Suggestions for additions to the collection may be made by faculty, students, and other library patrons. These requests are then considered by the appropriate bibliographer who makes most choices by reviewing the literature and trade publications. All selections are reviewed by the Collections Librarian in the context of Collection Policy. Requests for materials judged to be outside the scope of the Divinity profile are referred to other divisions of the Heard Library; or alternatives to purchase (such as ILL) may be made. Insufficient funds may be cause for rejection or postponement of purchase materials which, in the normal course, would be considered desirable. Finally, the Divinity Librarian has ultimate responsibility for insuring that funds are expended on materials most critical to Divinity programs.

Acquisitions Operations:

Serial publications. The Divinity Library receives many publications by subscription, or by blanket or standing orders with publishers. Blanket orders are few, consisting only of the Alban Institute, the United States Catholic Conference, and the World Council of Churches.

Publishers are reluctant to supply ALL of their materials, even on blanket orders. In every case, periodic review must be made of catalogs of these blanket order publishers in order to obtain items missed.

Monographs. The Divinity Library uses one "approval" programs, Harrassowitz approval plan. The Divinity Librarian selects from the materials which come on that approval plan. This plan is responsible for acquiring a focused sub-set of German language publications.

The Cokesbury Bookstore located in the Divinity School Quadrangle allows for immediate purchase of materials in stock or available from their vendor, thereby meeting some needs on a more timely basis.

The foregoing paragraphs of this section address issues related to current purchasing. Retrospective purchasing has been severely limited due to budgetary constraints. Only those retrospective titles specifically requested by faculty and students for active research area sought out for purchase on the antiquarian or out of print market. Recent developments in on line search engines have improved the likelihood of obtaining one of a kind out of print titles desired.

Languages.

Depth preferences are given to English, biblical (Hebrew, Koine’ Greek) and cognate languages, Latin, Germanic and Romance languages relating to the Judaeo-Christian traditions. Earliest editions of the standard Jewish and Christian texts available are sought plus critical translations into English. The Roman alphabet is favored with exceptions in Hebrew and Greek. As a rule, English translations are adequate for selections in non-Western religions. There is, however, no policy for exclusion of materials in any language. Trends vary some with changing times and research interests. Recently primary source materials in Arabic were purchased after the Religious Studies department added a faculty position in Islamics for the first time.

Geographical Areas

No area is excluded. Emphasis is given to areas which have produced major manifestations of the Judaeo-Christian religious traditions with somewhat less emphasis placed on areas with predominantly non-Western religions. Movement towards globalization in theological education has introduced concern to broaden the collection in these areas.

 Chronological Periods.

There are no exceptions other than the limits of availability and resources for purchase. Interests reach into prehistory and continue into those periods during which all world religions have emerged from their origins into contemporary life.

Types of Materials

This policy statement makes use of numerical codes developed by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) to designate the level of research for library collections. RLG is also developing a schedule for summarizing information about research collections which is based on the LC classification. This tool, called the RLG Conspectus, in use by research libraries throughout North America, allows description and comparison among collections by use o f a common concept and language.

The codes are to be based on assessment of a library’s collection relative to national collections, not just local programming needs. Assignment of codes requires knowledge of bibliographical literature of the field, understanding of the holdings of the largest collections and knowledge of current publishing trends. A description of the odes follows:

RLG Collection Level codes:

LEVEL 0 -- OUT OF SCOPE: the Divinity Library does not collect in this area

LEVEL 1 -- MINIMAL LEVEL: a subject area in which few selections are made beyond the very basic works

LEVEL 2 -- BASIC INFORMATION LEVEL a collection of up to date general materials that serve to introduce and define a subject and to indicate the varieties of information available elsewhere. It may include dictionaries, encyclopedias, access to appropriate bibliographic data bases, selected editions of important works, historical surveys, bibliographies, handbooks, a few major periodicals - the minimum number that will serve the purpose. Basic information is not sufficiently intensive to support advanced undergraduate or graduate courses or independent study in the subject area involved.

LEVEL 3 -- INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT LEVEL: a collection that is adequate to support undergraduate and most graduate instruction, or sustained independent study; that is, adequate to maintain knowledge of a subject required for limited or generalize purposes of less than research intensity. It includes a wide range of basic monographs, complete collections of works of more important writers, selections from the works of secondary appropriate non-bibliographic databases, and the reference tools and fundamental bibliographical apparatus pertaining to the subject.

LEVEL 4 -- RESEARCH LEVEL: a collection that includes the major published source materials required for dissertations and independent research, including materials containing research reporting, new findings, scientific experimental results, and other information useful to researchers. It is intended to include all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs, as well as a very extensive collection of journals, major indexing and abstracting services in the field. Pertinent foreign language materials are included. Older material are retained for historical research.

LEVEL 5 -- COMPREHENSIVE LEVEL a collection in which the library endeavors, so far as it is reasonably possible, to include all significant works of recorded knowledge (publications, manuscripts, other forms), in all applicable languages, for a necessarily defined and limited field. This level of collecting intensity is one that maintains a "special collection", the aim, if not the achievement, is exhaustiveness. Older material are retained for historical research.

RLG Language Codes:

The primary purpose of the language codes is to indicate the language priorities and limitations that govern the library’s collecting policies. As with the collection levels, range must be viewed within the context of the existing publications and must be based on an evaluation of the universe of publishing output in the field. The following language codes are used in conjunction with the collection level codes:

E: English language materials predominate with little or no foreign language material in the collection.

F: Selected foreign language material included in addition to English language material.

W: Wide selection of material in all applicable languages. No programmatic decision is made to restrict materials according to language.

Y: Material is primarily in one foreign language. The overall focus is on collecting material in the vernacular of the area.

Divinity Subject Areas:

The tables which follow apply to the Divinity collection. (In certain interdisciplinary sections, however, they reflect the entire JAHL holdings.) While the entire alphabet is covered, policy statements appear throughout the document at various points of the schedule where most materials for a given program are concentrated. The headings for the columns are defined below:

LC Number - the assigned Library of Congress classification ranges for particular subjects.

Subject Descriptor - the assigned LC descriptor or subject for the range.

Collecting Level, Current, Desired - These numerical levels are defined by the Research Libraries Group and reflect national standards for describing research library collections. The current level represents an assessment of the subject collection as it exists; the desired level aspires to a five-year goal for the subject collection.

Notes - The notes field includes information about other library collections on the Vanderbilt campus, as well as extensive notes about specific Divinity interests within the subject areas. Language and time period have been given special attention in this study. Exclusions are noted where appropriate.

ACORN -- The Heard Library’s On-Line Catalog

Vanderbilt's libraries are using SIRSI software for its automated, integrated catalog. More than 95% of Divinity holdings are now on line. The Heard Library has benefited from some retrospective conversion grants; some records remain yet to be converted.

ACORN is capable of producing a shelf list which is proving very useful as an inventory tool.

For the original analysis in 1989 the old card shelf has been used, as this project began before ACORN had a reliable shelf list capability.

Microform collections tend to be last in the conversion queue. Some sets have never been represented even in the old card catalogs. An example is the Library of Religion in America set of some 1,100 titles, mostly in the Church History area (currently undergoing cataloging onto ACORN title by title).

Some microform collections have been purchased jointly and are housed in other division, e.g. the History of Women collection is housed in the Central Library.