Collection Development Policy
English and American Language & Literature

PROGRAMS AND CLIENTELE SUPPORTED:

The primary categories of teaching and research in the English Department are English and American literature. The program offers the traditional range of courses on authors, periods, movements, and genres as well as courses devoted to special topics and to subject matter requiring interdisciplinary approaches. English language studies are historical and philological rather than linguistic, and are principally designed to serve the practical ends of improving writing skills and appreciating literary texts in Old, Middle, and early Modern English. The Bachelor's program extends into classical and European literature, expository and creative writing, and rhetorical, linguistic, and literary theory. The Master's and Ph.D. programs focus on English and American literature while emphasizing the integration of a foreign language into the research process. The Department has scholarly interest and activity in interdisciplinary studies relating to literary theory, eighteenth-century studies, and philosophy and literature.

The Department currently has about 400 majors, 50 to 60 graduate students, and 45 full-time tenure-track faculty. Research interests cover the full range of periods and the faculty includes scholars who are also novelists, short story writers, or poets.

SUBJECT LIBRARIAN:

Laura Fuderer
Subject Librarian for English and French Literatures

COORDINATION INFORMATION:

English funds cover Anglo-Irish literature but other aspects of Irish studies, including Irish language literature, are selected by the subject librarian for Irish Studies. A Medieval British Studies Committee helps make decisions regarding rare books in that subject. Creative and critical literature in foreign languages is generally acquired through the modern and classical languages funds. The Medieval Institute acquires numerous serials, series, and monographs of interest to the English Department while Philosophy and Theology funds cover many prose works by authors of interest (such as the works of Erasmus or seventeenth-century sermons). The subject librarians for Gender Studies, Black Studies, and Catholic Americana supply numerous recommendations for purchase in those areas. The subject librarian for Film, Television, and Theater selects works in those fields, including modern plays.

COLLECTING LEVELS: [q.v.]

Subject	LC Class	Collecting Level
English and American Literature
English Philology and Language	PE	3
General	PE 1-85	3
Anglo-Saxon	PE 101-408, PG 101-299	3
Middle English	PE 501-685	3
Dialects, Slang, etc.	PE 1701-3729	3
English Literature	PR
Anglo-Saxon		4
Middle English		4
Renaissance		4
Seventeenth century		4
Eighteenth century		4
Nineteenth century		4
Twentieth century		4
Provincial and Local (i.e., Scotland,      Ireland,Wales)		2
Canada	PR 9100-9199	2
Africa	PR 9340-9408	2
India	PR 9480-9499	2
Australia	PR 9551-9619	2
New Zealand	PR 9620-9664	2
West Indies	PR 9210-9230.9, PR 9272-9275	2
American Literature	PS
Colonial	PS 700-893	3
Nineteenth century	PS 991-3390	4
Twentieth century	PS 3500-3576	4
Genres and Types
Afro-American	PS	3
American Indian	PS	2
Detective and Mystery Stories	PN, PR, PS	2
Historical Fiction	PR, PS	2
Modern Poetry	PR, PS	4
Science Fiction	PR, PS	2
Westerns	PS	2
Women's Literature	PR 111-116, PS 147-152	3
[Comics and Folk Literature are omitted;      Chicano is covered by Spanish.]
General and Comparative Literature
General (theory, philosophy, etc.)	PN 1-72	3
Literary criticism	PN 80-99	4
Authorship	PN 100-253	2
Literary history	PN 365-1009	4
Poetry	PN 1010-1599	3
[Drama, Theater, Broadcasting, Cinema,      PN 1600-3299, are covered by      M. Porter.]
Prose	PN 3311-3503	3
[Journalism, PN 4699-5645, is covered by      M. Porter.]
Linguistics
Ethno-, Psycho-, and Sociolinguistics	P 35-41	2
Study, Teaching, and History	P 47-85	2
Mass Media, Communication	P 87-96	3
Semiotics and Non-Verbal Communication	P 99	2
Philosophy, Psychology, Origin of Language	P 101-106	3
Linguistic Analysis, Applied Linguistics	P 126-138	2
Grammar	P 151-299	2
Stylistics, Semantics, Dialectology, Prosody	P 301-381	2
Indo-European Philology	P 501-769	2
Extinct Languages	P 901-1099	2

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:

The general approval plan with Blackwell North America covers current secondary literature published in the United States. The English allocation covers current fiction and poetry and translations of foreign creative works, British imprints, and selected secondary works in foreign languages. The Phalin Endowment fund covers British imprints, selected secondary works in foreign languages, excessively priced current imprints, reference sources, serials, and retrospective purchasing. Several endowments finance acquisitions in Anglo-Irish literature including rare books relating to Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, and Maria Edgeworth. A collection of eighteenth-century Irish plays is being developed and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels are acquired to fill gaps in the Loeber Collection of Irish Fiction. Endowments for medieval British studies finance acquisitions in literature, history, architecture, and to a limited extent, archaeology as well as rare books. Generally excluded are children's and young adult literature and genre fiction such as mysteries and science fiction.

 

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