The library collections for History include more than a quarter of a million titles, of which some 278 are currently-received serials, mostly housed in the Rockefeller Library. This includes material in all classifications, but does not include the considerable holdings of interest to historians in the John Hay Library, the Sciences Library, or the John Carter Brown Library, which have very substantial collections of interest to historians
The table below shows the estimated expenditures for the past three years:
| Library Support | 1992/93 | 1995/96 | 1996/97 | 1997/98 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firm Orders | $18,756 | $45,514 | $38,943 | $37,405 |
| Approvals | 93,311 | 46,709 | 63,418 | 50,156 |
| Serials | 17,900 | 18,949 | 22,669 | 25,694 |
| Total Support | $129,967 | $111,172 | $125,030 | $113,255 |
Contrasting these figures with those of five years ago, would seem to show a decline in expenditure for History, but this can be explained by other developments within the program itself and in the Library.
Expenditures for materials in history are now distributed through other funds. For example, we have several area studies programs with historical interests, and we purchase more on these funds than we did five years ago. These include Latin American Studies, Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, East Asian Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies. The latter is a totally new program. Almost all historical materials for these areas are purchased on their funds, and not on the History funds. In some cases, this has involved shifting some funds from History to these other funds, but I believe we are purchasing more now than we were before. Another more recently created fund is that for Modern Greek Studies, which also includes historical materials.
Historical materials have always been purchased also in support of other programs: Afro-American Studies, American Civilization, Classics, Judaic Studies, Women Studies, etc.
One can also see, from these figures, that we have shifted some funds from the approval line (i.e., for current imprints distributed in the U.S.—mostly university press and trade books), to the firm order line. Firm orders are mostly older material that we may have missed in the past and foreign material. This is mainly in response to the observation by some of our historians that we were not buying enough foreign publications. We are now spending more than twice the amount on foreign books than we were five years ago, and even more if we figured in the expenditures for area studies.
According to the Collection Development Policy Statement, prepared for History in 1983, the desired coverage in many aspects of the discipline is RESEARCH. A RESEARCH level collection is one that includes the major source materials required for dissertation and independent research, including primary sources and specialized journals. It also includes all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs, as well as the major indexing/abstract services. In other parts of the field (generally, specific countries or regions), the Library seeks to maintain a STUDY level collection. A STUDY level collection is one which supports undergraduate and graduate course work, but which may not hold the specialized primary sources and journals necessary for graduate or faculty research. The Library has endeavored to maintain its History collections at RESEARCH or STUDY levels, as indicated in the policy statement. This statement, however, needs revision to bring it up to date with current interests of the Department.
I believe that our collections are more than adequate for undergraduate teaching in any field of history. Weaknesses show up, however, when we get to graduate teaching and research in some areas, especially those where we have new faculty in areas that were not taught here before: Western U.S., Africa, Middle East, and the not-yet-filled South Asian position. For this reason, it is especially important that new faculty members, especially in areas new to Brown, come in with some commitment of extra money to build the collections in those areas. This is especially true if the new area is going to be one in which there will be graduate students. At the same time, we probably will never have adequate resources to maintain research-level collections for every historical field. Therefore we must either limit graduate study to specific areas, or recognize that our students (and faculty) will need to rely on other libraries for their research. If we can identify such areas, we can build reciprocal agreements with other institutions, such as those within the Boston Library Consortium. We already have such an agreement in Latin American Studies (with UMass/Amherst, UConn, and Yale).
A positive development in the Library is that we have been able to distribute some of the selection responsibility for history to more staff, with more particular expertise in the subjects. These may be worth listing, especially for the benefit of the Department (although two of the positions happen to be vacant at the moment):
History (in general) William S. Monroe Rockefeller Library American history Mary-Jo Kline John Hay Library Latin American Studies & Portuguese & Brazilian Studies Jenny Fierro Wallace Rockefeller Library Modern Greek Studies Linda Ewbank Rockefeller Library East Asian Studies East Asian Curator (vacant) Middle Eastern Studies Middle Eastern Bibliographer (vacant) Middle Eastern and Modern Greek Studies are new programs, and required new assignments. Having a specialist in American history is simply a new development in the Library, and we believe a successful one.
William S. Monroe, Head Collection Development
Department of History
Graduate Program Review Home |
Discipline Groups Home |
Library Home