Developing and Managing the Brown University Library Collections: Portuguese and Brazilian Studies

Header for Developing and Managing the Brown University Collections

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

Library Liaisons:
Patricia_Figueroa@brown.edu
Departmental Library Representative (DLR):
Luiz_Valente@brown.edu
Description of the Academic Program | Portuguese and Brazilian Studies Departmental Home Page
Formerly together as one academic unit, The Hispanic Studies and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies (PBS) Departments were formed in 1991. PBS offers interdisciplinary degree programs, ranging from the bachelor's to the doctoral level. The emphasis of the curriculum is in language, literature, history and the social sciences. The Department's programs focus on the global nature of the Portuguese-speaking world, as well on specific geographical areas: Continental and Insular Portugal, Brazil, Lusophone Africa and Asia, and Lusophone communities in the United States.
- PBS graduate programs:
  - Doctoral of Philosophy program in Luso-Brazilian Studies
  - Master's in Brazilian Studies
  - Master's in Portuguese Bilingual Education and Cross-Cultural Studies or English as a Second Language and Cross-Cultural Studies
- PBS undergraduate programs:
  - Concentration in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies: Students may choose between two basic programs:
    - Program A: Language and literature focus
    - Program B: Interdisciplinary focus
  - Honors program
  - Five-Year Integrated AB/AM Degree
Database of Honors, Masters, and Ph.D Theses

Overview of the Collection
The PBS collection consists of more than 15,526 titles of which 78 are currently received journals and newspapers. Most titles are housed at the Rockefeller Library.

Language (PC5000s): 411
Literature (PQ9000s): 8,600
History (Cs, Ds, Es, Fs): 3,483
Philosophy and Religion (Bs): 320
Social Sciences (Gs, Hs, Js, Ks, Ls): 2,493
Bibliographies (Zs): 216
Online databases 3
Total: 15,526

See Library support statement for Graduate Program Review for Portuguese and Brazilian Studies
See Library support for External Cluster Review for Portuguese and Brazilian Studies

General Collecting Guidelines
The purpose of the Portuguese and Brazilian Studies (PBS) collection is to support the needs of:
- Faculty, graduate and undergraduate students from the PBS Department.
- Undergraduate students and faculty from the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) doing research on subjects pertaining to Portugal and Brazil.
- Brown University students and faculty from other departments or programs doing research on the lusophone world.
- Visiting scholars from the Watson Institute for International Studies.
- Scholars participating in the fellowship program of the John Carter Brown Library (JCB).
- The Latin American Studies Consortium of New England (LASCNE) which unites the Latin American Studies programs of the University of Connecticut, Brown University, the University of Massachusetts, and Yale University in a public-private, tri-state partnership to expand and improve teaching and research on Latin America and the Caribbean in the greater New England region.
The PBS collection development policy focuses primarily on the curriculum of the PBS Department and the needs of the CLAS undergraduate concentration for materials pertaining to Brazil. The PBS curriculum requires a research level collection for the language, literature, history and social sciences of continental/insular Portugal and Brazil. In recent years, the Department broadened its focus to include the literature, history and social sciences of lusophone Africa and Asia. The study of the decolonization of Portuguese territories in these continents, the rise of the newly independent lusophone states, the broader global effects of this long history of Portuguese/African/Asian interaction and the role of lusophone language, race, and culture are of interest to the department. Resources pertaining to Portuguese exploration/colonization and the subsequent independence of Portugal's colonies outside of the Americas are collected at the study/research level. The literature and language of Luso-Africa and -Asia are collected at the research level.

Another area of interest to the PBS Department is the study of lusophone immigrant communities in the United States, particularly in the New England region. Materials pertaining to the language, literature, history and social sciences of immigrants from continental/insular Portugal, Brazil, and Luso-Africa and -Asia are collected at the research level.

As a result of Brown's membership in LASCNE, which coordinates geographic specialization among its members, Brown University Library (BUL) was assigned the role of Brazilian specialist for the Consortium.

