Essential and core books for veterinary medicine

Objectives: This study defined core and essential lists of recent, English-language veterinary medicine books using a data-driven methodology for potential use by a broad audience, including libraries that are building collections supporting veterinary sciences and One Health initiatives. Methods: Book titles were collected from monograph citation databases, veterinary examination reading lists, veterinary college textbook and library reserve lists, and published bibliographies. These lists were combined into a single list with titles ranked by the number of occurrences. Results: The methodology produced a core list of 122 monographs and an essential list of 33 titles. All titles are recent, edition neutral, English language monographs. One title is out of print. Conclusions: The methodology captured qualitative and quantitative input from four distinct populations who use veterinary monographs: veterinary practitioners, educators, researchers, and librarians. Data were collected and compiled to determine core and essential lists that represented all groups. Unfortunately, data are not available for all subareas of veterinary medicine, resulting in uneven subject coverage. This methodology can be replicated and adapted for other subject areas.