Dartmouth College Library
Collection Management & Development Program
Collection Development Policy
PHYSICS
- COLLECTION AREA
- HISTORY
- GENERAL PURPOSE
- DARTMOUTH COLLEGE PROGRAM
- GENERAL SUBJECT BOUNDARIES
- LANGUAGES
- GEOGRAPHIC AREAS
- TYPES OF MATERIALS COLLECTED
- FORMAT OF MATERIALS COLLECTED
- SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND MANUSCRIPTS
- OTHER RESOURCES AVAILABLE
- OTHER RELATED COLLECTION POLICIES
- CREATION DATE
- REVISION DATE
- LC CLASS
- BIBLIOGRAPHER
- LIST OF URLS
- COLLECTING INTENSITY CHART
is located on a separate page.
Physics
In 1767 when Dartmouth College was founded, Physics
as a discipline was known under a much broader heading,
Natural Philosophy. The curriculum then had courses
in surveying, mensuration, natural philosophy and astronomy,
the standard physics courses of that time. The first
scientific apparatus arrived at Dartmouth from London
in 1785. The books in use at Dartmouth College for
natural philosophy before the 19th century were the
works of James Ferguson in four volumes: vol 1, Astronomy;
vol 2, Lectures on select subjects in mechanics, hydrostatics,
hydraulics, pneumatics, and optics; vol 3, Introduction
to electricity; and vol 4, Select mechanical exercises.
The scientific periodical in use was: Miscellanea curiosa,
a collection of some of the principles in nature written
by Edmund Halley. The first scientific observations
were begun at Dartmouth under Ebenezer Adams who was
Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy between
1810-1833. These observations were the beginning of
the Thermometrical register. Ira Young's tenure as
professor (1833-1858) put Dartmouth College at the
forefront of physics and astronomy by his literally
designing, building, and stocking with instruments
Reed Hall and the Shattuck Observatory. He was the
first science professor at the College who believed
in scientific knowledge for its own sake, unencumbered
by its theological implications. Ira's son, Charles
A. Young, was Professor of Natural History and Astronomy
from 1865-1877. His research was in the then new science
of astronomical spectroscopy. He also found pleasure
in inventing equipment for the physics laboratory.
He published widely and was Dartmouth's last and greatest
natural philosopher. In 1893 Dartmouth changed the
designation of Professor of Natural Philosophy to Professor
of Physics to address the growing resentment of the
philosophic implications of the older designation.
The standard physics textbook for the late 1800's was
Elementary treatise on physics, experimental and applied
by Adolphe Ganot. In 1883-84 Professor Charles Emerson
took a copy of this text to Leipzig and personally
updated the text based on what new things he saw and
learned. The text remains in Special Collections. Emerson
oversaw the building of Wilder Physical Laboratory.
Physical Review in 1901 considered the building to
be an advanced design. Between 1899-1903 Ernest Nichols
lead the Department of Physics to an international
reputation for experimental physics. He is known at
Dartmouth for his experimental work on the pressure
of light. During the 20th Century the Department of
Physics lost its sole thrust on research and turned
its attention to teaching as equally important. Though
the first Ph.D in physics was granted in 1926, the
current Ph.D program had its beginnings in 1965. The
Department faculty has grown from five in 1896 to seventeen
plus eight adjunct/visiting professors in 1997. The
curriculum today has such courses as Plasma Physics,
Relativistic Quantum Field Theory, and Solid State
Physics.
The collection primarily supports the instructional
and research needs of undergraduates, graduate students
and faculty in physics, as well as serving the needs
of visiting scholars from other institutions. The collection
also supports instructional and research needs related
to programs at the Thayer School of Engineering and
the various constituencies associated with the Medical
School.
Physics plays a prominent role in the academic teaching
and research programs of Dartmouth College.
The
Physics Department
offers undergraduate, Masters and Doctorate degree
programs.
The undergraduate degree in physics is designed to provide
students with a solid foundation in analytic thinking,
problem solving, and the fundamentals of physics. Students
are required to take courses covering topics such as
wave mechanics, quantum mechanics, special relativity,
atomic and particle physics, electricity and magnetism,
classical mechanics, and statistical physics. The culminating
experience in physics is completed through independent
research with a thesis and/or taking the two courses,
Methods of Experimental Physics and Special Topics
Seminar. The modified major allows students to specialize
in geophysics, biophysics, chemical physics, medicine
and medical imaging. The Engineering Physics major
is a joint program of the Department of Physics and
the Thayer School of Engineering.
This program combines the fundamental aspects of physics
with the practical training of engineering. Courses
such as Science of Materials, Solid Mechanics, Thermodynamics,
Fluid Dynamics, Instrumentation and Measurement, and
Applied Mechanics are taken in addition to standard
physics courses. A Masters degree can also be granted
to undergraduates if they have sufficient advanced
placement credits and they satisfy all the requirements
for both degrees.
