Collection Development Policy
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS)

PROGRAMS AND CLIENTELE SUPPORTED:

The Program of Liberal Studies, Notre Dame's Great Books program, offers an integrated three-year sequence of studies, leading to the bachelor of arts degree. Students enter the program at the end of the Freshman Year of Studies.

Fundamental to the program is a conception of a liberal arts education which aims to avoid the separation of the humanities and sciences. The program seeks to provide a unified undergraduate education in all the liberal arts. The study of literature, philosophy, natural and social sciences, theology, history and fine arts will take place within a larger unifying conception of the liberal arts that cuts across many of the disciplinary boundaries suggested by these names. The curriculum grows organically over the three years, with each course presuming all its predecessors.

Although the program emphasizes education in the liberal arts, it also considers the liberal arts in themselves as insufficient for a complete education. The liberal arts are the critical tools of learning, but they are also to be related to the larger search for genuine understanding and philosophic wisdom. Philosophy, which explores the basic questions of epistemology, ethics and political philosophy is also related to the claims of the Christian tradition. For this reason, the program maintains specific tutorials in the various disciplines to enable these relationships to develop systematically.

SUBJECT LIAISON:

Laura Bayard
Head, Catalog & Database Maintenance (CADM)
208 Hesburgh Library
(574) 631-8570
Bayard.1@nd.edu
FAX:  (574) 631-6772

CONSPECTUS:  No

GENERAL COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES:

Languages:  Predominantly English; some French & German; degree required Classical Languages, Latin & Greek.

Chronological:  Primary texts in the foundational works of Greek and Latin civilizations; of the high Middle Ages, the Renaissance and early modern authors through the Enlightenment; 19th and 20th century works, including select works of the Eastern tradition, such as Chinese and Hindu authors.

Geographical:  Western Europe, United States, selected contributions from Eastern Europe and Asia.

Subject treatment:  Primary texts and scholarly treatment, generally; some secondary materials, occasionally.

Material types:  Monographs, usually. Some journals, computer disks, audio and video recordings possible. Few, if any microforms.

COORDINATION:

The extent to which the University Libraries can provide a collection of resources viable to the PLS Program currently depends upon carefully coordinating purchases in the interdisciplinary areas. The limited budget assigned to PLS is reserved for purchases of the unique interests or immediate needs of the program and its faculty.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:

The Blackwell North America Approval Plan offers the primary source for selecting new, in-print monographs. The predominant criteria for selection are cross-disciplinary approaches to the liberal arts (particularly history, literature, music, mathematics and astronomy, philosophy, theology, visual art) and studies of the relation between the liberal arts and natural and social sciences, politics, and education.

 

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