Joint Collection Development Policy:
Veterinary Science and Related Subjects

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE

THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

March 6, 1996

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Agricultural Library (NAL) and to a lesser extent the Library of Congress (LC) acquire publications on topics relating to veterinary science and provide document and information services to segments of the veterinary science community. To reduce the possibility of user confusion regarding the most appropriate source for particular materials and of unnecessary and expensive duplication of collection efforts which might arise from this overlapping responsibility, the three national libraries have reviewed their collection development policies in veterinary science and have prepared this joint statement clarifying their respective responsibilities. Some related aspects of animal science, such as anatomy and physiology, which may be of interest to users also are considered. The complete collection development policies of the libraries should be consulted for additional information.

General Principles

Veterinary science is the study of the diagnosis, prevention, cure or alleviation of animal disease or injury. Together NLM, NAL, and LC attempt to collect, retain and preserve all significant information on veterinary science; however, many aspects of the subject are collected and treated differently at each institution, depending upon the needs of its users.

NLM's collecting emphasis is on veterinary science as it relates to human health, biomedical research, and advances in biomedicine. Included is literature in comparative medicine and comparative pathology, zoonoses, veterinary pharmacology, veterinary clinical sciences, primatology and all aspects of laboratory animal science and welfare. Included in the latter are works on breeding, selection, housing, nutrition, and other practical aspects of laboratory animal care. The NLM also is particularly interested in legal, ethical and public policy issues related to laboratory animal science and welfare and in alternatives to animal testing.

Because of NLM's interest in research at the cellular, molecular and biochemical level and its potential application to humans and human health, the Library also collects animal research literature in such fields as immunology, microbiology, parasitology and toxicology. In addition, NLM collects works which are likely to be widely used in U.S. veterinary practice on the anatomy, physiology, preventive medicine, and health care of any species including exotic animals.

NLM does not collect works concerned with animal breeding and training, animal husbandry, pets, recreational and show animals, dietary management, production efficiency, or ecology except when these topics expressly relate to human health or laboratory animal science.

NAL collects comprehensively in all areas dealing with the treatment and health maintenance of animals, as well as their diseases, anatomy and physiology. NAL also strives for comprehensive coverage in the more general subjects of animal husbandry, breeding, training and nutrition. This coverage includes many aspects of animal life and the human use of animals (e.g., animals as sources of food, laboratory animals, working and show animals) and animals as transmitters of disease to humans.

NAL's collecting interests in veterinary medicine have been strongly influenced by federal legislation including the 1989 Animal Welfare Act. This legislation placed regulatory authority on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ensure the proper care and treatment of animals used in biomedical research, in teaching, in exhibition and by dealers who provide animals. The Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC) was created in 1986 as mandated in the 1985 Animal Welfare Act amendments. AWIC's efforts have increased NAL's collecting in all aspects of laboratory animal science, including the following specific subject areas: handling and care of animals, training and education of animal caretakers, alternatives to the use of laboratory animals, improved laboratory methodologies, ethics, pain control via anesthesia and analgesia, transportation and acquisition of animals, and environmental factors affecting laboratory animals.

In the field of veterinary medicine, LC seeks particularly to collect materials on ethics and legislation relating to laboratory animals, their welfare, their use in experimentation, and alternatives to such use. Works on the parasitology and toxicology of plants and animals as they affect the food supply, the economy and the well being of humans also are collected. LC's primary focus in these areas is to acquire materials of high interest at a basic information level to support the research needs of Members of Congress and Congressional committees. LC also acquires materials at the basic information level to serve other government agencies and the general public.

LC has a strong basic collection of U.S. copyrighted works on pets and pet care. In addition, English language works on wildlife in captivity and wildlife rehabilitation are collected to complement the Library's collection strength in biodiversity.

Collecting Levels

LC and NAL employ collecting level definitions developed by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) and later adopted by the Association of Research Libraries. The definitions describe five collecting levels and are as follows:

• Comprehensive Level: A collection in which a library endeavors, so far as is reasonably possible, to include all significant works of recorded knowledge (publications, manuscripts, and other forms), in all applicable languages, for a necessarily defined and limited field. This level of collecting intensity is one that maintains a "special collection"; the aim, if not the achievement, is exhaustiveness. Older material is retained for historical research.
• Research Level: A collection that includes the major published source materials required for dissertations and independent research, including materials containing research reporting, new findings, scientific experimental results and other information useful to researchers. It is intended to include all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs, as well as a very extensive collection of journals and major indexing and abstracting services in the field. Older material is retained for historical research. A sampling of special format materials (such as graphic and moving images) are collected that complement print materials.
• Instructional Support Level: A collection that is adequate to support undergraduate and MOST graduate instruction, or sustained independent study; that is, adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject required for limited or generalized purposes, of less than research intensity. It includes a wide range of basic monographs, complete collections of the works of more important writers, selections from the works of secondary writers, a selection of representative journals and the reference tools and fundamental bibliographical apparatus pertaining to the subject.
• Basic Information Level: A collection of up-to-date general materials that serves to introduce and define a subject and to indicate the varieties of information elsewhere. It may include dictionaries, encyclopedias, selected textbooks, surveys, histories, directories, bibliographies, handbooks and a few major periodicals, in the minimum number that will serve the purpose. A basic information collection is not sufficiently intensive to support any courses or independent study in the area involved.
• Out of Scope: The library does not collect in this area.

