COLLECTION POLICY STATEMENT
MATHEMATICS LIBRARY
Malott HallBibliographer: Steven W. Rockey
swr1@cornell.edu
July 25, 2003
Overview
The Mathematics Library supports the research and instructional needs of faculty, graduate students and undergraduates for library materials on pure mathematics, applied mathematics, mathematical statistics and the history of mathematics. For the working mathematical scientist the library is the laboratory. The primary users are about 100 faculty members and 200 graduate students from the Department of Mathematics, the Center for Applied Mathematics, and the Department of Statistical Science. About one third of the circulation is to undergraduates. Addition users come from traditional fields like engineering, the physical and biological sciences. The ever increasing quantification of the social sciences and even the humanities has brought the library increasing numbers of users from such fields as economics, management, planning, ecology, etc. This is a small, high quality, high use library with users from all over the campus.
Existing Collection: ECS 4+ Language W
If we consult the conspectus and the conspectus guidelines it is clear that this is almost a "5" collection and many areas in the collection are indeed 5. It is no doubt the one of the best 3 or 4 collections in the country. Work done with the RLG LTSP verifies the strength of the serial collection and the library has historically maintained a very strong monograph collection devoting a larger percentage of it budget to monographs than any other science library on campus.
Current Collecting Intensity: CCI 4+ Language W
Budget pressures have forced us to cancel or not subscribe to a number of highly visible and very expensive titles from a few commercial publishers. By cutting back on titles that are very expensive we able to acquire the maximum number books and serials. This policy is supported by the users of the library and verified by the use of the collection. Scarcely held but relatively inexpensive materials that make this a 4+ to 5 collection are indeed in use.
Subject Coverage: LC class QA
The Math Library research collection consists of works on mathematics, statistics, applied mathematics, mathematics education, and the history of mathematics. For undergraduates with an interest in mathematics, the library is a wonderful resource for materials to support instructional and career needs as well as expository and recreational reading. The library collection has great historic depth and breadth, and includes materials from around the world in many languages.
Mathematics selects materials on applied mathematics that is general in nature or is specific to two or more fields. If the material is focused on one specific field (i.e. engineering, biology, etc.) it tends to be collected in the appropriate subject library and is generally not given a QA call number. The applied mathematics that Math Library collects is mostly in the QA classification.
The Engineering Library collects computer science (QA 76, QA155.7, QA 267-QA268), analytic mechanics (QA 901-QA935) , mathematical modeling (selected QA 401 call numbers) , system theory (selected QA 402 call numbers), control theory (selected QA 402.3 call numbers) , engineering statistics (mostly T call numbers) and linear programming (mostly T call numbers). There is almost no duplication.
Olin Library collects the some history of mathematics (generally pre--18th century or broader histories that include more than just mathematics), descriptive statistics (HA call numbers), mathematical economics and mathematical social sciences (various H call numbers) and the philosophical aspect of logic (various B call numbers especially BC135). The distinctions are fairly clear and with occasional consultation there is almost no duplication.
Mann Library collects mathematical biology and biometry (mostly various QH call numbers). There is almost no duplication.
The Physical Sciences Library collects Mathematical Physics (selected QC call numbers). The Mathematics Library does get some subject appropriate monographs in the QC classification because peculiarities of classification system but there is almost no duplication.
Geographical Information:
Because mathematics is primarily a cerebral even contemplative subject that does not require high technology good mathematics is being done in fairly obscure places. The Math Library endeavors to acquire research level mathematics wherever it is being published.
Language:
English has become the accepted language world wide for communicating research in the mathematical sciences. Only a small percentage of currently acquired materials are not in English. However, the older materials in the library are multilingual. Translations of research materials to English are acquired.
No languages are excluded for quality research materials and materials are routinely acquired in French, German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and other languages.
Chronological Information:
Research materials in mathematics do not become obsolete. The History of Science Collection in Kroch Library houses 18th century and earlier original editions. The mathematics library does select and keep new editions of the works by and about mathematicians from all eras. Olin Library selects contemporary material on the history mediaeval and earlier mathematics in addition to works that include more than mathematics. Material from the 19th century are of continuing interest to researchers and remain in use. Material from the 13th century can be considered modern mathematics. The library maintains a historic file and attempts to fill any gaps. There is little or no duplication of materials housed in Olin Library.
In general, mathematics materials are not edition sensitive and the most recent edition or a good reprint edition is sufficient. However, original language editions are acquired and retained because of the time lag until translations and as a back up for poor quality translations.
Exclusions:
Preprints
Non-Cornell dissertations
Technical reports
Translations to languages other than English
Formats:
Online access to journals is highly desirable and about half of serials we acquire are available online. An increasing number of titles are only available online.
Scanning is the preferred format for preservation and the Math Library has been the largest contributor to date to scanning preservation projects. Older mathematics literature continues to be in use by current researchers. The monograph literature is incredibly dense and it is unlikely that it can be read at the screen like one reads newspapers on microfilm so hard copy must be available.
We have acquires approximately 200 video tapes and they are primarily expository, historical or instructional.
