In an effort to continue making Doody’s Core Titles a premier collection development tool for health sciences librarians, we have made the following changes in 2024:
New Specialties: For the first time since its inception in 2004, the DCT taxonomy has been updated to include new specialties. While we plan to continue adding more areas in the future, this first year’s worth of changes reflect particular specificities within certain areas as highlighted by our Librarian Selectors and approved by our Library Board of Advisors:
Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery is now separate from Dentistry.
Veterinary Nursing & Technology is now separate from Veterinary Medicine.
Medical Education and Medical Informatics are now separate specialties, whereas before they were combined.
New Terminology: In addition to adding new, previously unselected specialties, our Library Board of Advisors has approved specialty name changes to better reflect their anticipated subject coverage:
Communication Sciences & Disorders replaces Speech, Language, & Hearing.
Dental Hygiene & Auxiliaries replaces Dental Auxiliaries.
Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine replaces Anesthesiology.
General Internal Medicine replaces General Medicine.
Surgical Oncology replaces Oncologic Surgery.
Administration, Management & Leadership replaces Administration/Management (in Nursing).
Complementary & Integrative Health replaces Alternative Therapies.
Hospice & Palliative Care replaces Hospice (in Nursing).
Updated Scoring: To ensure continual consistency and rigor for DCT selections, Librarian Selectors have implemented new scoring guidelines that maintain a familiar scoring set (0-3) and collection development criteria yet provide substantial flexibility in weeding out titles that do not belong or do not score high enough to be retained. Thus, earning a spot on the 2024 list is more difficult than before for any given title in an effort to hone in on truly “core” titles for each specialty.
As always, Doody Enterprises values the input of our fellow health information community members on ways to improve our resources. Please consider submitting a contact form or emailing us at editorial@doody.com with your ideas about new specialties or future enhancements to DCT.