Home > Collections Program > Collection Development Policies >

Anthropology

Collection Development Policy Guidelines

  1. General Scope

    1. Audience

      Dartmouth’s Anthropology Department awards an undergraduate major and minor, and offers over forty courses per year across the traditional four fields of the discipline. Emphasis is on archaeology, biological and cultural anthropology (particularly medical anthropology).  Anthropology co-sponsors (with Linguistics) an annual foreign study program at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, focusing on Maori culture and the legacy of colonialism.  There is an increasing number of Anthropology faculty with ties to Dartmouth's graduate program in Biology - specifically the Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems & Society (EEES) program - and serving as adjunct faculty and mentors to EEES doctoral students.

    2. Boundaries

      Key call number ranges include:
      • CC – archaeology
      • GF through GV, with an emphasis on GN.
      • Area studies, particularly the Americas and Oceania (e.g., DU, E-F),
      • Q supporting evolution and primatology, particularly QH300s and QL700s
      • R supporting medical anthropology, particularly RA.

       Rauner Library has partnered with many Anthropology classes, making use of the Vilhjalmur Stefansson Polar Exploration Collection.  Medical anthropology classes have worked with a broad selection of historical medical texts such as Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica.(1555), and eighteenth century midwifery manuals.

    3. Partnerships

      Dartmouth currently has no collaborative collection program in place with any of our partner libraries.  Consortial pricing through CRL, NERL, and WALDO has allowed us to purchase large online packages.

  2. Specific Delimitations to collecting in this subject area

    1. Languages

      No language is specifically excluded, but most collections are English language, with additional materials in French, Spanish, and German.

    2. Geographical Areas (if applicable)

      Global coverage, but with a current strong interest in the Americas, Himalaya, Oceania and the Arctic.

    3. Types of Materials Collected

      Monographs and scholarly journals are collected most intensively, with a strong interest in documentary film.  Also desirable are newspapers, magazines, sound recordings, government and NGO documents, statistical compilations, as well as full-text and bibliographic reference resources such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, and indexing services.

    4. Format of Materials Collected

      Print and remotely-hosted digital material are the predominant formats.  Where available, electronic journals are desired so long as that format does not limit full use of the content, and there is reliable perpetual access.  We select an increasing number of electronic books, but prefer print when the content is difficult to navigate as a digital file.  Preferred physical formats for films include DVD, although there is an increasing reliance on licensed streaming services.  While not excluded entirely, we avoid microforms and VHS unless no other option is available.  At this time, we are unable to purchase digital media for local hosting.

    5. Collective Collections

      We are fortunate to have access to several key doctoral-level collections through our Borrow Direct service, and the wider OCLC network through Interlibrary Loan. 

       

  3. Revision History

    ● revised August 2016, Amy Witzel
    ● last revised Jan. 1995 (Greg Finnegan)
    ● Current selector: Amy L. Witzel