News from SALIS

Libraries Week at the SSA (Society for the Study of Addiction) written by SALIS member Christine Goodair and a colleague promotes the the value of special addictions collections and libraries.

Read about why addictions libraries, and libraries in general, are still valuable during this age of an abundance of information at our fingertips through the Internet. The authors make these distinctions:

• The Internet is not a Library, and,
• A Library is not the Internet.

And point out how public libraries have been responding to the COVID pandemic and, in the US, have also been providing support during the ongoing opioid crisis.

Many specialist addiction libraries have been downsized or closed since the 2000s. In the UK, the specialist libraries of DrugScope and Alcohol Concern were well known and well used. This has also been the trend in Europe, the US and Canada. However, some still exist and many belong to SALIS, a valuable network that continues to be strong and is coordinating building The SALIS Collection to preserve and make available core literature in the field.

The authors compiled a list of libraries and collections that still exist. May they continue to thrive!

• Australian Alcohol and Drug Foundation Library
• Alcohol Research Group Library  California
• Belgium Vereniging voor Alcohol en andere Drug problemen (VAD)
• The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Library, Toronto
• Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA)
• Dublin’s HRB National Drugs Library 
• DrugScope’s old library– searchable online and you can visit with appointment
• European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)
• French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
• Greater Manchester Mental Health Library and Knowledge Services (NHS)
• Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, Addiction Research Library
• Rover – California’s Tobacco Control Library
• The SALIS collection

by Barbara Weiner, Past Chair, SALIS

Even with COVID closures the last year and a half – including Internet Archive digitization stations – the SALIS Collection continued to grow!  I had the opportunity to digitally copy many documents from the Hazelden Betty Ford online addictions library catalog, into our SALIS Collection—SALIS’ freely online, full-text, e-lendng library of alcohol and drug documents.  This comprehensive literature resource collects alcohol and drug topics into one location, and preserves them for education, research, and the public good.

As organizational budgets and U.S. federal print budgets declined in the last 20-30 years, technology for digital documents advanced.  The Hazelden Betty Ford Library maximized its collection by adding full-text non-copyrighted or permission-given documents to its catalog.  This month, I completed the 2½ year-long task of adding those PDF documents to the Internet Archive (IA) SALIS Collection.

Documents uploaded into the SALIS Collection include self-help brochures and fact sheets, as well as the important TIP and TAP Series, NIDA and NIAAA Research Monographs, various newsletters, and Reports of the Surgeon General.

Hazelden Library joined SALIS in the early 1980s.   SALIS thanks Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation – and its current Librarian and SALIS member Ann Geht – for continuing to make its ever growing library catalog freely available. This sharing of full-text PDFs is a good example of the partnership of SALIS with Hazelden, and just one example of the many partnerships SALIS maintains with organizations and individuals. 

The Joint SALIS / AMHL (Association of Mental Health Librarians) 2021 Online Conference: April 27 – 29 was our first online conference. It went smoothly and even attracted non SALIS / AMHL members. The online platform enabled many members, routinely unable to attend on site conferences because of travel limitations and costs, to join in.

Thank you to all participants and presenters who contributed to our first ever online conference, inspiring us to Build Back Better!

See the Conference Page to access the Program, information about the invited speakers, and presentation slides. Conference attendees also have access to recordings (password protected).

For further information contact salis@salis.org.

The SALIS Collection is a free, digital collection of full-text alcohol, tobacco and other drug (ATOD) books and documents being created/built by SALIS in partnership with the Internet Archive through its Digitization Project. Currently there are over 5,000 books and reports in this online, e-lending library and it continues to grow. Recently added is a donation of the collection of the ADAI Library (Addictions, Drugs and Alcohol Institute, University of Washington) and coming soon, the Drug Policy Alliance has offered its entire library.

Updates: IA Lending Library
Take note of these updates affecting the IA Lending Library. The majority of The SALIS Collection is in the IA Lending Library as most books are still in copyright.

Loan Period. Registered borrowers can borrow books for one hour. If there are two copies, one can be borrowed for up to two weeks. There is no waitlist for one hour loans. Why? Trends showed that most borrowers only borrow books for a short period of time. This enables greater use of the collection.

Option to Buy. IA has partnered with Better World Books (BWB), a socially responsible bookstore that sells used and new books. For some books, when you click on a title for more information, you will see an option to purchase if BWB has copies available for sale.

Recent Books. IA only loans books published before 2015, except for users with print disabilities. This will change to 2016 in 2021. SALIS has not sent many books published this recently to the IA for digitization but be aware of this if you are searching for current books.

Did you know? The IA Lending Library is based on the concept of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL). There are challenges as CDL is relatively new territory for librarians, publishers and creators. SALIS is committed to ensuring that ATOD books published over the decades not be lost due to library closures and will continue to build the Collection. CDL, as offered by the IA, is the ideal solution for SALIS to preserve and make accessible the ATOD literature.

The Joint SALIS / AMHL (Association of Mental Health Librarians) 2021 Online Conference: April 27 – 29 via Zoom is coming up soon!

Information Professionals:  Building Back Better in the Post Pandemic World 

• Held daily from approximately 11:00 am – 1:00 pm EST to accommodate multiple time zones.
• Three key note guest speakers addressing challenging, interesting and relevant topics!
• A variety of presentations from SALIS and AMHL members.
• An opportunity to network with librarians and information professionals from all over North America and Europe.

For a preview of the program and other information, visit our Conference page.
Registration remains open until April 23. Hope to see you there.

For further information contact salis@salis.org.