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English Language and LiteratureCollection Development Policy
Jeanne Armstrong, Librarian
This collection serves the English Department, the English education program in Woodring College, Canadian Studies and Modern and Classical Languages. The philology, linguistics and English language collection serve linguistics faculty across various departments. The collection also serves students and faculty in Theater and supports literature courses offered in Fairhaven College. Liberal Studies, Communication and Journalism are aso supported to some degree by these collections.
This collection consists primarily of materials in the English language with no chronological or geographical limitations. Films as DVDs are an increasingly important part of this collection. Literatures in English would include the United Kingdom, Ireland, United States, Canada, Anglophone Caribbean, Anglophone Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Anglophone Asian literatures, especially from India.
Explanatory Notes: The collection consists primarily of books, videos, DVDs and some sound recordings. The Library of English Literature and Early English Books are in microfiche format.
The Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue microfilm collection is housed at the University of Washington but jointly owned by the consortium libraries.
MLA (Modern Language Association) Bibliography
There is a strong microfiche collection of early American and English books and magazines through the Library of English Literature and the Library of American Civilization. The library also holds the Early English Books 1475-1640 and 1641-1700 on microfilm.
The English Department offers a Bachelor of Arts in English with a literature emphasis or with a creative writing emphasis and a major in English that can be combined with the elementary or secondary education certification program through Woodring. The Master of Arts degree is offered in English literature studies and in creative writing. The department also offers minors in creative film studies and women's literatures and offers courses toward an emphasis in linguistics, rhetoric, and technical writing. The department is currently seeking a new faculty member for Latino/a literature. The English Department has 29 faculty and teaches a variety of courses including composition, creative writing, Shakespeare, global literatures, critical theory, British literature of the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, scriptural literature, women and literature, American literature, African-American literature, American Indian literatures, Asian American literature, gay and lesbian literature, Caribbean literature, studies in poetry, drama and post colonial literature. The acquisitions budget to support the English Department's programs is $56,785 during fiscal year 2006 with almost $41,000 being dedicated to subscriptions and approximately $16,000 remaining for collection development to support such a diverse curriculum. In Spring quarter 2005, the department taught 6.07% of all the WWU student credit hours at all levels and, for Spring quarter 2005, had 6.8% of all WWU faculty but has only 4.4% of the Library Acquisition Allocation. Due to the increase of subscription costs, the amount of the English fund available for firm orders has decreased from $21,266 in fiscal year 1999-2000 to $15,799 in fiscal year 2005-2006. This represents a reduction of 25.7% in the funds available to purchase books and films. The impact of this decrease can be noticed when reviewing the age of the collection in English and American language and literatures. Collections across most areas of English literature from Anglo-Norman and Early Middle English Literature to the 20th century English literature and American literature by subject, collections and individual authors were still well supported by titles added during the 1990s. However there is a substantial reduction in number of titles purchased since 2000. As an example American literature, individual authors, call numbers PS700-3636 shows 2,514 titles added during the 1990s while only 710 titles were added from 2000-2005. Doubling this would equal 1400 titles added for the current decade compared to 2514 for the previous decade. Titles added for shakespeare were 277 during the 1990s and 85 during the period from 2000-2005. Again doubling this would equal 170 titles added for this decade compared to 277 for the previous decade. While all areas show a decrease in titles added since 2000, some areas have few titles added over several decades, for example Anglo Saxon, Anglo-Norman and Early Middle English literature. There are not a substantial number of titles published on the literature of these periods compared to other periods and this would explain the small number of titles added. Several special development fund proposals have been funded for English over the years. There were film requests in 1999 and 2000, a request for materials related to teaching creative writing in the schools in 2000 and a request for funds to purchase films and books relating to North African, Sahelian and Middle Eastern literature in 2000. In 2003 there was a request for funds to purchase DVDs to create a more balanced film collection for use by students who would choose the newly created minor in film studies. |
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