Rehabilitating the Stroke Collection

Stroke patients treated in the Central Coast Health specialist stroke units are seen by a multidisciplinary team of clinicians including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, nutritionists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, etc. A hospital library collection should provide adequate resources to support all these specialist areas.

One of the challenges in completing a collection analysis on a specific subject area was determining a means of locating relevant resources within the collection, prior to determining factors such as coverage and age of these items. Focus on DDC call numbers as a starting point was soon found to be superficial, with risk of overlooking relevant resources dispersed throughout the collection. Use of LC and MeSH subject heading tree searches was expected to encapsulate a broader range of resources. However, how could library staff be confident that ‘relevant’ resources were still not being overlooked?

It was decided that interaction with the multidisciplinary stroke team members was an essential part of the process. A questionnaire was developed and dispersed amongst staff representing different specialties on the stroke team. This questionnaire listed the subject headings identified by library staff as relevant to treatment of stroke. Team members were asked to add their own ideas of relevant subject headings, with consideration of broader skills/ knowledge required for the treatment of stroke. The questionnaire also allowed for team members to comment on types of materials and specific titles they felt were useful / essential in a basic collection on stroke management. Use of the questionnaire had several benefits – education of the recipients about subject searching, promotion of the library as a valuable resource; and confirmation at a primary level of the broad or narrower focus of subject searching and resource use within the library collection by the stroke team.

Results of the questionnaire will be used to assess the collection of stroke resources and identify titles for purchase to enhance the collection. It is expected that use of this methodology can be repeated amongst other specialty groups using the library, to facilitate further planning and decision making for effective collection management.