ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


3 3 8 1 C&RL News ■ May 1998

C o l l e g e  & R e s e a r c h  L i b r a r i e sHealth Web
An Internet collaboration

by D o re e n  R. Bradley, Ju lia A. Kelly, a n d  C ara W ilh elm

T
he Internet has provided academ ic li­
brarians with a variety o f opportunities 
and challenges. Health scien ces librari

at universities in the Committee on Institu­
tional Cooperation (CIC), which includes the 
11 Big Ten schools plus the University o f 
Chicago, realized an opportunity to work 
collaboratively to develop Web pages fea­
turing collections o f health-related Internet 
resources. The goal o f this collaboration is 
to provide resources that benefit all o f the 
institutions involved, and, at the same time, 
reduce the redundant effort o f librarians to 
develop and maintain Web pages on the 
same health-related subjects that their co l­
leagues w ere developing at other CIC insti­
tutions. With the support o f their directors, 
the librarians began developing a very suc­
cessful model o f collaboration in Health Web 
( http://healthweb.org). Feedback has been 
extrem ely positive from librarians, health­
care professionals, and consum ers. As an 
added benefit o f promoting Health Web, li­
brarians have a more visible presence on 
their respective cam puses.

Health Web model of collaboration
The seed for Health W eb cam e from a sur­
vey done in 1994 by Patricia Redman at the 
University o f M ichigan’s Taubm an Medical 
Library. She was interested in finding out 
w hether faculty m em bers w ho had taken 
Internet classes were finding information that 
was relevant to their clinical, research, and

ans

instructional needs. In an effort to expand 
the survey, she assem bled an e-mail discus­
 sion group, which included representatives 
from each o f the health sciences libraries at 
the CIC universities.

D iscu ssio n s q u ick ly  fo cu se d  on tw o 
pressing problem s for frontline librarians: 
finding useful Internet resources for a wide 
variety o f classes offered by the libraries and 
selecting quality sites to include on the li­
braries’ G opher or Web sites. Work was b e ­
ing duplicated at each o f the schools, so the 
group decided to table the survey project 
and work on a joint Web site, dividing re­
sponsibility for the subject areas am ong the 
12 institutions.

With the exception o f the BUBL project 
in the UK ( http://bubl.ac.uk/), Health Web 
participants could find no exam ples o f li­
braries w orking to g eth er to establish an 
Internet resource, so the organization and 
procedures w ere established as the project 
evolved. Working groups w ere set up to 
tackle standards, policies, and agendas. The 
five groups— com m unications, content, d e­
sign, planning, and technical— m eet mostly 
via e-mail. Meetings o f the Health Web group 
are held tw ice a year, in conjunction with 
the national and regional meetings o f the 
Medical Library Association.

Certain challenges will be universal to 
projects o f this type, including limited re­
sources, changing levels o f participation by 
individuals and institutions, continuous tech­

A b o u t th e  a u th o rs

Doreen R. Bradley is inform ation services librarian, Taubman M ed ical Library, at the University o f M ichigan; e-mail: 
dbradley@umich.edu; Julia A. Kelly is head o f public services, Biom edical Library, at the University o f Minnesota; e-mail: 
j-kell1@ m aroon.tc.um n.edu; Cara W ilhelm is com m unications coordinator for the National Netw ork o f  Libraries o f 

Medicine, Greater M id w est Region, at the University o f Illinois at Chicago; e-mail: caralw@uic.edu

http://healthweb.org
http://bubl.ac.uk/
mailto:dbradley@umich.edu
mailto:j-kell1@maroon.tc.umn.edu
mailto:caralw@uic.edu


C&RL News ■ May 7 998 1339

nological advances, and geographical barri­
ers. Health Web participants have long hoped 
that librarians in other subject areas could 
learn from the Health Web exp erience as they 
w orked to organize the quality Internet re­
sources in their subject areas.

Selection criteria
Along with co lla b o ra tio n , a p rin cip le e le ­
m ent o f H ealth W eb has b e e n  the n otion 
that the re s o u rc e s  p r e s e n te d  w o u ld  b e 
evaluated. Participating libraries c h o o se  an 
area or areas in w hich they e x c e l, b ased  
on cam p u s strength s, and take re sp o n si­
bility for identifying, evalu ating, and o r­
ganizing reso u rces in th o se su b je ct areas. 
The content group established a set o f collec­
tion d ev elo p m en t 
guidelines (http:// 
www.ghsl.nwu.edu/ 
cic/content/papers/ 
g u i d e l i n e s . h tm l#  
intro) to s u p p o rt 
th is p r o c e s s , a l ­
t h o u g h  e a c h  l i ­
b r a r y  h a s  s o m e  
f l e x i b i l i t y  as to  
how  it will im p le­
m ent th ese g u id e­
lines. Libraries are 
s tro n g ly  e n c o u r ­
aged to se e k  fa c ­
ulty s u b je c t “e x ­
p e rts” or advisory 
b o a r d  m e m b e r s  
on their cam puses 

H e a lth W e b  to participate in the 
selection process.

The content group divided resources into 
two types, local and rem ote, developing a 
set o f criteria for selecting resources o f each. 
Criteria for selecting local resources include: 
potential usefulness o f the inform ation out­
side the local institution; quality o f the pre­
sentation o f the inform ation; uniqueness o f 
the inform ation presented; reliability o f the 
authority creating the resou rce; plans for 
resource m aintenance; and licensing or le­
gal considerations.

