Developing and Managing the Brown University Library Collections
Collection Policies by Subject:  Italian Studies

• Library Liaisons:
  Patricia_Figueroa@brown.edu
• Departmental Library Representative (DLR): 
  Massimo_Riva@Brown.edu

• Description of the Academic Program | Italian Studies Departmental Home Page
  The Italian Studies Department offers undergraduate and graduate courses on the literature, language and cultures of Italy. Interdisciplinary courses including History, Art History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Film studies are also taught in cooperation with other departments and programs.

  The Italian Studies Department provides two undergraduate concentrations and one graduate program:
  

  • Italian Studies: having fulfilled the language requirement students may enroll in a variety of advanced courses, reflecting the interdisciplinary scope of Italian studies at Brown.
  • Modern Culture and Media/Italian Studies: combines semiotics courses with the Italian curriculum. This concentration was created conjunction with the Center for Modern Culture and Media in 1995-1996.
  • Interdisciplinary Graduate Program: offers students the opportunity to study the language, history and culture of Italy under the guidance of faculty in Anthropology, History, History of Art, Literature, and Modern Culture and Media. The program leads to the Ph.D. degree and its curriculum is coordinated in a system of seminars, study courses, independent studies and research projects.

  Both undergraduate and graduate programs are designed to provide students with the opportunity to work in a range of periods, genres, and approaches. Italian Studies also prepares graduates for language teaching positions through training in language teaching theory, techniques, and practices.

  Database of Honors, Masters, and Ph.D Theses

• Overview of the Collection
  The Italian Studies collection consists of more than 31,109 titles of which 90 are currently received serials. Most items are housed at the Rockefeller Library.

  Italian language and dialects (PC1001-1975):	686
  Literature (PQ4001-5999):	20,087
  History (DG401-999):	10,160
  Bibliographies (Z2340-2356):	176
  Total:	31,109

  See Library support statement for Graduate Program Review for Italian Studies
  See Library support for External Cluster Review for Italian Studies

• General Collecting Guidelines
  The purpose of the Italian Studies collection is to support the needs of students, faculty, and other users within the Brown University community with interest in the language, literature and culture of Italy. Its collection development policy focuses in the curriculum of the Italian Studies Department from the undergraduate to the doctoral levels. Due to the growing inter-disciplinary nature of Italian Studies, users should consult related collections in History, Art History, Anthropology, Philosophy, and Modern Culture and Media, purchased by other subject specialists in those disciplines.

• Specific Collecting Guidelines
  
  
  • Language: Primary materials (literary texts) in Italian language form the core of the collection. Secondary materials (works of criticism, literary history and theory) are collected mostly in Italian and English, however other Western European languages such as French, Spanish and German, are also considered. Early medieval texts are collected in Latin. English translations of classic Italian literary works are purchased to serve Italian Studies as well as the Comparative Literature Department.
    
    
  • Imprint Date: The Italian Studies collection is for the most part a circulating collection. While retrospective scholarly materials published after 1800 are acquired according to research needs, the selection is focused on current imprints. Original manuscripts, materials published before 1800, and those considered valuable or requiring special handling are housed at the John Hay Library where they do not circulate.
    
    
  • Chronological Span: Middle Ages to the present, with an emphasis on the medieval and Renaissance periods as well as the 19th- and 20th-century.
    
    
  • Geographical Range: Italy and Italian-speaking Switzerland. Representative works of emigre Italian literature are also of interest to the collection.
    
    
  • Types of Material Included: Circulating monographs are the main component of the Italian Studies collection, however other materials such as serials, non-circulating monographs, audiovisual and electronic resources are also collected.
    
    
  • Formats: The library acquires materials in all formats, with the exception of 8mm in the case of audiovisual items. The bulk of the collection is in print-based (monographs and serials), however microfilm is still purchased for periodical archives, pamphlet collections and pre-twentieth century publications. Materials in electronic formats such as CD-ROM, DVD, DVD-ROM and online access are acquired according to their licensing agreements and their compatibility with the library's system. Audiovisual materials are purchased on video, or preferably DVD format. Although the Media Services Laboratory is equipped with VCRs and DVD players that can play and copy films produced with the PAL system, the NTSC system is highly preferred. All videos purchased for this collection are housed at Media Services in the Sciences Library. Music CDs are for the most part purchased by the Music Librarian and are housed at the Orwig Music Library.
    
    
  • Types of Materials Excluded: Introductory general-purpose textbooks whose primary function is instruction are out of the scope of this collection.
  
  
• Electronic Resources
  The content of the following electronic gateways is largely or exclusively dedicated to themes in Italian Studies:
  • Decameron Web. A full-text e-resource covering 1994 to the present. Offers information on the literary, historical and cultural context of Boccaccio's Decameron.
  • Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Covering from 1859 to present. An electronic bibliography of interdisciplinary journal literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). Iter's citations include articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts, and discographies. An online version of Paul Oskar Kristeller's Iter Italicum, the most comprehensive finding list available of previously uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued Renaissance humanistic manuscripts found in libraries and collections all over the world is now included.
  
