Collection Development of HIV/AIDS Information Resources in American Libraries

Abstract

HIV/AIDS remains an incurable epidemic in the United States that disproportionately affects men who have sex with men (MSM) and African Americans. Library and information science (LIS) professionals can play a vital role in keeping these higher risk groups informed about preventing HIV/AIDS and living with the disease, through a variety of current information resources that addresses their specific questions. This paper reviews collection development policies proposed by LIS professionals and library agencies since the late 1980s, and evaluates how such policies took higher-risk user groups into consideration. The findings of this paper are that collection development policies have become more attentive to higher-risk user groups but that LIS research trends are now beginning to focus more on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in developing countries, which is to the detriment of Americans who still need up-to-date materials on the disease