Examples of Specialization in Sociology at Brown University include: American Families, Community/Urban Sociology, Complex/Formal Organizations, Cultural Sociology, Development/Modernization, Economic Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Family, Fertility and Mortality, Gender, Immigration and Migration, Medical Sociology, Stratification and Social Inequality, Methods:Comparative Historical, Methods:Qualitative, Methods:Quantitative, Political Sociology, Race and Ethnicity, Social Psychology, Sociological Theory, Sociology of Aging, Sociology of Knowledge, Sociology of Mental Health, Sociology of Religion and Sociology of Work.
Because Sociology is interdisciplinary, graduate students and faculty make use of the Rockefeller Library, the Sciences Library and the Demography Library’s collections. The Demography Library, located in the same building as the Sociology Department, is a convenient branch for sociologists. The collection is strong in sociology, but also contains books and other resources in economics, anthropology, and gerontology, as well as health and population studies. It has an excellent reference collection including works in all of these areas, as well.
Most Sociology resources are located in the Rockefeller Library. From all University libraries and from campus desktops and home offices, a large number of electronic databases is available. Specific sociology databases include: Social Sciences Abstracts, Social Sciences Citation Index and Sociological Abstracts. New full-text databases, such as Academic Search Elite, Science Direct and JSTOR have been very helpful to sociology researchers. An introduction to Library resources, including demonstrations of electronics databases useful to sociologists is given annually to incoming Sociology graduate students.
The following chart illustrates Library expenditures for Sociology over the past five years. One notes a steady decline, except in expenditures for serials. This reflects decreased spending on monographs throughout the Library, as a result of rising serial prices and static budgets. It may also reflect the fact that in this age of electronic access to resources, many products are purchased as packages (JSTOR, Web of Science, etc) that support many different disciplines, and cannot be tracked in this way.
| Library Expenditures | 1994/95 | 1995/96 | 1996/97 | 1997/98 | 1998/99 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firm Orders | $3,794 | $2,573 | $2,781 | $1,885 | $1,136 |
| Approvals | $33,000 | $34,191 | $31,707 | $24,819 | $20,380 |
| Serials | $13,738 | $15,253 | $16,468 | $17,968 | $18,459 |
| TOTAL EXPENDITURES | $50,532 | $52,017 | $50,956 | $44,672 | $39,975 |
Current serial subscriptions for Sociology in 1998/99 numbered 159. A review of all journal acquisitions is underway in order to discontinue any subscriptions initiated in support of courses no longer being taught and to allow for the addition of subscriptions which will support new areas of sociology specialization.
Resources supporting Sociology are selected at a Research level. Key reference works, source materials necessary for independent research and dissertation research, specialized monographs, journals, indexing and abstract services are selected. The collection is also developed at a Study level, supporting basic undergraduates’ needs. Acquisitions are mostly in the English language.
In the past year, the various subject specialists within the Library have organized themselves into four "discipline groups", including Humanities, History & Area Studies, Social Sciences, and Science & Medicine. This reorganization is meant to assist these selectors to:
develop, manage, and promote the use of the Library collection as one integrated whole … spanning a life cycle which includes budget allocation, acquisitions, access, location, retention and use, and encompassing the entire spectrum of traditional and newly emerging formats, as well as physical access and shared ownership options…
As a result, Anne Ilacqua works closely with other selectors of library materials in the Social Sciences Group, a collaboration that will benefit the development of the sociology collection as a result of frequent communication with librarians who make decisions on acquisitions in related disciplines.
Anne Ilacqua, Head, Demography Library, and Selector for Sociology
William S. Monroe, Head of Collection Development
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