In its most recent statement of collecting policies (Collection Development Manual of the National Library of Medicine, Third Edition, 1993), NLM focused its collecting efforts on the biomedical literature. Instead of following the five levels defined by RLG, NLM stated that it would attempt to collect comprehensively biomedical aspects of any subject.

NLM's concept of comprehensive collecting is compatible with the Comprehensive level as defined by the RLG, but the scope of the NLM collection, encompassing as it does all of biomedicine, is significantly broader than is generally understood for the "special collection" referred to in the RLG definition. NLM recognizes that while it is possible to assemble a collection which addresses all topics in biomedicine, it is impossible even for a national library to gather a complete, worldwide collection of all biomedical materials in all formats.

NLM distinguishes between subject areas collected at the Comprehensive level and subject areas where the Library has limited its collecting efforts to works with potential application to human health or biomedical research; comparative studies involving humans, non-human primates, or laboratory animals; studies concerned with the physiological, cellular, or genetic basis of disease; and standard works likely to be widely used by U.S. practitioners. The collecting level for subjects on which these limitations are placed is described as Modified Comprehensive (Modified Comp).

The following table summarizes NLM and NAL's collecting levels in some 37 categories of veterinary science.

VETERINARY SCIENCE AND RELATED LITERATURE AT NLM AND NAL

TOPIC                                         COLLECTING LEVEL

NLM            NAL

Animal Behavior                               Modified       Research
Comp*

Animal Genetics                               Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Animal Husbandry                              Out of Scope   Comprehensive

Animal Nutrition

Physiologic/biochemical/cellular/molecular
aspects                                     Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Applied aspects                             Out of Scope   Comprehensive

Comparative Medicine                          Comprehensive  Research

Ethical Concerns

Laboratory Animals                          Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Other                                       Out of Scope   Comprehensive

Human/Animal Bond                             Comprehensive  Instructional
Support

Laboratory Animal Science                     Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Primatology                                   Comprehensive  Research

Public Health/Veterinary Aspects              Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Space Medicine/Veterinary Aspects             Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Theriogenology                                Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Anatomy                            Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Anesthesiology                     Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Biochemistry                       Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Cardiology                         Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Clinical Pathology                 Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Dermatology                        Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Embryology                         Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Endocrinology                      Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Epidemiology                       Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Histology                          Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary History                            Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Immunology                         Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Internal Medicine                  Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Microbiology                       Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Parasitology                       Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Pathology                          Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Pharmacology                       Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Physiology                         Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Profession                         Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Preventive Medicine                Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Radiobiology                       Modified Comp  Comprehensive

Veterinary Radiology/Imaging                  Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Surgery                            Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Veterinary Toxicology                         Comprehensive  Comprehensive

Zoonoses                                      Comprehensive  Comprehensive

*Modified Comp (modified comprehensive) indicates a subject area in which NLM has limited its collecting efforts to works with potential application to human health or biomedical research; comparative studies involving humans, non-human primates, or laboratory animals; studies concerned with the physiological, cellular, or genetic basis of disease; and standard works likely to be widely used in U.S. veterinary practice.

User Services

NLM and NAL together with LC cooperate to ensure that significant literature in veterinary science is collected, retained and preserved and to make this literature accessible to the wide variety of researchers and practitioners throughout the United States.

NLM makes its materials in veterinary science and other subject areas available on site to anyone who can come to the Library and through the interlibrary loan process to those who cannot. Requestors who cannot obtain items in their region may request items from NLM through their local library. For requestors in the United States, NLM will provide photocopies of journal articles or short excerpts from monographic material and will lend books and audiovisuals. For those outside the United States, NLM provides only photocopies of journal articles or short excerpts from monographs. Medical libraries are encouraged to send interlibrary loan requests via DOCLINE. For information about DOCLINE participation, contact your Regional Medical Library at 1-800-338-RMLS. International medical libraries may contact the closest International MEDLARS Center to determine if the center or another library in the immediate area accesses DOCLINE via the Internet. For more information on NLM's Interlibrary Loan Policy contact: National Library of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894. Telephone: (301) 496-5511, Fax: (301) 496-2809, Internet: ill@nlm.nih.gov

NAL's veterinary science materials and NAL's collections in other subjects are available to users on site and may be loaned to other U.S. libraries, USDA staff, and congressional offices. Individuals who are not USDA employees are encouraged to use local sources whenever possible; those who are not able to acquire the material they need from regional libraries and cannot come to NAL may request material through a local library. NAL's document delivery service provides photocopies of articles free to USDA staff and for a fee to other individuals and organizations. For more information on NAL's circulation, document delivery, and interlibrary loan services, contact: USDA, National Agricultural Library, Document Delivery Services Branch, 10301 Baltimore Blvd., Beltsville, Maryland, 20705-2351. Telephone: (301) 504-5755, Fax: (301) 504-5675: Internet: circinfo@nal.usda.gov.

LC's collections are available to users on site and may be loaned to other U.S. libraries, congressional offices and other government agencies. For additional information on LC's loan and circulation policies, contact the Loan Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540.