Building Orthopedic Journal Collections: Analyzing Use and Bibliometrics in a Teaching Hospital Library

Abstract

This article presents a collection development tool that identifies a list of key orthopedic journals to retain in print or license electronically in an academic or teaching hospital library. The authors developed an assessment tool comparing five measures of importance and use, including journal impact factor, cited half-life, interlibrary loan lending, electronic archival access, and library usage. This study assists medical librarians and orthopedic surgeons by identifying the titles in this subject area that may be of most enduring value for professional reading and for hospital library collections.

KEYWORDS:

• bibliometrics
• collection development
• hospital libraries
• medical libraries
• orthopedics