Developing and Managing the Brown University Library Collections
Collection Policies by Subject:   Cognitive Science

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• Library Liaison:
  Frank_Kellerman@brown.edu

• Description of the Academic Program
  Cognitive Science
  From the Cognive Science site: "The cognitive and linguistic sciences offer a multidisciplinary study of the mind or what might be called "natural intelligence." Cognitive science seeks an understanding of such mental abilities as perception, recognition, categorization, memory, reasoning and problem-solving, motor control, speech, language, and communication."

• Closely Related Departments and Programs
  • Department of Psychology
  • Department of Neuroscience
  • Brain Science Program
  • Computation and Mathematics of Mind

  The Collection Today

• Journals
  Over the last few years, Library consortial deals with a number of the major publishers in cogntive science have enabled the Library to provide access to a tremendous number of electronic journals.  This desktop access to a growing portion of the collection certainly provides improved convenience but also fosters a much greater use of the collection than what was feasible before.  Here are several of the important publishers that the Library has made deals with for electronic access -
  • American Psychological Association - PsycARTICLES
  • American Psychological Society
  • Psychonomic Society
  • Elsevier
  • Academic Press (subsequently purchased by Elsevier)
  • Wiley
  • Springer
  • Kluwer (merged with Springer)
  • Blackwell
  • Cambridge
  • Oxford
  • Nature (and Nature Monthlies and Review Journals)
  • Science

• General Collecting Guidelines
  The Library attempts to maintain a RESEARCH level collection.  A RESEARCH (Collecting Levels) level collection includes the major source materials required for dissertations and independent research.  It also includes important reference works and a selection of specialized monographs.  With the heavy reliance on journals in cognitive science, the literature of the faculty and graduate students is also an important literature of the undergraduate cognitive science concentrators.
  

• See Library support statement for Graduate Program Reviews [Cognitive Science]

• Specific Collecting Guidelines
  • Language: English, original or in translation.
  • Imprint Date: Current imprints. As needed - retrospective materials in support of research needs and replacements to missing or damaged volumes.  Infrequent - acquisition of out-of-print material.
  • Types of Material Included: Monographs and journals.  Selectively, proceedings and textbooks.
  • Electronic Books/Sets: In the near future, the Library will be purchasing an increasing number of monographs and sets in electronic form.  Examples of recent purchases in electronic format:
    • Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology
    • Handbook of Psychology
    • MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (CD-ROM in the Sciences Library)

• New Cognitive Sciences Titles Cataloged
  [a good portion of these are in the psychology classification]
  Psychology, BF

• Abstracting & Indexing Services
  • PsycINFO
  • PubMed
  • Web of Science
  • Additional resources for the Cognitive Science are linked at the Subject List from the Library's E-Resources page - Cognitive Science.

• Database of Honors, Masters, and Ph.D Theses

• Related Collections and Other Resources
  The resources of the Ivy League institutions' libraries are available to Brown faculty and students via the Borrow Direct service.  The Virtual Catalog makes the resources of the participating members of the Boston Library Consortium available upon request. For further information, check with the Interlibrary Loan Office (Phone: (401) 863-2750; Email: sci-ill@brown.edu
   

• Selected List of Key Internet Resources
  • Cogntive Science Society
    http://www.cognitivesciencesociety.org/
  • American Psychological Association
    http://www.apa.org/
  • American Psychological Society
     http://www.psychologicalscience.org/
  • Society for Neuroscience
    http://web.sfn.org/