Collaborative Collection Development: Building a Patient-Driven Consumer Health Library

Introduction: The library at a large mental health teaching hospital has partnered with the volunteer-run patient library to develop and maintain a consumer health collection for hospital inpatients and outpatients. How can a research library and a patient library work together, with patient input from start to finish, to build a collection best suited to their information needs? Methods: This project is patient-centered, with patients participating in various aspects of the research. To that end, we will first bring together an advisory committee including current and former patients and patient library volunteers to provide oversight at all stages: 1. Literature Review: A comprehensive literature review will be conducted to better understand evidence-based approaches to developing consumer health tions. 2. Assessment: Interviews and focus groups will be conducted with patients and patient library volunteers to determine health information needs, preferred types of information, and means of delivery. 3. Collection Development: Drawing from the findings from the literature review, interviews, and focus groups, the hospital library will lead the development of the consumer health collection. 4. Facilitating Uptake: To better meet patient information needs we will develop complementary health literacy/education initiatives including curriculum development for volunteer training.