The PBS collection also complements the holdings of the JCB, a unique resource of primary and secondary materials concerning the colonial Americas.
Specific Collecting Guidelines
- Language: Primary and secondary materials in English and Portuguese form the bulk of the collection, however texts in Amerindian and Creole languages are also collected, particularly for the territories where those languages are spoken. Materials in French, Italian and German are collected selectively.
- Imprint Date: The collection is for the most part a circulating collection, limiting its acquisitions to scholarly resources published after 1800. Original manuscripts, materials published before 1800, and those considered valuable or requiring special handling are housed in Special Collections at the John Hay Library where they do not circulate.
- Chronological Span: For literature, language, history and social sciences, time coverage for Portugal dates back to the 12th Century, and for Brazil to the colonial period. Both geographical areas are collected up to the present at the research level.
- Geographical Range: Portugal and Brazil are the geographical focus of the collection. Humanities and social sciences materials concerning these areas are collected at the research level. BUL also collects materials concerning the language, literature, history and social sciences of the following countries/territories that fall within the realm of Portuguese exploration/colonization outside of the Americas:
  - Cape Verde
  - Angola
  - Mozambique
  - Guiné-Bissau
  - Príncipe and São Tomé
  - Macau
  - East Timor
  - Goa
  Materials pertaining to these countries/territories are collected at the study/research level. This intermediate level of collecting allows the selector to acquire all relevant English language publications and selective foreign language editions.
- Types of Material Included: Circulating monographs are the main component of the PBS collection, however other materials such as serials, non-circulating monographs, visual and electronic resources, are collected as well.
- 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 library subscribes to the following three Latin American databases indexing humanities and social sciences newspaper and journal articles that pertain to Brazil:

Hispanic American Periodical Index (HAPI)
INFO-LATINOAMERICA
Latin American Database (LADB)

Iberia and Latin America

Serials
The Serials Department at BUL currently subscribes to 78 PBS journal publications (including gifts from the PBS Department) and 2 newspapers -- La Folha de São Paulo (Brazil) and Expresso (Portugal). With most newspapers available on the Internet, the library prefers to focus its funds on new journals titles, however the need for more varied Portuguese language newspaper archives is acknowledged and should be fulfilled in the future depending on budget allocations and one-time money gifts.
Approval plan
Aside from the Yankee Book Peddler approval plan for new academic titles published in the United States and a select number of overseas publishers (mostly United Kingdom), BUL has established an approval plan with the Brazilian vendor Atlantis Livros. Through this purchasing agreement, titles that fall under a certain criteria/profile are selected, delivered and billed. The Atlantis Livros approval plan allows the library to return any titles rejected after examination. The materials received are paid with PBS firm order funds. The plan focuses exclusively on Brazilian literature.
Latin American Studies Consortium of New England (LASCNE)
Brown is a founding member of the Latin American Studies Consortium of New England, which also includes the Council on Latin American Studies at Yale, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Connecticut at Storrs and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The Consortium is now in its fourteenth year.
LASCNE unites these Latin America Studies programs in a public/private, tri-state partnership to expand and improve teaching and research on Latin America and the Caribbean in the greater New England region. The consortium pursues this mission through:
- Formal academic programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels
- Faculty and student exchanges
- Scholarly conferences and colloquia
- Support of faculty and graduate student research
- Public outreach programs
A comprehensive array of area courses covering all of Latin America and the Caribbean is available to LAS students at LASCNE institutions through cooperative agreements regarding enrollment in courses and faculty exchanges. Each LASCNE program specializes in a set of Latin American and Caribbean countries. The LAS concentration at Brown University focuses on Mexico, Cuba and Brazil.
LASCNE faculty, which number approximately 130, include some of the most distinguished scholars working on Latin America and the Caribbean today. They offer courses in traditional disciplines, as well as in professional programs for business, law, forestry and environmental studies, health and medicine, and region planning.
The libraries of the participating institutions have an agreement to provide access and borrowing privileges for LASCNE students, faculty and visiting scholars, opening to them a resource of some 800,000 volumes and nearly 5,000 serials covering all aspects of the region. LASCNE member libraries use the consortium as a tool for collection development given that it sets the criteria for regional specialization. The LAS collection at Brown University Library focuses on Mexico, Cuba and Brazil.
Special Collections
The John Hay Library holds the archives of the Portuguese writer José Rodrigues Miguéis (1901-1980). Born in Lisbon, Miguéis immigrated to the United States in 1935. His work centers on the experience of the Portuguese immigrant. He is best know for his short stories Léah: E Outras Histórias (1959) and his novel Escola do Paraíso(1960). The Academia das Ciências de Lisboa elected him academic correspondent in 1976.

