Collection Development Policy
History

PROGRAMS AND CLIENTELE SUPPORTED:

The Department of History offers distinct Ph.D. candidacy examinations in three distribution fields: American and modern European history, medieval history, and history of science. The department also offers an undergraduate major for which 24 semester hours are required, including six hours in Old World history before 1600, six hours in Old World history after 1600, six hours in the history of the New World, and six hours of electives.

SUBJECT LIBRARIAN:

David Jenkins
History Librarian
Room 123D Hesburgh Library
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
574-631-9036
jenkins.31@nd.edu

GENERAL COLLECTING GUIDELINES:

Languages:  Texts and scholarly secondary works are collected in all major European languages, particularly English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish.

Chronological:  From the earliest recorded texts to the present, although current publications are generally given priority.

Geographical:  Primarily U.S. and Europe.

Treatment of subject:  Emphasis is placed on the acquisition of primary sources, reference works, and secondary works of a scholarly nature; in addition, other subject-related materials appropriate for the undergraduate curriculum are selectively acquired. Unassigned textbooks and juvenalia are excluded.

Types of materials:  Printed materials are preferred in the acquisition of books and journals, except in the case of large retrospective collections produced in micro format only. Theses and dissertations are acquired only to support immediate needs and in these cases microforms are preferred. Electronic formats are collected selectively in response to research needs.

 

COORDINATION INFORMATION:

The history collection may also support research efforts being carried on within: the Theology Department, especially projects dealing with modern church history; the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism; the Kellogg Institute, particularly those involved with Latin American history, and the Medieval Institute. The collection also provides resources for undergraduates concentrating in the interdisciplinary Gender Studies program.

COLLECTING LEVELS:

Subject	Collecting Level
General
World history	2
Historiography	3
Intellectual history	3
Woman's/Gender history (U.S. and Europe)	3
History of technology (U.S. and Europe)	3
American
Pre-colonial	2
Colonial/Revolutionary (1600-1789)	4
National Period/Civil War (1789-1865)	4
Reconstruction to the Progressive Era (1865-1920)	4
Recent America (1920-present)	4
American church history	4
American intellectual history	4
American diplomatic history	3
Immigration history	4
Afro-American history	4
Non-American
Ancient	2
Medieval/Renaissance	4
Modern
Great Britain	3
Austria	3
France	3
Germany	3
Italy	2
Low Countries (Belgium and Netherlands)	2
Russia (Soviet Union)	2
Scandinavia	2
Spain and Portugal	2
Switzerland	2
Eastern Europe	2
Asia	2
Africa	2
Australia	2
Central and Latin America	3

 

 

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS: 

The history collections are particularly strong in the areas of American immigration history, American Catholic history, and French and German modern social history. The medieval history collection is supplemented by the Anastos Collection, which features exhaustive holdings in Greek and eastern church history for this period and arrived from Los Angeles in the fall of 1997.

 

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