Criteria for selecting remote resources in­
clude: perceived  quality o f the reso u rce; 
quality and reliability o f the publisher, insti­
tution, or author/producer; the quality o f the 
design and user interface o f the site; the time­

H o

liness o f the information presented; the qual­
ity o f the sites that the resource links to, if 
any; and the relationship o f the resource to 
other resources in the field.

T hese guidelines w ere developed to pro­
vide standards for participating institutions 
to use in selecting Internet resources for their 
subject areas. Each library has the resp onsi­
bility o f appointing a subject specialist and/ 
or an advisory com m ittee that adjusts these 
standards to m eet the specific needs o f their 
subject area.

Maintenance
Each library is responsible for maintaining 
and updating its ch osen  subject areas. The 
co n te n t grou p  d e v elo p ed  g u id elin e s for 

m aintenance, which 
includes maintaining 
locally m ounted in­
formation, a regular 
review  o f pointers, 
an d  f r e q u e n t  r e - 
e v a l u a t i o n  o f  s e ­
lected sites, initiated 
by both the resp on­
s ib le  lib r a rie s  and 
the co n te n t group. 
A d d itio n a l g u id e ­
lines for review ing 
W eb sites and m ain­
tain in g  ce rta in  d e ­
sign standards have 
a ls o  b e e n  e s t a b ­
lished. T he T ech n i­
cal Committee assists 

m e P a g e by m aintaining link 
ch e ck er software that will notify page de­
velopers o f dead links. Although this m ain­
tenance process is tim e-consum ing, all par­
ticipants consider it to be essential to the 
integrity o f the Health W eb project.

Use of Health Web
Health W eb fulfills many roles for librarians, 
health-care professionals, and consumers. As 
noted, the notion o f Health W eb initially rose 
out o f a need to have W eb pages that link 
quality sites for teaching classes on health- 
related Internet resources. Librarians at par­
ticipating institutions now rely quite heavily 
on H ealthW eb pages w hen designing and 
teaching their classes. An important benefit 
o f having established pages is that librar-

http://www.ghsl.nwu.edu/


3 4 0 1 C&RL News ■ May 1998

"Design Guideline Documents for HealthWeb Collabor

ians have m ore time to design w ell-planned 
classes rather than spending time browsing 
the W eb to locate and evaluate resources 
before each session. Since HealthW eb pro­
vides access only to selected resources, the 
subject pages serve as an excellen t starting 
point for educating users on the need for 
critical assessm ent o f information available 
on the Internet.

Classes can b e tailored to specific user 
groups by teaching from one or m ore o f the 
subject pages. Entire sessions have b een  d e­
veloped around the nursing and pharmacy 
and dentistry pages to support the needs o f 
faculty and students in these disciplines. The 
pharmacy page has also b een dem onstrated 
as a new collaboration project to major d o­
nors o f the College o f Pharmacy at one uni­
versity. During orientation sessions, many 
institutions take this opportunity to intro­
duce Health Web to incoming students. Com­
ments from other librarians around the coun­
try in d ic a te  th a t th e y  a re  in t e g r a t in g  
HealthWeb pages into their educational pro­
grams, as well.

Additionally, HealthWeb serves as a vital 
information tool at information desks, in aca­
dem ic departm ents, for library users, and 
for consum er health information needs. With 
the new reference page and clear organiza­
tion o f the subject pages, information desk 
staff have quick access to facts, associations, 
and definitions. Many schools and academ ic

departments within the participating 
institutions include links on their 
W eb p a g e s  th at g u id e  u se rs to 
HealthW eb as a starting point for 
brow sing the Internet. Consum ers 
find H ealth W eb very useful in lo ­
cating inform ation abou t p articu ­
lar d iseases and links to a s so c ia ­
tion and d iscu ssion  grou ps, w hich 
may provide them with further in­
formation.

New Health Web partners
Although there w ere well over 50 
librarians and com puter profession­
als from the original 12 schools in­
volved in HealthW eb, it was diffi­
cult to find a hom e institution for 
each o f the m ore than 70 subject 
areas. During 1996, the Greater Mid­

ation"
w est Region (GMR) o f the National 

Networks o f Libraries o f M edicine, w hich is 
funded through the National Library o f Medi­
cine, b ecam e a cosp on sor o f HealthW eb.

In the spring o f 1997, participation in the 
project was opened up to other libraries in 
the GMR, and the fo llo w in g  institu tions 
joined  the HealthW eb team: Mayo Clinic, 
Medical College o f O hio, Medical College 
o f W isconsin, Southern Illinois University, 
University o f Kentucky, University o f Min­
nesota-D u lu th, University o f North Dakota, 
Wayne State University, Wright State Uni­
versity.

Future of HealthWeb
The initial goal o f HealthW eb, to com plete 
a site that lists annotated, evaluated Internet 
sites in the health scien ces, is nearly acco m ­
plished. Throughout the process, m em bers 
o f the HealthW eb group have discussed the 
next phase o f the project. It may be moving 
to a database for generation o f the pages, 
w hich could allow  a com m on w orkspace 
for those working jointly on subject areas. 
Putting classes on the W eb that provide us­
ers with an introduction to the Internet and 
to health resources may be another option 
for co lla b o ra tio n . M oving into the realm  
o f e le c tr o n ic  p u b lish in g  has a lso  b e e n  
m en tion ed , as w ell as facilitating the c r e ­
ation o f m ore original W eb -b a sed  m ate­
rial by faculty at the H ealthW eb institu­
tions. ■



C&RL News ■ May 1998/ 341