The Doctorate degree program requires its students to
take the following courses, Methods in Applied Mathematics,
Classical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics I and II, Statistical
Mechanics, and Electromagnetic Theory I and II. Five
additional courses must be taken among fluid mechanics,
quantum field theory, microscopic plasma theory, microscopic
theory of solids, general relativity and cosmology,
magnetohydrodynamics, space plasma physics, nonlinear
systems theory, optics, laser spectroscopy, and semiconductor
theory. The program places strong emphasis on individually
guided research and study. Two terms of undergraduate
teaching is required of all Ph.D students.
The
research programs
in physics
may be divided into plasma and space physics
(space plasmas, computer simulations of plasmas, studies
of auroral particle acceleration and heating, studies
of the ionosphere, magnetosphere, and geomagnetic storms,
nonlinear magnetohydrodynamics and turbulence in plasmas
and fluids, studies of magnetic reconnection, fusion
devices, analytical dynamics, computational physics,
and plasma simulation and theory, and Smith-Purcell
radiation as a basis for compact free-electron lasers),
condensed matter physics (excitons, optical properties
of semiconductors, picosecond laser spectroscopy of
quantum wires and dots, superconductivity, transport
in solid state systems, phase transitions, nanostructures,
low temperature transport in semiconducting and metallic
mesoscopic systems, and scanning probe microscopy),
and astrophysics (cosmology and the large-scale structure
of the universe, general relativity, field theory,
and phase transitions in the early universe).
The Department of Physics maintains the
Electron Beam
and Far Infrared Spectroscopy Laboratory,
the Cryogenic and Magnetic Laboratory, and the Department
uses the Accelerator Test Facility at
Brookhaven National
Laboratory, the Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT
Observatory at Kitt Peak, the Rippel Electron Microscope
Laboratory at Thayer and the Solid State Microengineering
Cleanroom Laboratory
at Thayer. The Department also performs field work
at the Arctic and Antarctic. The Department has the
research groups:
Scanning Probe Microscopy and Mesoscopic
Physics,
Space Physics
and
Field Theory and Cosmology.
A
weekly colloquium series
and
weekly seminars on plasma physics
and
condensed matter physics
are conducted to inform the Department of research
going on at other institutions. Specific faculty research
interests can be found on the
Department of Physics' Faculty Directory webpage.
Physics is the QC 1-QC 849 and QA 801-QA 939 classifications
of the Library of Congress classification scheme and
530-540 of the Dewey system. All Dewey classed material
is housed in the
Storage Library;
the major portion of the QC and QA materials are housed
in
Kresge Physical Sciences Library.
Some QC material is housed in other libraries, based
on imprint date (
Special Collections), popular treatment
(
Baker Library),
duplicate subject treatment
(
Feldberg Library),
or major subject treatment other than physics
(
Cook Mathematics Library).
In addition, some material in the subject area of instrumentation
(Q 184-Q 185, TA 165) is also housed outside of the
Physical Sciences Library, in Baker Library, Feldberg
Library or
Dana Biomedical Library.
Scientific instruments of historical interest to the
College have been preserved over the years. The Curator
of Scientific Instruments has traditionally been a
member of the Physics Department. In order to support
this interest, the collection has also been developed
in this area. Due to an important gift of early American
clocks, works related to time-keeping instruments are
acquired regularly.
Subjects excluded in this policy are: meteorology, climatology
and geophysics; while they do class in the QCs, they
are treated in other collection development policy
statements (For meteorology and climatology, see the Climatology statement;
for geophysics, see both the Earth Sciences
and Engineering Sciences statements.)
Astronomy is also excluded since it is treated in its
own policy statement.
English is the predominant language, but no language
is excluded.
There are no geographical limitations to the acquisition
of physics materials.
Monographs, monographic series, journals, proceedings,
society publications, and other standard reference
works are purchased in print. Indexes and abstracts
are no longer collected in print. Access is provided
to their electronic versions through enduser searching
on Dialog and through mediated searching on Dialog
and STN. Preprints are collected via pointers to internet
preprint archives. One example is the
Los Alamos National
Laboratory Preprint Archive.
No format is excluded. Electronic information sources
are becoming more predominant in the field of physics.
Journals are being agressively moved into electronic
form via CD-Rom and especially the internet through
multimedia interfaces like the World Wide Web.
The papers of Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) and
Charles Augustus Young are housed in Special Collections.
