Programme Lead - Alison Turner, Associate Director - Specialist Collections
"Specialist collections" is the new name for the National Library for Health's Specialist Libraries, which transferred to NHS Evidence in April 2009. Each collection has been renamed under NHS Evidence as "NHS Evidence - specialty", so, for example, the Cancer Specialist Library has become NHS Evidence - cancer, and the Skin Disorders Specialist Library has become NHS Evidence - skin disorders.
But apart from the new name and branding on the websites, if you are a previous user of the Specialist Libraries, you shouldn't notice any other differences - even the URLs are staying the same for now. Within each collection, you will still find the same high quality resources, chosen for each specialty to ensure easy access to the best available evidence.
NLH commissioned 34 specialist libraries, guided by key policy drivers, with the aim of ensuring that a wide range of common medical conditions and health populations were covered by them. Most of the collections are condition-focused, some cover patient groups, and a further set focus on aspects of health services. The purpose of the collections is to filter the huge quantity of published research to ensure that clinicians and managers find only the best available evidence in each specialty. Each collection has a reference group made up of key stakeholders, with representation from relevant professional organisations, societies, institutions, and charities. These reference groups enable the specialist collections teams to engage with their communities to ensure they are meeting their needs.
The collections aim to be:
More information and a full list of the collections (with links to each one) is available at www.library.nhs.uk/specialistcollections.
The NHS Evidence Specialist Collections have been developed to identify and meet the information needs of particular communities of practice. They are web-based collections containing clinical and non-clinical information on the major health priority areas. Each specialist collection identifies and provides access to quality assessed information of relevance to the community that it serves. An aspect of this involves the production of Annual Evidence Updates. These aim to highlight the best current evidence for selected healthcare topics, over a 12 month period. All information included in Annual Evidence Updates has been subject to rigorous selection criteria.
More information will be made available in the run-up to each planned Annual Evidence Update, enabling you to distribute it to your networks and users.
The calendar of currently confirmed Annual Evidence Updates until March 2010 is now available [download]. This was last updated on 29 October 2009.
Two new specialist collections went live in September 2008 - NHS Evidence - infections and NHS Evidence - commissioning.
Some of the specialist collections have email updates and newsletters to keep you informed of additions to the library, etc - you can sign up for these from each individual library.
Some of the specialist collections have email updates, newsletters and RSS feeds to keep you informed of additions to the library, etc - you can sign up for these from each individual library.
Click here for a full list of, and links to, the specialist collections.