, Preston Medical Library*

The lists of online resources, including links to pages on where to find print and multi-media resources, make this more than a guide useful to public, academic, and health sciences librarians alike, but a valuable reference. Plenty more information on finding resources, taking into account the problems with health literacy, is provided, as well. . . . The book ends emphasizing that not only should each and every library be involved with providing consumer health information, but that as service providers, “Librarians with consumer health collections should be on a proactive mission to get their much needed information to their community.”
*Consumer Connections*