I have a customer who needs to research a condition his dog has been diagnosed with. Are there books or online resources for pet health?

Most libraries will have a basic book or two about dog or pet health/diseases. These are examples of titles found in many Maryland libraries:

• The complete healthy dog handbook: the definitive guide to keeping your pet happy, healthy & active by Betsy Brevitz. Workman Pub., c2009
  
  
• The Merck/Merial manual for pet health edited by Cynthia M. Kahn. Merck & Co., c2007
  
  
• Dog owner's home veterinary handbook by Debra M. Eldredge. Wiley, c2007
  

You know how there are books on how to communicate better with your doctor? Since veterinary care has become more sophisticated, there are now a couple of books discussing getting second opinions, specialty vet care, communicating with your family vet, money issues, questions to ask in specific situations, etc. These books don’t go into details about health conditions or diseases, but help you to get your pet the best care.

• Speaking for spot: be the advocate your dog needs for a happy, healthy, longer life by Nancy Kay. Trafalgar Square, c2008
  
  
• Vet confidential: an insider's guide to keeping your pet healthy and safe by Louis Murray. Ballantine Books, c2008
  

Of course, there are many online resources!

Free Animal Health Resources Web Sites
From the Veterinary Library at Cornell University’s Vet School (College of Veterinary Medicine), this list of Web sites (mostly for non-veterinarians) includes sites on alternative medicine, nutrition and poisoning in addition to sites on diseases and conditions.

Merck Veterinary Manual
The 9th edition (2006) of the Merck Veterinary Manual is available online. It contains information about animal anatomy and physiology, diseases, behavior, and emergency treatment. It includes over 1400 images, video and audio files you can use to identify plants poisonous to animals or see lesions characteristic of a specific disease. The language can be technical. I find it irritating to be forced to constantly be clicking to move on to the next page.

Pet Education
This site from retailer Foster & Smith includes advertising, but the information provided by is the site is so useful it makes me almost forget the advertising. This searchable site on contains information on diseases and treatments, lab procedures & tests, drug information sheets, a dictionary of veterinary terms, and articles related to alternative and holistic medicine. It also has excellent articles on symptoms in their “Symptom Checker” section.

VeterinaryPartner.com
The University of Tennessee’s Agriculture & Veterinary Library calls this Web site “the best place to start looking for information on the Web” for general care and health information on dogs. It provides information on health, medications, therapies, surgery, behavior, and safety. New articles are added weekly.

WebMD: Healthy Dogs
Did you know that WebMD included information on pet health? Healthy Dogs is part of their Pet Health Center. Healthy Dogs has major sections on conditions, symptoms and behavior.

Please keep in mind that Maryland's State Library Resource Center has some more specialized resources that can be useful. While these books are reference (noncirculating), we are would be happy to send you any appropriate pages:

Blackwell's five-minute veterinary consult: canine and feline edited by Larry Patrick Tilley. Blackwell, c2007 (4th ed.)

The new edition of this title is on order. This book does wonderful 2 page overviews of dog and cat diseases and conditions. While technical, it is fairly understandable—I’d say it is more like a nursing textbook than a physician’s textbook if it was medical textbook.

Blackwell's five-minute veterinary consult clinical companion: canine and feline behavior by Debra F. Horwitz. Blackwell, c2007 (1st ed.)

This only covers behavioral issues.

Textbook of veterinary internal medicine: diseases of the dog and cat edited by Stephen J. Ettinger. Elsevier Saunders, c2005 (2 volumes)

We have a newer veterinary internal medicine textbook on order; as in medicine, 2005 is old for veterinary medicine. This is definitely written in technical language.

Libraries seem to have so much specific vocabulary--as well as acronyms. Is there a guide to Maryland library language?

Merlin, Maryland's Essential Resource for Library Information Networks, has put together just the right document for you! If you want to know what ARLD*, BRAC**, or WRP*** mean, check out their Library Lingo page!

If you are interested in learning about the American Library Association's various acronyms, check out their ALA & LIS Acronyms page.

Hopefully, between these two pages, you'll feel as though you've found a secret decoder ring for library lingo!

* Academic Libraries Research Division of the Maryland Library Association
** Base Realignment and Closure
*** Winter Reading Program

I went on the SLRC Tour this past fall and remember that SLRC can do a lot for the public library at which I work.

Can you tell me more about what the State Library Resource Center has to offer?

Maryland's State Library Resource Center does offer many services for Maryland public libraries. On the State Library Resource Center web site there is a great deal of information. You'll want to check out the section for Public Librarians.

The State Library Resource Center brochure also lists many services offered to local libraries.