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Women's and Gender Studies

Collection Development Policy Guidelines

  1. General Scope

    1. Audience

      Dartmouth’s interdisciplinary Women’s, Gender Studies & Sexuality program (WGSS) awards an undergraduate major and minor, and offers over forty courses per year (including multiple sections per term for the popular introductory course) exploring the historical and  contemporary experience and expression of gender & sexual identity worldwide.  Together with Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, WGSS sponsors an annual foreign study program at the University of Hyderabad, India.  In addition to several core faculty members, the program has a large number of affiliated faculty across the social sciences and humanities departments who often cross-list their courses with WGSS.  The Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth (GRID) is closely linked to WGSS. 

    2. Boundaries

      Given the interdisciplinary nature of the program, relevant materials fall throughout the collection, reflecting the curricular focus on history, sociology, medicine, geography, political science, religion, art, music, film, and literature. 
      The primary LC classes are :

      • HQ 12-449 (Sexuality)
      • HQ 1075 (Sex Role)
      • HQ 1088-1090 (Men's Studies)
      • HQ 1101-2031 (Feminist and Women's Studies)

      Of note in the Rauner Library are the College archives related to Dartmouth's transition to co-education in the 1970s.

    3. Partnerships

      Dartmouth currently has no collaborative collection program in place with any of our partners.  Consortial pricing through CRL, NERL, and WALDO has facilitated our purchase of many online resources.

  2. Specific Delimitations to collecting in this subject area

    1. Languages
      Our collections focus on English-language materials, with additional materials in major European languages and Chinese.

    2. Geographical Areas (if applicable)
      Global coverage

    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, government & 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 audio-visual material is DVD. While not excluded entirely, we avoid microform 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. The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) is particularly valuable for its collection of newspapers.

  3. Revision History
    • revised August 2016, Amy Witzel
    • Last revised Jan. 1995 (Ann McHugo)
    • Current selector: Amy L. Witzel