MAC Messages Number 88:
July/August 2001

Hospital Libraries
By Patricia Hammond, Director of Library Services
Cape Fear Valley Health System

Standards for Hospital Libraries, 2nd Edition

Hats off to the Hospital Libraries Section (HLS) Standards Committee on the draft of the second edition of "Standards for Hospital Libraries". Many hospital librarians asked for a revision of the standards to give them more clout with hospital administrators. The first edition was written in 1994 and was modeled after the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) accreditation manual. In 1994 the "Professional Library" standards were dropped from the JCAHO manual. The JCAHO library standards were changed to "knowledge-based information" and moved to the new "Information Management" chapter. The new "Standards for Hospital Libraries" reflected these changes but lacked quantitative measures to aid hospital librarians in securing needed resources. The previous version of hospital library standards, Minimum Standards for Health Sciences Libraries in Hospitals written in 1983, contained quantitative measures.

The draft of the revised standards contains nine standards. The HLS Standards Committee is soliciting feedback. The draft can be accessed at http://www.hls.mlanet.org/HLS_STANDARDS.DOC. A comment form is also available. Standard number 9 will be a quantitative staffing standard and depends on results of the MLA Benchmarking project. If you have not submitted benchmarking data, please do so.

HLS Leadership List

The Professional Recognition Committee/HLS will be compiling a list of HLS members who are leaders in health sciences librarianship. A form has been devised to self-report leadership activities. The form will be available in the National Network and at mlanet.org. HLS members on the leadership list will be recognized at the annual meeting and an annual list will be published in the National Network. More information about the list will appear in the next issue of National Network.

MACLend - Round 3

Fifty-seven libraries have enrolled as MACLend participants. This is an increase of eight members. During July and August, participants will revise their DOCLINE Routing Tables to list current MACLend institutions in Cells 3,4,5 and 6. Participants have agreed to reciprocal interlibrary loan service. MACLend works well because the smallest libraries are in Cell 3 and the largest libraries in Cell 6. This method of structuring the cells by the size of the journal collection spreads interlibrary loan traffic more evenly among members.

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