Although Neuroscience is a department itself, the Library has not kept a separate accounting for it. All the Biology departments are grouped together for purchases of library materials. Therefore, the following totals are for all of Biology and are not that informative for Neuroscience.
| Library Support | 1993/94 | 1994/95 | 1995/96 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Line Item Allocation | $6,348 | $6,825 | $6,404 |
| Approval Support | 20,000 | 30,000 | 22,229 |
| Serials | 224,668 | 245,747 | 283,836 |
| Total Support | $251,016 | $282,572 | $312,469 |
Current serials (biology): 508
We can estimate that our holdings for Neuroscience are about 4,280 titles (both monographs and journals), but this is a conservative estimate which does not take into account the overlap with other subjects. It should be noted that a narrow accounting would be misleading, too. There is an overlap of the faculty in Neuroscience with the Psychology Department in both research and teaching. Purchases of books and journals in neuroscience topics serve Neuroscience, Psychology, and other areas of Biology as well as Medicine.
Not surprisingly, the real issue for the Library is what to do about the journal collection. One problem is money. With the high cost of neuroscience journals, there are a number of journals that the faculty and students need that I cannot buy. One possible solution was to cancel Brain Research and, with the savings which now would be well over $10,000 per year, subscribe to several other neuroscience journals. I looked into that (see attached memo of August 18, 1995) and decided we could not cancel Brain Research. That proposal would have freed up money to buy such faculty requested, but not ordered, journals as these.
(1) Current Opinion in Neurobiology $595.
(2) Cerebral Cortex $315.
(3) NeuroImage $300.
(4) Journal of Computational Neuroscience $284.
(5) Human Brain Mapping $190.
(6) Seminars in the Neurosciences $180.
The other factor concerning journals is the prospect of the electronic journal. For example, if we received the group of "Current Opinion" journals (about 20 titles) electronically, we would not need to get a separate paper subscription to Current Opinion in Neurobiology. That is just one of a number of electronic journal scenarios that might be coming.
The main electronic bibliographic tools for topics within Neuroscience are MEDLINE and PsycLIT. MEDLINE covers 3800 journals and contains records back to 1966. PsycLIT indexes over 1300 journals back to 1974.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Neuroscience is a very strong field at Brown. Several departments are doing research that utilizes that knowledge (I did not even mention Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences in the list above). With the research as well as the growing number of undergraduates choosing Biology as a concentration, this is a sound area to put resources into.
Frank Kellerman, Reference Librarian and Selector for Neuroscience
Department of Neuroscience
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