MIDWIFERY CORE COLLECTION
The Health Libraries Group (HLG) Core Collection Working Group is pleased to present the 6th edition of the Core Collection (CC) of Nursing and Midwifery books. First published in 1992, the CC has established itself as a reliable acquisition guide for health libraries in the UK.
Since the Summer of 2022, a small working group has been updating the Nursing and Midwifery core collection. We used LibraryThing, as a platform to invite contributions from a wide range of health library staff and clinicians to comment on titles from the previous 2016 edition and to recommend new titles.
NEW EDITION 2023
Members of the working group updated the new editions where possible and suggested newer titles based on the circulation data, book reviews and reading lists. Librarians from Royal College of Nursing are part of this project and have provided specialist input that is much needed in updating this collection. We could not enlist support from Royal College of Midwives due to staffing issues.
The selection criteria was revised and limited to books published in 2017 and later with a few exceptions due to age in certain subject categories. We added new categories as suggested by librarians from Royal College of Nursing (e.g eHealth, Anatomy and Physiology, Travel Health, HCAs Assistant Practitioners Nursing Associates Trainee Nursing Associates, LGBTQ+ Health and Leadership). Some categories were removed e.g. Medicine, Renal Medicine, General, Burns and Plastic (moved to Wound Care). Some categories were renamed to reflect current nursing terminology e.g. Child Health is replaced by Children and Young People’s Nursing. Similarly, Child Protection has been replaced by Safeguarding -Children and Adults. The total number of categories are now 70.
For this edition of the Nursing and Midwifery Core Collection, we have excluded books that are: Crash Course material; some ABC titles, Lecture notes and At a Glance title that are very old. We encourage health library staff to look out for newer editions of these titles and continue to add them to their stock. A small * is placed next to some titles and we advise health library staff to look out for updates. We have continued with the ethos of the CC collection by excluding exam resources and revision aids. This CC concentrates on nursing and midwifery titles.
Members of the Core Working Group met at the end of the consultation period (February 2023) to consider these recommended titles, identify any omissions from the list and to select new titles for the new categories.
TOMLINSONS ONLINE BOOK SERVICES
Tomlinsons have much experience in the publication of the core collections and this online publication has been facilitated by the production expertise of Tomlinsons staff. As more titles are expected to be published in 2023/2024, we felt that the new edition should be released in an online format in the first instance. Print option is available for each category for librarians to download the collection and print. When sufficient updates have been added in 2023/2024, health library staff can purchase a print copy at a nominal rate from Tomlinsons. We are grateful to Tomlinsons who have continued with their role in the publication and distribution of this Nursing and Midwifery Core Collection.
THE CORE COLLECTION LIST
The Core Collection list can never be a definitive list of titles but we hope that this list of suggested books will be useful. We anticipate that libraries will use this list as a selection resource based on the scope of their collections.
If you have used Core Collection before, we hope you will find the latest edition useful. If you are new to the profession or even new to the Core Collection, then we hope it helps you provide a framework to select titles for your services.
Preeti Puligari, Dawn Williams, Nicola Ager, and Stacey Richards
(Core Working Group)
Other contributors: Caroline Lynch, Phil O’ Reilly, Sian Wyre, Renata M Roscelli, Daniel R Whittaker and Mihaela Paraschiv