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Economics


Collection Development Policy

Hazel Cameron, Librarian

  1. Applicable LC Classes:

    2. Call No. Subject Heading
    HB 1-846.8 Economic Theory
    HB 848-3690.7 Demography
    HB 3711-3840 Business Cycles
    HC Economic History and Conditions by region or country
    HD 28-88 Industrial Management, Economic Growth, Development, Planning
    HD 101-1395 Land Use
    HD 1401-2210 Agricultural Economics
    HD 2321-4730 Economics of Industry
    HD 4803-8943 Labor. Work. Working Class
    HD 9000-9999 Special Industries and Trade
    HE Transportation and Communications

  2. Academic Departments, Programs, etc.:

    3. The following would use these materials

    Economics
    Finance
    Management
    International Business
    Marketing
    Master of Business Administration
    History
    Political Science Department (especially labor)
    The Center for Economics and Business Research
    The Center for Economic Education
    Small Business Development Center
    Huxley College (agriculture, transportation)
    Engineering (transportation)
    Communication
    Psychology (human behavior in work settings)
    Women Studies

  3. Collection Levels:

    4. Present Desired
    HB 1-846.8 Economic Theory 2b 3c
    HB 848-3690.7 Demography 3c 3c
    HB 3711-3840 Business Cycles 3c 3c
    HC Economic History and Conditions by region or country 2b 3c
    HD 28-88 Industrial Management, Economic Growth, Development, Planning 2b 3c
    HD 101-1395 Land Use 2b 2b
    HD 1401-2210 Agricultural Economics 3c 3c
    HD 2321-4730 Economics of Industry 2b 3c
    HD 4803-8943 Labor. Work. Working Class 2b 2b
    HD 9000-9999 Special Industries and Trade 2b 3c
    HE Transportation and Communications 2 2b

  4. Scope:

    5. PresentDesired
    Geographic US Worldwide
    Language: English English
    Chronological limitations: all eras all eras

  5. Formats collected/Non-Subject Parameters:

    6. We mainly have a print based collection, with some full text databases, and several of these provide access to journal literature in full text. We also collect working papers. We do have a few videos.

  6. System Coordination and Resource Sharing:

    7. There are some sharing of resources with Women's Studies, especially HQ 1381 Women and Economics.

    Center for Economic Education -- This center maintains a small library of circulating and non-circulating material. It is open to all students at Western, and can be used by other educators. Currently their catalog is not web based, and the printed one is dated 1998. The library currently provides access to the video portion of the collection.

  7. Electronic Databases:

    8. The following databases all have information of value to economics:

    Business and Industry
    ABI/Inform Global
    Econlit
    MCB/Emerald
    NBER Working Papers
    PAIS
    Tablebase
    STAT-USA
    USA Trade Online

  8. Notable Features:

    9. With the addition of the Center for Economic Education video collection, we now have a substantial collection of visual materials supporting Economics.

  9. Narrative Statement:

    10. We have selective holdings on specific industries rather than all industries and forest products seem the most highly representative. It is ironic, that most students do not choose this as an industry to study but prefer to choose innovative and relatively new industries. We also have literature on other areas such as energy. Most of this is very dated. I recommend we upgrade the collection by collecting a few current books in popular industries for research such as energy, service industries, biotechnology and high technology industries. Surprisingly we have a limited collection of books on Real Estate -- having only 5% of the holdings on core lists. However, we do have a strong journal collection in this area which somewhat compensates. Most of the industry material we have is strongly American oriented or deal with Canada. We are almost totally deficient in international industry information -- an area of demand by the growing courses in international business.

    We have a strong government document collection covering material originating from the US government, but there has been very little comprehensive collection building of international government and agency collection building in the past.

    The collections are weak in the area of small business, entrepeneurship and nonprofit industries. We also are deficient in holdings on mergers and acquisitions. More effort will be made to select materials in this area if it is important.

    We also have very poor database coverage for the area of transportation. Public access is provided to several free databases on the Internet, but very poor coverage is found in the databases that we purchase. While the area of transportation is not widely studied, several students have chosen topics related to transportation in courses in economics. This year two students chose this area to write and develop market plans. ANTE, an engineering focused database which might prove useful was not very useful at all.

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