Alternative medicine materials in Canadian academic medical libraries: A national survey

A nation-wide survey of the collection managers responsible for selecting alternative medicine materials in Canada's 16 university medical libraries found that these librarians considered this area to be a difficult one regarding selection of appropriate materials. Respondents wanted to maintain a high academic standard in their collections, but encountered problems maintaining that standard as they assumed responsibility for obtaining sufficient numbers of relevant resources in the area of alternative medicine because often the only resources available, in their opinion, are written by laypeople for laypeople. When librarians were asked to evaluate 14 alternative medicine titles on a checklist, few titles were deemed appropriate for their collections.