Description of the Academic Program
Department of Geological Sciences
From the Department site -
"Five primary research areas lead cutting-edge nationwide themes:

• Structure and Dynamics of the Solid Earth
• Geological Materials: Properties and Processes
• Earth System History and Global Change
• Planetary Perspectives
• Environmental Sciences."

Related Departments

• Department of Chemistry
• Center for Environmental Studies
• Geographic Information Science and Services

The Collection Today
Journals
Over the last few years, Library consortial deals with a number of the major publishers in geology 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 important publishers that the Library has made deals with for electronic access covering geology -

• American Geophysical Union
       including G³ - Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
• Geological Society of America
• Elsevier
• Springer
• Wiley
• Cambridge
• Nature
• 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.

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.
• Formats: In the near future, the Library will be purchasing an increasing number of monographs and sets in electronic form.  However, other formats remain important.  For example,
  • Open-File Reports from the United States, Department of the Interior, Geological Survey - we have electronic access from 1975 forward but also the microfiche from 1916 forward (SCI MICROFCH QE75 .O65x).
  • Map Collection in the Sciences Library
    For information on the paper map collection on the 8th floor,
    http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/gis/MapCollections.html
    and specifically locating the topographic USGS maps,
    http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/gis/MapLocationGuides.html

New Geological Sciences Titles Cataloged
Geology, QE

Abstracting & Indexing Services

• GeoRef
  Includes over 2.2 million records of North America since 1785 and other areas of the world since 1933.
• Web of Science
  Source records from 1988 to the present.

Database of Honors, Masters, and Ph.D Theses

Special Collections - Lownes Collection of Significant Books in the History of Science contains over three-quarters of those texts recognized by scholars as the great books of science published since the middle of the 15th century. This collection is held at the John Hay Library.

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

• American Geophysical Union
• Geological Society of America
• USGS National Geologic Map Database
• Earth Fact Sheet/NASA
• Brown/NASA Northeast Regional Planetary Data Center