Q: Anne, thanks so much for taking the time to answer some questions about the 2009 edition of the DCT. I really appreciate it. This is the sixth year of Doody’s Core Titles in the Health Sciences (DCT), and it is the same price as it was in 2004. How is that possible in this day and age?
A: As you know, Ashley, we’ve been serving the health sciences library market for over 16 years and we’re acutely aware of the budget constraints librarians work under. As a result, we’ve instituted very few price increases for our products for librarians over the years, and only when absolutely necessary. Doody’s Review Service, which we’ve been publishing since 1995, has seen only two price increases, although we’ve made many important additions and improvements to it during that time. Doody’s Core Titles is already in its sixth year and has been vastly improved since its inception, but we thought it important, especially in these uncertain economic times, to keep the price down.
Q: I know there are some new features to the DCT this year and I’d like to go over each. The first new feature as listed on your marketing information is “eBook links—we provide links directly to eBook aggregators that carry online versions of titles on the list.” This is a really great feature. Which aggregators have partnered with you to provide this feature? Also, I believe I heard that this feature is also available on your Doody’s Review Service, which covers a lot more titles. Essentially, you have the closest thing to a “Books in Print” of health science eBooks on the market, correct?
A: Your blog after the Charleston Conference suggesting the need for a “Books in Print” for eBooks got us thinking. Adding links to eBook aggregators is something we knew we needed to do as more and more library budgets were shifting from print to digital resources.
Currently, we are working with six eBook aggregators: ebrary, Books@Ovid, MDConsult/Nursing Consult, NetLibrary, R2 Digital Library and STAT!Ref. In a view of a list of titles, a link will appear at the bottom of any title with an available digital version. Clicking on that link will bring up the full record for that title, and links to all of the aggregators who supply an e-version. We fully expect to add more eBook aggregators in the coming months.
So, yes, I guess you’re right – Doody’s Review Service, which provides access to our entire database of reviews and data on health sciences titles, is the closest thing to a “Books in Print” for health sciences eBooks! In fact, we now believe Doody’s Core Titles and Doody’s Review Service are the only e-book locator sources on the market.
Q: The next new feature of the DCT 2009 is “BH icon – we’ve added an icon to DCT title records to let you know that a version of the title appeared on the final Brandon/Hill lists of 2003-2004.” Have you had a lot of requests from librarians for this service?
A: Librarians had relied on the Brandon/Hill lists for almost 40 years, and rightly so. As a result, distributors, like Matthews, have continued to indicate Brandon/Hill titles and new editions of those titles in their catalog. It’s only natural that librarians would continue to want to know whether an earlier version of a title appeared on the final Brandon/Hill lists. We were guided in our decision to include this feature both by our own market research and by our Library Board of Advisors.
Q: As a follow-up question to the BH icon feature, will DCT 2009 users be able to do any sort of sorting by Brandon-Hill icon?
A: DCT 2009 will not have a sort feature for Brandon/Hill titles, but the icon is prominently displayed in the title record. However, users will be able to search and filter the list to make it most useful to them – by specialty, titles new to the list, price, score, availability as an eBook from all aggregators or just one, to name a few. DCT 2009 also makes it easy for users to print or export their custom lists to a spreadsheet.
Q: The last new feature is the “Monthly newsletter – we alert you to new eBooks and new editions of DCT titles, as well as valuable industry news.” Regarding the “new eBook” alert, this means that when a print title becomes available as an eBook, the DCT user will receive notification? I am assuming this is because publishers don’t always make the e-version of the book available at the same time as the print? Will you send notification when each aggregator makes it available, in case they don’t all do it at the same time?
Also, you state that you will alert the DCT user when new editions of DCT titles are available. Will these new editions also be scored or will you reference the score of the previous edition?
A: A monthly newsletter is a natural addition to DCT. Although the list is published just once a year, we know librarians want to keep abreast of all of the publishing activity that goes on throughout the year. We thought this was a good way to alert librarians when an eBook version of a title becomes available, which may happen at any time after print publication. Since we’re representing a number of aggregators, we’ll report whenever any of the aggregators makes an e-version available.
It’s also important for librarians to know when a new edition of DCT title is published. For example, we already know that titles preliminarily selected for DCT 2009 have new editions pending late in the year. When and if a new edition is published, we’ll report on it in the newsletter. However, the new edition does not automatically replace the edition selected for the list. Each title, or edition, is selected and scored on its own merits by the librarian selectors.
Situated as we are at the nexus of librarians, publishers, distributors, and expert reviewers, we have a unique view of this corner of the world, so an important part of the monthly newsletter will be an article on a hot topic of interest to health sciences librarians.
Q: Is there anything else you would like our readers to know about DCT 2009 or Doody’s Review Service?
A: Both Doody’s Core Titles 2009 and Doody’s Review Service are the result of close collaboration with our customers, the librarians who rely on our services for their collection development needs. We like to characterize these collection development tools as developed for librarians by librarians.
To meet the varied needs and budgets of librarians, Doody’s Core Titles is offered in two versions – Basic and Premium. Both versions have the new features we’ve talked about here and both are easy to access, sort, print and export. The Premium version includes reviews of any titles on the list from Doody’s Review Service, which in previous editions has meant that over half of the 2,000+ Doody’s Core Titles include expert reviews. Premium also includes easy links to Google Book Search where available. According to the Journal of the Medical Library Association, “Electronic Resources Review,” July 2005: “Doody’s Core Titles is a very useful collection management tool — well worth the reasonable price.”
Doody’s Review Service is our comprehensive collection development tool, with access to our database of 100,000+ titles and 25,000+ reviews, which incorporates the latest edition of Doody’s Core Titles and includes a weekly email update with new reviews, new titles and new eBooks. The print predecessor to Doody’s Review Service, Doody’s Health Sciences Book Review Journal, was endorsed by the Medical Library Association as “a valuable collection development and reference tool.”
We have been gratified by the response to both of these products by members of the health sciences library community and we will continue to innovate and improve with their help.
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I want to thank Anne Hennessy again for taking the time to answer my questions. The 2009 DCT will be available on May 15th, 2009. Please e-mail me at ashleyw@mattmccoy.com if you would like to place an order!
