RESOURCE CENTRE MANUAL
HEALTHLINK WORLDWIDE
Blue Trunk Libraries list, produced by the World Health Organization (WHO)
Library and Information Networks for Knowledge Programme, lists about 150
publications selected for their Blue Trunk Libraries project. The materials are
divided into 14 categories: General medicine and nursing, Community health,
Primary health care, Health management and epidemiology, Maternal health
and family planning, Child health, Diarrhoeal diseases, Nutrition and
nutritional disorders, Essential drugs, Communicable diseases and vaccination,
Parasitic diseases and vector control, Sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS,
Surgery, anaesthesia and hospitals, and Medical and laboratory technology. See
http://www.who.int/library/country/trunks/contents/index.en.shtml
4.3.3 Local information sources
Local sources of information include:
• colleagues in the same organisation
• resource centre users
• other organisations
• research and development projects
• training programmes
• book fairs, exhibitions and conferences.
Colleagues and users of the resource centre are useful sources of information
about materials for the collection. They can be asked to suggest materials. For
example, they might recommend a manual that they have used during a
training workshop, or that has been recommended by another colleague.
Members of the resource centre advisory committee (see Section 2.2) should be
involved in deciding what to collect, and it is worth encouraging them to
suggest ideas.
Other organisations working in similar areas can also be useful sources of
information. Resource centre staff may be in touch with staff of other resource
centres, or with staff of organisations working in a similar subject area.
Research and development projects, being carried out either within the same
organisation as the resource centre or elsewhere, are a source of information on
new developments and findings.
Training programmes usually provide participants with handouts, photocopies
of sections of materials and reading lists. These materials may themselves be
useful additions to the collection, or they may help to identify useful materials.
It is therefore good to encourage people to share such materials with resource
centre staff.
Book fairs, exhibitions and conferences include displays by publishers and
booksellers of new materials.
8 SECTION 4: DEVELOPING THE COLLECTION