RESOURCE CENTRE MANUAL
HEALTHLINK WORLDWIDE
• who the material is for (for example, health workers, students, the
community)
• what format is preferred (for example, articles, books, videos)
• what time-span the material should cover (for example, new material for a
newsletter, or both older and new material for a subject overview)
• how soon the information is required.
Subject areas Decide what keywords to use to describe the subject (see Section
5.3: Assigning keywords). Use these keywords to search the resource centre’s
catalogue or database. Use these or similar subject terms to search other
bibliographies and indexes.
How the information is to be used This will affect the type of material that is
required. For example:
• for diagnosing or treating diseases – a handbook plus recent articles
• to present issues for discussion – videos, articles or a chapter of a book
• to develop a training course outline – training manuals, workshop materials
or curriculum guidelines.
Who the material is for Knowing this helps staff to know, for example,
whether to look for materials written in technical or non-technical language, or
whether to look for illustrated materials.
What format is preferred If the user prefers a particular format, such as books
or articles, there is no point spending time looking for materials in other
formats. However, if the resource centre holds very useful materials in other
formats, it is worth pointing this out. The user might not know that these are
available, or might not have thought of using other formats. This is an example
of how it helps to include all materials in the same catalogue (see Section 5.4.4:
Filing catalogue cards).
What the time-span is This can help you know what format of materials to
search for. If the user wants new information on a subject that they know
about, the best sources will be newsletters, journals and current awareness
bulletins. If the user needs to learn about a subject that is new to them, the
main sources of information will be books and reports.
How soon the information is required This helps you know which sources of
information to search. If the information is needed quickly, you will need to
limit the search to materials in the resource centre collection (excluding any on
loan), or full text materials available via the Internet. If there is more time, you
might be able to order new materials for the resource centre, or borrow
materials from another resource centre through an inter-library loan or
document delivery service. You could also ask questions on an e-mail
discussion list (see Section 6).
It is useful to keep a record of literature searches, as this can be used for
evaluating the services, updating needs assessment information and developing
the collection.
6 SECTION 7: INFORMATION SERVICES