Resources

HSLS supports a robust online collection of e-journals, e-books, databases, specialized software, and a usage-driven collection of print materials.   

The current economic climate necessitates that HSLS build and manage our collection in the most cost-effective way. Subscription costs continue to rise at rates above general inflation. In response to the changing information needs of our diverse user population, HSLS carefully analyzes usage statistics, publication patterns, and other metrics to identify materials to be discontinued and new items to be added. 

Online Collections

700+ e-resources added
to the collection, including nearly 400 e-books.

12,800 electronic journals
available to HSLS users.

7,300 e-books and 
131 databases/collections
of full-text information.

HSLS strives to renew existing resources where appropriate and aims for minimal cancellations, to the extent that our budget permits. Most renewals are at a macro-level via journal packages and multi-resource collections, but collection growth is typically achieved at a micro-level by individual journals or resources being added to those packages/resource collections, including automatically and via one-time purchases. 

Resources like Springer Protocols and the Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection (from HSTalks) add numerous new protocols/talks throughout each year, and we gain access to all of them, via our annual subscription fees for the collections.

  • Clinical Anesthesia Fundamentals (2nd edition)
  • Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals (2024 edition)
  • DSM-5-TR Handbook of Differential Diagnosis
  • Fields Virology, Volume 3: RNA Viruses (7th edition)
  • Goldman-Cecil Medicine (27th edition)
  • Grants Index (via Web of Science)
  • How to Draw Anatomy (1st edition)
  • Katzung’s Basic & Clinical Pharmacology (16th edition)
  • Nurse Leader
  • O’Sullivan & Schmitz’s Physical Rehabilitation (8th edition)
  • Red Book: 2024-2027, Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases (33rd edition)
  • Sleep Medicine for Dentists: An Evidence-Based Overview (2nd edition)
  • Thompson & Thompson Genetics and Genomics in Medicine (9th edition)
  • Understanding Health Policy: A Clinical Approach (9th edition)
  • Varney’s Midwifery (7th edition)
  • Brain Injury Medicine: Principles and Practice (3rd edition)
  • Essential Procedures for Emergency, Urgent, and Primary Care Settings: A Clinical Companion (3rd edition)
  • Essentials of Communication Sciences & Disorders (3rd edition)
  • Formulating a Differential Diagnosis for the Advanced Practice Provider (3rd edition)
  • Health Equity: A Solutions-Focused Approach (1st edition)
  • Kinesiology for Occupational Therapy (3rd edition)
  • Lippincott Nursing Procedures (9th edition)
  • Textbook for the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner: Evidence-Based Standards of Practice (1st edition)
  • By taking advantage of a volume discount we were able to stretch our purchasing power towards four Ovid e-books that were requested by users.
  • Using “savings” from a substantially lower-than-projected renewal cost for the Oxford University Press journals package to add the journal Cannabis & Cannabinoid Research, 2 additions to our STAT!Ref e-book subscription based on user requests and to supplement our purchases of print books and e-books.
  • Transferring additional books from the Leisure Reading Collection to the Medical Humanities Collection, while also using some of the freed-up funds to purchase additional books for that collection.

Some journal packages function like a “database” in that we get access to all journals from that publisher, including newly launched titles and those that they take over from other publishers.

For example, Journal of Dermatology for Physician Assistants was added to Ovid’s LWW Total Access Collection, and several new journals were added to the SAGE Premier journals package, including Creative Nursing, International Journal of Clinical Metabolism and Diabetes, International Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Dance Medicine and Science, and Journal of Investigative Medicine.

In FY 24 we upgraded to the full Future Medicine journal package, which added 11 journals to our collection, including Epigenomics, Future Microbiology, Future Oncology, Immunotherapy, Nanomedicine, and Regenerative Medicine.

Open Access Agreements

HSLS, in partnership with the University Library System, negotiated new transformative (or “read and publish”) agreements for both the Elsevier ScienceDirect and the Wiley Online Library journal packages. These agreements not only maintain the traditional reading access to our subscribed journals but also now provide Pitt and UPMC authors with the opportunity to publish articles open access, at no cost to them, in eligible Elsevier journals and in all Wiley journals. In addition, HSLS and the ULS converted a single journal subscription from the Microbiology Society to a read and publish agreement that now provides reading access to all of the Society’s journals as well as free-to-author open access publishing in all journals. By providing these free open access publishing benefits to authors, HSLS and the ULS are helping authors to expand not only the readership of their publications but also potentially the impact of their research.

The UPMC Collection

9,800 e-journals

6,500 e-books

81 databases

HSLS’s UPMC Health Sciences Digital Library continues to provide a high-quality interface to streamline discovery and use of HSLS’s clinical and point-of-care resources to address UPMC’s patient-centered clinical and research information needs. Additional enhancements continue to be developed for the UPMC Health Sciences Digital Library providing enhanced functionality and digital collaboration spaces for UPMC libraries and information professionals. Updates to the HSDL included more frequent news and announcements introducing new resources, vendor-based information, and other items of interest, as well as an updated Mobile Apps page for essential resources such as UpToDate, Micromedex, ClinicalKey, and other resources from the HSDL collection. This includes installation instructions, authentication methods, and other UPMC-specific information.

At the enterprise level, HSLS worked closely with the UPMC Epic Cloud integration team in to facilitate seamless access to the HSDL and clinical resources such as UpToDate. 

Physical Collections

6,123 items in the circulating collection.

5,445 articles and book
chapters provided to libraries
nationwide.

Leisure Reading Collection provides
access to bestsellers, including
general fiction and nonfiction.

The HSLS Medical Humanities Collection continued to grow in FY 24. Due to ongoing Alan Magee Scaife Hall and Falk Library construction, a small number of Medical Humanities titles are currently available via onsite storage with plans for full collection reunification in FY 25. However, new titles have been added via book credits from our Leisure Reading program, purchases and additions to the e-book collection.

Titles include:

  • The art of anatomy in medieval Europe
  • Artists remaking medicine: the practice of imagination and the power to create a better healthcare future
  • Combating online health misinformation: a professional’s guide to helping the public
  • Fake news: understanding media and misinformation in the digital age
  • The deadly rise of anti-science: a scientist’s warning
  • Care and cure: an introduction to philosophy of medicine
  • Patients matter most: how healthcare is becoming personal again
  • This mortal coil: a history of death
  • Engaging bioethics: an introduction with case studies
  • The AI dilemma: 7 principles for responsible technology

Document Delivery

For items not in our collection, HSLS offers subsidized Document Delivery Service to support the information needs of Health Sciences faculty, students and staff. Between the HSLS collection and our subsidized Document Delivery Service, Health Sciences faculty, students and staff have quick access to virtually all high-quality domestic and international health sciences publications produced in the last two centuries. HSLS shares our collection with other universities and health sciences centers via Docline and OCLC technologies.

Sharing of the HSLS collection has decreased from previous years, partially due to ongoing construction of Alan Magee Scaife Hall, as numerous print-based bound journals were housed in inaccessible off-site storage during FY 24. The full HSLS print collection will be reunified in FY 25.

Technology

63,000 views of the HSLS
website per month,
totaling 763,000 per year.

1,400+ pieces of technology
equipment circulated to library users.

New circulating
technology was added in FY 24, including a podcasting kit, meeting Owls, drawing tablets, a braille emboss printer, and a vlogging kit.