Dental Medicine Collection Development Policy

Faculty, staff, and students of all seven academic departments and three divisions of the Dental School are served by the Dental Library. These include the following departments: Basic and Translational Sciences, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery/Pharmacy, Preventive and Restorative Sciences, Oral Medicine, Orthodontics, Community Oral Health, and Endodontics. The Department of Preventive and Restorative Sciences is the largest academic department at Penn Dental Medicine; its faculty are distributed within three divisions: the Division of Restorative Sciences, the Division of Pediatric Dentistry, and the Division of Community Oral Health. Additionally, the Library supports ten post-graduate programs in advanced dental education which are part of the curriculum for the Doctor of Dental Medicine degree. Support is provided for clinical research needs as well as for basic science research efforts of faculty and their research associates.

Dental Library aims to collect the majority of English language monographs published in the field of dental medicine and oral biology, as well as relevant supporting titles from the basic sciences. Furthermore, the Library attempts to collect a significant number of dental and oral biology journals as well as primary medical journals, and other major journal titles published in the basic sciences that are studied as part of the curriculum for the doctor of medicine degree.

Special consideration is given to collecting materials supporting the care of persons with disabilities and access to care issues in dentistry. 

Open access (OA) initiatives are supported as far as collecting freely accessible materials and promoting faculty OA publications.

1. Chronological

Emphasis is placed on the current research and practice of dental medicine, but information relating to the history of the field is also acquired.

2. Formats

The core book collection is electronic. Print versions of selected books are also being added, as available. The current dental journal collection is only available online. Penn libraries also provide access to a wide array of databases, full-text resources, and links to Penn and non-Penn websites organized by broad subject areas. The Dental Library's site serves as an access point for all dental-centric online resources. Audio-visual material, examination reviews, handbooks, laboratory manuals, loose-leaf services, programmed texts, and workbooks are purchased selectively.

3. Geographical

No limitations. But the emphasis is on literature from the United States and Western Europe.

4. Language

Monographs are currently purchased only in the English language, although the collection includes many historic foreign language texts, especially French and German monographs. The majority of current journal subscriptions are in English, although we currently subscribe to some select foreign language journal titles. The historical journal collection covers a wide range of foreign language titles.

5. Publication Dates

Current literature is acquired almost exclusively. Material older than five years is purchased only by specific patron request.

• GOBI Library Solutions provides a slip approval plan to the Dental Library.
• EBSCO handles most domestic serial subscriptions, and a network of foreign dealers provide most of our foreign serial titles.
• Rittenhouse Books is used as a source for print books.
• Dental medicine association publications are regularly reviewed.
• Faculty and student input is of primary importance in selecting and reviewing titles and periodicals for acquisition. The Dental School Library Committee offers suggestions, as do faculty on an informal basis. Other selection tools include book reviews in dental and scientific journals, and from the American Dental Association, and publishers' announcements and catalogs.

No areas of dental medicine or oral biology are excluded.

The Dental Library depends on other campus libraries at Penn, such as the Biomedical, Veterinary, and Engineering libraries to provide additional support in the areas of Biomedicine, Veterinary Dentistry, and Materials Science. The Dental Library endeavors to be fairly comprehensive in the field of dental medicine and therefore generally does not depend on particular cooperative arrangements with other collections. But through the National Library of Medicine's interlibrary loan system, Docline, many Dental and Medical school libraries support us by lending needed material.

The Dental Library is a member of the Health Sciences Libraries Consortium and the Regional Medical Library Program.

• Dental Medicine