Psychology

 Collection Development Policy Guidelines

1. General Scope
1. Audience
   The collection supports the instructional and research needs of the Psychology and Brain Sciences Department at the graduate and undergraduate levels. The experimental process is stressed throughout the Department's course of undergraduate instruction. Majors are expected to achieve competence in experimental design and the gathering and analysis of psychological data. The program focuses on four areas of study in which students may specialize: brain and behavior, learning, perception and cognition, and social psychology. Students are also expected to take courses in applied psychology (e.g. behavior modification, psychology and law, environmental psychology). The Department's orientation is behavioristic; some courses include topics in clinical psychology, such as cognitive behavioral therapy and psychopharmacology. The Psychology Department also offers a graduate program in experimental psychology leading to the Ph.D. degree. The program was started in 1968 and admits approximately 10-12 students per year. Research within the department is conducted in several areas, with three focus areas at the graduate level: behavioral neuroscience, perception & cognition, and social psychology. The collection serves many other constituencies, such as Medicine, Business, Philosophy, Religion, Government, Education, Literature, and Linguistics. As a result, the collection is considerably broader than those areas now emphasized by the Department.
2. Boundaries
   Materials in psychology and the brain sciences are found throughout the library system. Most works within the Library of Congress BF classification are located in Baker Berry Library, with earlier holdings in the Dewey 150's at the Library Depository.  Works in social psychology are, for the most part, housed in Baker Berry in HF, HM, HQ, and HV. Animal behavior is in QL360-795, and neurophysiology and neuroscience in QP351-495. Soon after its opening, Berry Library began collecting non-clinical works in the R classification. Clinical psychology and neuroscience classes in RC321-571 and is primarily collected by the biomedical libraries. Works in psychoanalysis are collected selectively to support research by students and faculty in the humanities and social sciences. Special Collections has an extensive collection of senior honors theses in psychology. Other holdings include a collection of papers published by the psychology faculty in the 1930s; correspondence between John Dewey and Adelbert Ames, 1946-1950; and a collection of psychological tests that were administered to Dartmouth students in the 1920's and 30s. The papers of the Dartmouth Eye Institute are another important resource.
3. Partnerships
   The Library's participation in Borrow Direct allows the Library to rely on member libraries for print copies of monographs that are owned solely in electronic format. This partnership also provides access to deeper layers of the secondary monographic literature than would be practical to collect at Dartmouth. The Library's partnership with PORTICO ensures permanent access to digital content for which the library has acquired the necessary rights. The Brown/Dartmouth shared retention agreement creates opportunities to deaccession print journal backfiles that are available online. CRL membership and other consortial relationships ensure access to print copies of journals in JSTOR that are now only held electronically at Dartmouth. 
   
   
2. Specific Delimitations to collecting in this subject area
1. Languages
   The language of the collection is in primarily in English.
2. Geographical Areas 
   There are no restrictions by geographical area.
3. Types of Materials Collected
   Serials are the primary forum for psychology and the brain sciences, and as such, are the most important format for the collection.  PsycINFO, PubMed, and the Web of Science are the main bibliographic tools. Bundled journal packages are an important resource for the Department, providing access to a wide range of neuroscience serials. U.S. dissertations are available through ProQuest's Dissertations & Theses database. The American Psychological Association's PsycArticles database is another core resource. Monographs from major university presses are collected. Popular works by academics are collected selectively. Textbooks, print bibliographies and indexes are not collected.
4. Format of Materials Collected
   The preferred format for serials is electronic. Print journals are purchased only for important titles that are not available online. Video resources are purchased upon request of the faculty in DVD or streaming formats. Electronic books are primarily acquired through package deals with publishers such as Oxford Scholarship Online, MIT CogNet, and Project Muse. Edited monographs and reference works are collected in electronic format on the publisher's platform. 
5. Collective Collections
   Dartmouth holds several print runs of Elsevier psychology journals as part of the Brown/Dartmouth agreement: Brown holds APA print journals in PsycArticles. Borrow Direct provides an important supplement to the monographic collection. 
   
   
3. Revision History
   In reverse chronological order, indicate
• Updated September 2016 by William Fontaine
• February 1996 (William Fontaine)
• Current selector: Jennifer Natale