  
• Serials
  The Serials Department at Brown University Library currently subscribes to 87 Italian language and literature serial publications paid out of the Italian Studies fund, 43 of them are printed journal titles, and 4 are e-journals. In addition to these publications the Library suscribes to three Italian newspapers -- La Stampa, Corriere della Sera, and America Oggi. Looking at all active serials by country of origin and language, the Library receives 323 titles published in Italy and 250 in the Italian language (many of them may be unrelated to Italian Studies).
  
  
• Approval plan
  An Italian approval plan should be established during the 2003-2004 academic/fiscal year with the Italian vendor Casilini Libri. The plan will follow the guidelines of the current Italian Studies collection development policy. It intends to serve principally the ongoing needs of faculty and students in the Italian Studies department for current Italian publications pertaining to the language and literature of Italy. Its goal is not only to build a core collection of Italian bibliographic resources that will satisfy present needs, but also to foresee future changes in academic trends. The plan's profile has been created to maintain a Italian monographic collection at the research level.

• Special Collections
  The John Hay Library houses materials requiring special handling and preservation, as well as large subject-oriented collections that are maintained as discrete units.
  • Chambers Dante Collection of approximately 1,700 volumes, was formed by the English scholar William F. Chambers during a long residence in Florence. The collection was donated to Brown by Henry D. Sharpe, Class of 1894, through the intercession of Brown Prof. Courtney Langdon. The collection's strengths are in scholarly editions of Dante's work dating from the 15th through the 19th centuries, in particular the Divine Comedy, commentaries (chiefly in Italian), and other supportive works. Prof. Langdon's literary and critical manuscripts have been added to the collection.
  • Niccolo Machiavelli Collection contains first and early editions (dating from 1523) of the work of the Italian statesman and political philosopher.
  • Annmary Brown Memorial Incunabula Collection. See description under Annmary Brown Memorial section.

• Breakdown of Subjects and Collecting Levels

• New Titles Cataloged

• Related Collections and Other Resources
  The Language Resource Center (LCR)
  LCR houses a variety of materials such as audio, video, laserdiscs, DVDs, computer software and television news broadcasts and develops electronic resources in support of the learning and teaching of languages. LRC is affiliated with the Center for Language Studies which "aims to promote the teaching and learning of languages at Brown University."
  
  The John Carter Brown Library (JCB)
  The JCB is an independently administered and funded center for advanced research in history and the humanities, located at Brown University since 1901. Its internationally renowned collection of Americana focuses on historical sources describing the discovery, exploration, settlement, and growth of the European colonies in the New World from 1492 to 1835. The collection includes over 45,000 rare books (printed before ca. 1825) and over 16,000 reference books and secondary sources (printed after ca. 1825). Most well-known, perhaps, are the Library's extensive holdings in the literature of European exploration and travel in the Western Hemisphere, from the first Latin edition of the Columbus letter of 1493, through nearly all of the contemporary narratives of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English discovery, exploration, and settlement. The Library's collection of pre-1800 German and Italian books about America is among the richest in the United States.
  
  The JCB provides a fellowship program for scholars pursuing academic research on the colonial Americas. Approximately twenty-five fellowships are awarded each year for periods of time ranging from two to ten months. Fellowships are offered to qualified researchers, the main criteria for appointment being the merit and significance of the candidate's proposal, the qualifications of the candidate, and the relevance of the project to the holdings of the Library.
  
  Annmary Brown Memorial Collection
  The Annmary Brown Memorial was built as a library, art gallery, and mausoleum between 1903 and 1907 to the design of Rhode Island architect Norman Isham. It houses the European and American paintings collection of General Rush Christopher Hawkins (1831-1920), husband of Annmary Brown. A number of the artists represented in the collection are of Italian nationality -- Giuseppe Barbaglia, Gennaro Befani, Pietro Bouvier, Edoardo Dalbono, Count Emilio Gola, Achille Guerra, (School of) Salvador Rosa, (School of) Luca Giordano, the Florentine School, (Circle of) Marco Benefial, Elisabetta Sirani, Michele Rocca, (Circle of) Ciro Ferri, Paolo de Matteis, the Milanese School, Giacinto Diana, School of Codazzi, Francesco Solimena, and a painting after Andrea del Sarto.

  The Annmary Brown Memorial Incunabula Collection is currently housed at the John Hay Library for reasons of preservation, security and scholarly access. Like the art works, the incunables were collected by General Hawkins in the late 19th and early 20th century. The collection holds over 560 titles, comprising representative works of 308 15th and early 16th century presses, some originating from Bologna, Florence, Mantua, Milan, Naples, Padua, Parma, Pavia, Rome, Treviso, Venice, Verona and Vicenza. The incunables were arranged to follow the spread of printing throughout Europe from its inception in Germany c. 1455.

  The Virginia Baldwin Orwig Music Library
  The Orwig Music Library, one of the libraries comprising the Brown University Library system, houses the general music collection on campus: music books, scores, periodicals, sound recordings, videotapes and microforms. The collection supports the curriculum of the Music Department and includes recordings of Italian operas as well as classical and folk music.
  
  
  Illustration: Garibaldi, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, John Hay Library.

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