The George Earl Church Collection is largely composed of 18th and early 19th century monographs on Latin American politics, history, and geography -- with substantial attention to contemporary anthropological studies on the indians of South America. Materials on Amerindian languages are also well represented. The collection contains a number of materials pertaining to Brazil and Portugal.

Breakdown of Subjects and Key to Collecting Levels

Call number	Subject	Current level	Desired level
PC 5000s	Portuguese language/lusophonia	Research	Research
PQ 9000s	Lusophone literature	Research	Research
Cs, Ds, Es and Fs	History, Portugal and Brazil	Research	Research
Cs, Ds and Es	History, Luso-Africa and -Asia	Study	Study/Research
Cs, Ds, Es and Fs	History, lusophone immigrants to the U.S.	Study/Research	Research
Bs	Religion (i.e. Inquisition, Candomblé)	Research	Research
Gs, Hs, Js, Ks and Ls	Social sciences, Portugal and Brazil	Research	Research
Gs, Hs, Js, Ks and Ls	Social sciences, Luso-Africa and -Asia	Study	Study/Research
Gs, Hs, Js, Ks and Ls	Social sciences, lusophone immigrants (U.S.)	Study/Research	Research
Zs	Bibliographies	Research	Research

New Titles Cataloged

Related Collections and Other Resources
John Carter Brown Library 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.

In December 2001 the JCB completed cataloguing of its Brazilian imprints and launched the Código Brasiliense. The Código consists of the first government documents printed in Brazil after the relocation to America at the end of 1807 of the king of Portugal, D. João VI, along with the entire royal court. These laws, decrees, alvarás, and similar documents dating from 1808 are now for the first time available on the Internet.

In November 2002, the JCB acquired one of the world's rarest and most coveted books on colonial Brazil. Cultura e opulencia do Brasil por suas drogas e minas, a 1711 publication written by an Italian Jesuit, João Antonio Andreoni. Printed in Lisbon in 1711, the book was published by Father Andreoni (1649-1716) under the pseudonym André João Antonil. When the work was published, the king of Portugal feared the information it revealed about Brazil's lucrative sugar industry and gold mines would arouse envy and lead to aggression by other nations. Consequently, he ordered the seizure and suppression of Andreoni's book; only seven copies are known to have survived.

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 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 music from various areas of the Lusophone world.

Illustration: Soldat noir et Negresse (Cape Verde), Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, John Hay Library.

Collection Development Footer

Search Josiah	Boston Library Consortium	Worldcat
Suggest a Purchase	Contact a Selector	Questions/Comments
Collection Policy Home	Scholarly Resources	Library Home

Language (PC5000s):	411
Literature (PQ9000s):	8,600
History (Cs, Ds, Es, Fs):	3,483
Philosophy and Religion (Bs):	320
Social Sciences (Gs, Hs, Js, Ks, Ls):	2,493
Bibliographies (Zs):	216
Online databases	3
Total:	15,526

Developing and Managing the Brown University Library CollectionsCollection Policies by Subject: Portuguese and Brazilian Studies

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