80 · Survey Results: Survey Questions and Responses
TAMU Libraries has not historically participated in an Area Studies program. We’ve attempted to support faculty in those
areas once they are hired since typically they have appointments in History or other areas. We do participate in CRL’s
programs in support of global resources and will continue this activity as long as funding is available.
The Libraries also support the Immigration History Research Center, which is administratively seated in the College
of Liberal Arts. The IHRC has a large collection of historic monographs, newspapers, and primary source materials in
several foreign languages, chief among them are Ukrainian, Finnish &Estonian, Lithuanian &Latvian, Greek, Italian, and
several others.
The university is placing greater emphasis on global awareness and has recently revamped the campus International
Center to be more proactive in developing international programs, study/research areas and service learning
opportunities. As this emphasis expands, we expect the libraries collection policies will need to develop into those
areas. Our strongest global collections growth in recent years has been for those areas that have endowments, but as
collection budgets improve, allocations for global resources may need to be increased.
Tibetan studies collections are minimal. Caribbean studies supports undergraduate curriculum. Some Caribbean studies
materials are purchased under the auspices of African Studies and Latin American studies, and others are purchased
as a part of North American studies. There is no separate area for Tibetan studies, Southeast Asian Studies, and South
Asian studies rather, materials are purchased as part of other subject collections. Regarding question 5, we have not
included all librarians who collect global resources. This is because many of our selectors collect global resources as a
part of their subject-specific collection practices.
We are concerned that relatively low use of global resources, even by faculty, will cause users to increasingly not bother
collecting as print turns to electronic.
We are primarily interested in Latin American materials. We do collect resources about other geographic regions in so
far as they are treated by North American and UK publishers supplied on our approval plans.
We don’t have a very specific collection development policy for global studies. Each bibliographer develops their
own collection development practices based on their knowledge of programmatic emphases and faculty interest. We
have particularly strong collections in East Asian and South Asian Studies, and a particular emphasis on film from
all geographical regions. For 20 years, we had an NRC for International Studies, but lost it about five years ago. We
currently have no NRC.
We have a tremendous collection of Tibetan pecha that are uncataloged and in remote storage until we can procure
space to simply unscramble the collection, which arrived in willy-nilly order.
We have not usually considered the UK/Western Europe within our Area Studies collecting program. Including this in
your definition of “Global” may obscure some clear patterns that are present only within the non-Western European/
UK collecting areas given very different publishing and distribution patterns in place in the non-Western Europe/UK/
US world. Western Europe/UK may warrant separate study. We are focusing on our global collecting programs as a key
component of our strategic plan and are seeking to continue a strong investment in these programs, which bring us
distinctiveness. We are collaborating with Cornell University via the 2CUL initiative. Currently we have a shared Slavic/
East European bibliographer. We are exploring other opportunities, some tied to regional access and delivery services, to
share resources and staffing, and to maximize our power to collect unique global resources and serve our communities
of interest.
We have two Global Resources units for the Icelandic and Slavic collections. Icelandic provides public service and does
some cataloguing. The Icelandic Collection has been in existence since 1936 and the Slavic Collection has existed in the
UM Libraries since 1953.
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