HLISD - Health Library and Information Services Directory

About Us
HLISD - a directory of Health Library and Information Services - is live at www.hlisd.org and aims to be the most comprehensive database of its kind. The information is updated by a network of editors who are responsible for checking the currency of their entries.

CILIP Health Libraries Group (HLG), the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the National Library for Health (NLH) agreed to collaborate on building a single, online directory of library services, capable of being updated by individual libraries or library networks on an ongoing basis.

The Health Libraries Group of CILIP had published a number of editions of a directory of library services, the last one entitled 'A Directory of Health Library and Information Services in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland' was compiled and published in 2001. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) also produced an online directory of nursing library services. The initial funding was provided by NLH and NLH continues to provide editorial and technical support, plus development costs in order to support its MyLibrary project. The cost of ongoing updating is absorbed by the health library and information community.

HLISD has now been transferred to a new host, funded by SHALL (SHA Strategic LIbrary Leads), working in partnerhship with HLG..  

Service Board
HLG and RCN, having provided the initial data, were partners on the Project Board and are now on the Service Board and provide the UK and Republic of Ireland focus, NLH focussing on England only.
Board members are:
Alan Fricker (Chairman),
Julie Ryder (HLISD Editorial support)
Bertha Low (SHALL representative)
Andy Parrett (NGS East of England)
Chris Thornton (HLG Committee representative) 
Jenny Toller (NHS South West)

Scope
The directory covers the whole of the UK and the Republic of Ireland and includes all health library and information sectors whether they are NHS, Further or Higher Education, Government, Professional Bodies, Patient Information or Voluntary Organisations.

The number of entries is approaching 1000 and we are keen to continue adding new services. It is also proving valuable as a directory of contacts and we have just under 900 at present.

Content
Information includes the obvious contact details and web links as well as key contacts, access policy, subject coverage, special collections, resources and additional services offered such as access to WiFi or Information Skills training.  Initially the focus has been on the basic contact details.

The data from the directory is also still being utilised as part of the NLH My Library project, whereby users can personalise their view of NLH, allowing NHS England staff, through the use of Athens IDs, to view local libraries.

Contact details
If you have any ideas for improvement, know of other services which should be added, spot anything out of date or indeed , wish to notify us of current problems, please contact  http://www.hlisd.org/ContactUs.aspx