Collection Development Policy for International Development

 

  1. A.  Purpose

 

The international development fund is used to acquire general materials about “development” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. “Development” is one of those efforts that is hard to define but easy to recognize. Essentially, every society not a member of the “club” of rich, “developed” nations defines most of its public and foreign policy as development, as the route to increased wealth and power. This directs collection development activity towards what is somewhat anachronistically called the Third World, although the former Second World (Soviet sphere) is also in search of this elusive goal. (Note: the Library of Congress subject heading is “developing countries.”)

 

It is clear that the field is thus essentially interdisciplinary and international. In defining it it is not always easy to draw a definite line to separate it from the larger discipline of economics, or from agricultural economics, political economy, area studies, globalization, business/management, labor studies, international relations, and current events. It is in part a subdivision of economics—both the MSU departments of Economics and Agricultural Economics offer degree programs in international development—but it necessarily involves social, political, geographical, historical, and cultural factors to a greater extent than economics per se. Most area study material has at least a subtext of development, but the IDV field deals specifically with theory, policy, implementation, and evaluation.

 

  1. Scope of collection

 

MSU Libraries have over the past few decades accumulated an excellent collection in this field, one comparable to richer libraries such as Harvard or California-Berkeley. This is of course one result of MSU’s long-standing commitment to international teaching, research, and contracting efforts. MSUL’s major commitment to area studies collections of Africana and secondary commitment to Asia and Latin America has been complemented by attention to development theory and practice and assisted in recent years by Title VI grants to CASID (partly written by the librarian) which have contained generous library funding. CASID’s core faculty comes from many departments and programs, including economics, anthropology, natural resources, agriculture, geography, languages, education, environmental studies, business, political science, medicine, etc., and library material suitable for research and teaching must be sought and acquired in all these fields.

 

All available material by MSU-affiliated authors will be collected.

 

 

  1. Collection parameters

 

  1. Types of materials and formats: monographs and serials are to be supplemented as needed by indexes, bibliographies, maps, films (documentary and feature), and links to electronic resources. U.S. and international government documents are a key resource, but most are collected by that department.

 

  1. As noted above, collection efforts focus on the more theoretical and policy-making aspects of recent and current efforts of developing countries, and the results.

 

  1. Most collecting will be of materials in English, with other languages represented as necessary, usually in connection with foreign publication and/or area studies.

 

  1. Finding and using materials sources overseas is an important part of collection management, for reasons of relevance, availability, and economy. Buying and networking trips have been important in the past, but may be less so in the future as more material becomes available through increased foreign dealer capability and/or in electronic form. Capable book dealers in places like India, Singapore, Africa, etc. routinely make useful resources in English available through their catalogs.

 

  1. Levels of collection intensity

 

Given the historical strength of the collection, the overall goal should be Level 4. Much relevant material will come in as area studies, and their designated levels will apply.

 

The major focus in terms of LC classification will be the HC range, especially HC59.7-60, with an important range also in HD 79-88. However, almost any social science or humanities subject may be relevant to this interdisciplinary field.

 

 

 

Talbott Huey

March 2006