The librarians and staff at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine’s Preston Medical Library wanted to create a streamlined process to engage faculty in collection development. Using Doody’s Core Titles list, with its compilation of recommended titles published in a variety of medical specialties, offered an easy way to solicit feedback. The following steps outline the process we developed and implemented.

Step 1: A member of the library staff and the graduate research assistant checked our current collection against the Doody’s list. They noted which titles were available in the current collection and in what form: print or ebook. Since titles were available in the collection in a previous edition, this information was noted as well.

Step 2: Library staff converted the webpages of the Doody’s Titles by Specialty lists relevant to our academic departments into interactive PDF forms, adding checkboxes for ease of selection. Along with the checkboxes, notations showed which books the library already had access to, whether in print or electronically, as well as the edition it owned. This allowed us not only to get feedback for collection development purposes, but also to highlight our current collection to our faculty.

Step 3: Liaison librarians distributed the forms to Graduate School of Medicine faculty by email. Faculty members had only to click the checkboxes next to their selections, save their choices, and send the PDF back.

Results: Faculty returned 15 completed lists with 74 book requests. Even with duplicate requests, we added 22 print books and 15 ebooks to our collection.

Comparing the Doody’s Core Titles list against our own collection gave us an opportunity to evaluate the strength of our core collection. Obtaining feedback from faculty enabled us to tailor our collection to their preferences, demonstrating that we value their input. Being able to provide faculty with an authoritative, comprehensive list of titles in their specialty enabled us to create a collaborative process for title selections while maintaining a high standard of quality in our book collection.