This resource is an updated option to the “Brandon Hill Selected List of Print Books and Journals for the Small Medical Library, which ceases publication in 2003 after 38 years and 20 editions” (xi). The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information in the Health Sciences (hereafter MLA Master Guide) expands the Brandon Hill list by including works in the basic sciences as well as digital and online publications. Works that were included in the final Brandon Hill list are given a special designation. This resource is being written about as the new gold standard in collection development tools for medical libraries. By using expert contributors, the editors have compiled more than 2,000 authoritative titles encompassing 35 specialties, plus subspecialties, basic sciences, and emerging disciplines. The MLA Master Guide is not comprehensive. Selectors were limited to choosing ten of the most important monographs and serials in their discipline.

This work is loosely arranged by the Health Occupations and the Biological Sciences tree structures of the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Definitions come from Stedman's Medical Dictionary or from the topics contributor if a MeSH derived definition is not available. Each section includes general works related to the discipline, as well as more specialized topics. Each entry contains full bibliographic information, URLs (if applicable), and an annotation describing the scope and coverage of the work. The majority of titles covered are appropriate for an academic medical library. Titles appropriate for a hospital or consumer health library are marked.

In comparison to the Brandon Hill List of Print Books and Journals for the Small Medical Library (Medical Library Association, 2001), this resource appears much easier and more efficient. The Brandon Hill List is simply a list of titles with their prices, as opposed to The MLA Master Guide which contains nicely written annotations for each work listed. Another benefit to this work when compared to the Brandon Hill List of Print Books and Journals for the Small Medical Library is that the former is not strictly limited to print resources. The work being reviewed also covers many more titles.

I also looked at Jeffrey T. Huber, Jo Anne Boorkman, and Jean Blackwell's Introduction to Reference Sources in the Health Sciences (Neal-Schuman, 2008). This source also integrates print and electronic sources together and provides annotations. However, I don't feel that it is as organized. The MLA Master Guide is much more intuitive and user friendly.

I would highly recommend The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information in the Health Sciences over the other two works. It is very well organized and the annotations offer just the right amount of information. Developing or maintaining a collection in a health sciences library can be expensive and is so important because the resources must be accurate, dependable, and up to date to be useful. MLA's guide makes this task easy. I would recommend this title for any academic medical or hospital library.