Brief overview of the collection
·
History: Materials on geography have been
collected by the Library since the early days of the University.
·
Broad subject areas emphasized
and de-emphasized:
The geography fund is used to acquire material in three overlapping areas:
academic geography, urban studies, and environmental studies.
·
Description of Academic Program: The Committee on Geographical
Studies now offers only a B.A. and has only two geography professors (several
adjunct faculty and one history professor are also associated with the
Committee). It is a descendant of the Department of Geography that for several
decades was generally reckoned one of the North America’s major geography
departments.
·
Audience/Purpose. The collection supports the
research and teaching needs of faculty and students in the Committee on
Geographical Studies as well as of scholars in numerous other disciplines.
Among the campus units where some faculty members and students have
considerable interest in urban and/or environmental studies (as well as in literature
in geography) are the Departments of History, Sociology, Anthropology, Ecology
and Evolution, and Geophysical Sciences, as well as certain area-studies
departments; the Harris School of Public Policy Studies; the National Opinion
Research Center (NORC); and the Committee on Social Thought.
Collecting guidelines
· Levels of selection. Comprehensive, research, instructional support, basic information; for a description of these levels, see the general policy statement.
It is impossible to define the geography
collection in terms of a set of Library of Congress call number ranges. Only a
small minority of works in academic geography is assigned a plain G, GB, or GF
call number, and these ranges include much material that is not geographical
(e.g., books on the hospitality industry, the polar areas, and the engineering
aspects of remote sensing). Approximately half of all geographical material
ends up with regional call numbers DA-F. Many geography books are put into the
H's. Some geographical material also gets assigned call numbers in the A's,
B's, J's, L's, M's, P's, Q's, R's, S's, T's, and Z's. Similarly, while core
works in urban studies are often found in the HT’s and NA’s and core works in
environmental studies sometimes fall into the GE’s, works on urban and
environmental studies are found throughout the call number ranges. Thus, little
attention is paid to call number in doing selection work. The geography
collection consists of works by geographers, works on subjects that would
widely be considered to be geographical in nature or that focus on urban or
environmental studies, and works requested by geographers, urbanists or environmentalists
that do not clearly fall in someone else’s territory.
Generally, works on those areas
of human geography that are still the object of active research at the University
of Chicago and works in urban studies are supported at the “research” level
(see general policy statement for definition). Areas of active local research
in geography include urban geography, cultural geography, historical geography,
and the study of modern cartography. Works on several other areas─for example,
economic geography and GIS (digital cartography)─are
supported at the “instructional support” level. Works on physical geography are
supported at a level between “basic” and “instructional support,” while works
on environmental studies are supported at a level somewhere between the “instruction
support” and “research” level.
Collecting also encompasses several additional subject areas.
Because of its call number (GV),
non-discipline-specific material on sports and play are to some degree the responsibility
of the geography and/or anthropology bibliographer. Scholarly material in this
area is acquired at “instructional support” level.
A few current guide books are
funded with the geography fund every year. Emphasis is put on guide books
likely to convey a sense of the character of daily life in the places being
described.
Atlases and reference books on
cartography are usually funded with the geography fund. World, national, and regional
atlases are collected at the “research” level, as are scholarly thematic
atlases.
·
Type of materials included and
excluded.
Emphasis is put on printed scholarly works. There is, in general, more
theoretical and historical than “practical” material.
As with other fields, introductory textbooks, anthologies of previously
published works, and unedited dissertations are generally not acquired.
Specialized textbooks (e.g., on urban geography or on a particular region)
constitute a respected genre in academic geography and are certainly in scope.
·
Physical formats included and
excluded. All
formats are acquired. The great bulk of monographic literature is still
available only in paper; however, Library access to a monograph in electronic
form is generally considered a good reason not to fund the paper edition.
Serials and certain reference sources increasingly are available in electronic
form; subscriptions to these are considered adequate substitutes for paper
equivalents.
·
Publication dates collected. The geography fund is used
largely for current material, although older imprints are acquired when
requested, to fill gaps in the collection, or to replace lost or damaged
copies. The increasing availability of older imprints on Google Book has
lessened the need for purchase of pre-1923 material or reprints of early books.
·
Languages. There are no absolute language
limitations on collecting activities. But, other things being equal, the
threshold for the purchase of material in English is a little lower than for other
languages. For those areas acquired at the “research” level, material in the
major continental Western European languages─French, German, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Italian─is funded to nearly the same depth. Material in Dutch,
the regional languages of Spain, and (especially) the Scandinavian languages is
acquired somewhat less intensively. Material in most non-Western-European
languages that are used for scholarly purposes is the responsibility of the
area-studies bibliographers.
·
Geographical range. There are no limitations, but
see comments below about the relationships with area-studies colleagues.
·
Chronological span. There are no limitations.
Areas of distinction
The
geography collection at the University of Chicago Library is characterized more
by its breadth than by its distinction in any one area. It is arguable but
unprovable that no other North American university library has so
self-consciously built and maintained as international a collection of
materials on academic geography.
Related University
of Chicago collections
Several colleagues are
responsible for the purchase of certain classes of material.
The area-studies bibliographers generally acquire geographical material on the
Middle East and North Africa; South Asia; East Asia; and on Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet states, while the Bibliographer for Classics and the Ancient
Near East is responsible for most works on the Classical world and the ancient
Near East. The geography bibliographer occasionally funds material overlooked
by area-studies bibliographers that would clearly be of interest to geographers
or students of urban and environmental studies.
Southeast Asia is a special case.
The Bibliographer for South Asia has some responsibility to purchase
Western-language materials for Southeast Asia, but Western-European-language material
on this area is historically the responsibility of the geography bibliographer.
Special Collections holds numerous early atlases and explorers’ accounts as
well as the papers of some University of Chicago geographers.
The scope of “urban studies” and
“environmental studies” calls for particular comment.
“Urban studies” is defined to
include works that are not discipline-specific or that are written by scholars
associated above all with the study of urbanism or planning. It is expected
that colleagues would acquire works in urban studies that are associated with
particular fields (such as urban economics) or works on the history of
particular cities (unless the focus is on urban planning or the author is a
geographer or planner).
“Environmental studies” is
defined to include non-discipline-specific material that largely deals with
human activity. Colleagues would be expected to acquire material in such fields
as environmental economics as well as material that does not deal largely with
human activity.
In practice it is very difficult
to establish the boundaries of the geography collection. The disciplinary
affiliation of authors is often determined in order to establish
responsibility.
Cooperative
arrangements and related collections
There are no formal arrangements
for cooperative acquisition, but the existence of certain materials in other
libraries has influenced the building of the geography collections over the
years.
For example, because of the superb Africana and transportation collections at
Northwestern University, the University of Chicago Library often forgoes highly
specialized materials in these areas.
The Newberry Library has a
first-rate collection of material on the history of cartography, particularly
its early history, and, as a result, the University of Chicago Library has put
only modest effort in this area.
The Municipal Reference Library at
the Harold Washington Library and the Research Center at the Chicago History Museum
maintain substantial collections of Chicago government publications and general
Chicago-related materials respectively. As a result, the University of Chicago
Library has had a tendency to collect material about Chicago to only a modest
degree more intensively than it has material about other places.