These papers are of interest to the history of science
and physics. The following monographs and papers will
also be of interest to historians and physicists: The
Elementary treatise on physics, experimental and applied
by Adolphe Ganot which contains miscellanious comments
and drawings by Prof. and Mrs. Charles Emerson interleaved
throughout the text. The four 1905 papers by Albert
Einstein appearing in Annalen der Physik : "Uber
die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Warme
geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flussigkeiten suspendierten
Teilchen" on brownian movements; "Uber einen
die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden
heuristischen Gesichtspunk" on photons and quantum
theory; "Ist die Tragheit eines Korpers von seinem
Energieinhalt abhangig?" on relativity and mass;
and "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Korper"
on relativity and electrodynamics. And, the second
edition of Isaac Netwons' Opticks; or, A treatise of
the reflections, inflections and colours of light
published in 1718.
The Thayer School of Engineering provides access to
the Engineering Information Village
and Ei CompendexWeb. For applied physics, this
web resource is very useful.
Also at Thayer is the
Numerical Methods Laboratory
which is concerned with numerical analysis
and advanced scientific computation. A current project
is called Node-Based Finite Element Methods for Solution
of Maxwell's Equations.
USACE Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
in Hanover, N.H., exists largely
to solve the technical problems that develop in cold
regions, below zero degrees celcius. The Cold Regions
Research and Engineering Laboratory Library, established
from the collections of the Arctic Construction and
Frost Effects Laboratory (ACFEL) and the Snow, Ice,
and Permafrost Research Establishment (SIPRE), is recognized
as the world's foremost collection of cold regions
scientific and technical literature.
Kresge/Cook Libraries maintains a selective and organised
list of internet urls for physics resources
found outside of Dartmouth College. The collection is called
Physics Beyond Dartmouth. Links to preprints and research
centers are an important part of this url collection.
Use of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)
and the Research Libraries Group (RLG)
for interlibrary loan provides access to national and
international physics collections in academic and private
libraries. Canada's
Institute For Scientific and Technical
Information (CISTI)
and Linda Hall Library
provide document delivery and further alternatives
for hard to find documents. STN
and Dialog
are available for literature searching.
Astronomy
Biology
Chemistry
Climatology
Computer Science
Earth Sciences
Engineering
Mathematics
Medical Sciences
September, 1982 (Monique Cleland)
1991 (Susan C. George)
1997 (Mark Mounts)
QA, QC
Mark Mounts
Astronomy Collection Policy
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/cdp/astronomy.html]
Baker Library
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~baker/baker.html]
Biology Collection Policy
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/cdp/biology.html]
Brookhaven National Laboratory
[http://www.bnl.gov/]
Chemistry Collection Policy
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/cdp/chemistry.html]
Climatology Collection Policy
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/cdp/climatology.html]
Computer Science Collection Policy
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/cdp/compsci.html]
Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/physics/cm_seminar.html]
Cook Mathematics Library
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~krescook/cookhome/]
Dana Biomedical Library
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~biomed/]
Department of Physics
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/physics/]
Department of Physics' Faculty Directory
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/physics/pna_people.html]
Dialog
[http://www.dialog.com/]
Earth Sciences Collection Policy
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/cdp/earthsci.html]
Electron Beam and Far Infrared Spectroscopy Laboratory
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/firlab/]
Engineering Collection Policy
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/engineering.html]
Engineering Information Village and Ei CompendexWeb
[http://www.ei.org/eivillage/village.serve_page?p=1280]
Feldberg Library
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~feldberg/]
Field Theory and Cosmology
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/physics/hienphys/]
Institute For Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI)
[http://www.cisti.nrc.ca/cisti/cisti.html]
Kresge Physical Sciences Library
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~krescook/home.html]
Linda Hall Library
[http://www.lhl.lib.mo.us/]
Los Alamos National Laboratory Preprint Archive
[http://xxx.lanl.gov/]
Mathematics Collection Policy
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/cdp/math.html]
Medical Sciences
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cmdc/cdp/medicalsci.html]
Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT Observatory at Kitt Peak
[http://www.noao.edu/kpno/kpno.html]
Numerical Methods Laboratory
[http://www-nml.dartmouth.edu/nml/nml.html]
Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)
[http://www.oclc.org/]
Physics Beyond Dartmouth
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~krescook/qnetlinks/qclinks.html]
Plasma Physics Seminars
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/physics/pna_plasma.html]
Research Libraries Group (RLG)
[http://eureka.rlg.org/gateway.html]
Research Programs in Dept of Physics
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/physics/pna_research.html]
Scanning Probe Microscopy and Mesoscopic Physics
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/physics/meso_spm/]
Solid State Microengineering Cleanroom Laboratory
[http://hypatia.dartmouth.edu/levey/ssml/home.html]
Space Physics
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spacephy/]
Special Collections
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~speccoll/]
STN
[http://www.cas.org/stn.html]
Storage Library
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/libcirc/Storagehome.html]
Thayer School of Engineering
[http://thayer.dartmouth.edu/thayer/]
USACE Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
[http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/]
Weekly Physics Colloquium Series
[http://www.dartmouth.edu/artsci/physics/pna_colloquium.html]
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Last updated July 27, 2000 by:
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