Here's another suggestion:

The NLH people have managed to compile a list of contacts for all the
NHS libraries in England (in order to send out their promotional
material).  Could the DoH use that list to send an email announcing
when a new publication (major/core/policy) is due out, and asking
libraries who wanted it to respond.

That way we'd get what we wanted as it was published but the DoH
wouldn't be sending out unwanted material.

Does that sound feasible?



Christine Reid
NHS Staff Library, Education Centre
Seacroft Hospital
York Road, Leeds LS14 6UH
Phone (0113) 2063675
Fax (0113) 2063325
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Please visit our website at www.leedsth.nhs.uk

>>> Conway Des <[log in to unmask]> 20 October 2004
16:54:51 >>>
I would echo Sarah's comments. There used to be something called a DoH
Library List (mentioned to me by Veronica Fraser in late 2001)which
meant
that Libraries were circulated at the same time as the mailing out to
Chief
Executives, NSF leads etc. I was on this list for about 3 months and it
was
great because we would get the new item more or less the day it came
out,
thus making us appear on the ball. However, this list was discontinued
during 2002 and we are now suffering the same problems as the rest of
the
list.

There are several of us on this list who work in health promotion /
public
health related library services and some of us are on the national
Health
Promotion Reference Group (HPRG) which is convened by staff at the DoH
and
discusses programmes and projects, leaflets, policy documents etc. We
continually raise the need at the HPRG for all NHS Libraries to be
added to
the Mailing Lists for these "free" policy documents, such as the new
NSFs,
so that when our rank and file clients phone us to borrow the new item
(as
they do) we will have some idea what they are talking about. Hopefully,
we
can get this written in to the new NSF for Libraries i.e. "the DoH
shalt
circulate all NHS Libraries with core documents as part of the initial
mailing list".

Regards.

Des

Des Conway
Head of Knowledge Resources
Nottingham City PCT
Linden House
261 Beechdale Road
Aspley
Nottingham
NG8 3EY

Tel:    0115 942 8755
Fax:   0115 942 8611
Email [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: S Massey [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 20 October 2004 14:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: doh pubs


I have had discussions in the last week with the PUblications manager
at NHS
Responseline and the DOH asking this very thing.  These are some of
the
points they made

Just because it is published electronically does not mean the paper
copy is
ready and not at the printers.  It then needs proof reading etc and can
take
some time to be distributed

You cannot order publications that are unavailable as they have no
system to
queue your order until copies arrive.Thus you receive a letter if you
order
by email or post to say that the item is unavailble.

Items published immediately go into mailing which can take 3 months.
DOH
responseline only receive copies to make available to us after this
has
happened.  Therefore you have to ring up every week to check whether it
is
still in mailing and could find that once it is out of mailing the
publication is out of print as they have run out of copies

I asked about being put on a mailing list(last week) so our library
would
receive automatic mailings but am still waiting to hear!

I flagged this problem up with Veronica Fraser about 18months ago and
she
was going to look into it.

I know this does not provide a solution but maybe the answer to some of
your
questions


Sarah Massey
Knowledge and Library Services Manager
Illingworth Library
Sheffield Children's NHS Trust
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TH

tel:  0114 2717347
Fax:  0114 2717185


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