Subject Librarian: Tom Scott
Policy written by: D.K. Varma (retired)
Description of Current Collection and Programmes Supported The constituent elements which this policy seeks to support are: Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts; Department of Economics, Atkinson College and the Faculty of Administrative Studies. Economics area.
The Economics Department in the Faculty of Arts has a large undergraduate programme (about 420 majors including the coordinated Business and Economics programme) and a small graduate programme. The course registrations are as high as about 9000 this year. There are about 45 to 50 students enroled at the Master's Degree level and about 18 full-time and 4 part-time students enrolled for the Ph.D. programme. Apart from a coverage of all areas of economics at the undergraduate level, at the graduate studies level and at the faculty research level the following topics are emphasized: economics of natural resources, environmental economics, public choice, rent seeking, finance and economics, public finance and taxation, applied econometrics and the history of economic thought. Law and economics is another area of research interest the resources for which are mostly in the Law Library.
Atkinson College Department of Economics graduate about 20 to 25 majors in the subject area. The course registrations are about 2,000 a year. Three areas of research interest and emphasis are: energy economics, health economics and business economics.
The Faculty of Administrative Studies offers core and elective courses in Economics for both the B.B.A. and M.B.A. programme.
The Library Collection in the subject area also supports interdisciplinary research units within the University like the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, the Institute for Social Research, the Joint Programme in Transportation, Strategic Study, the Centre for Canadian Studies, Modem East Asia, and the Centre for Research on Public Law and Public Policy.
Related Collections at York
The York University libraries have strong holdings in the Social Sciences, namely, Political Science, Sociology and Environmental Studies. Also, there are strong collections in Law, History and Business and Government Publications. The collection in Economics is well complemented by these strong collections.
Languages
The Economics collection is predominantly in English Language. Non English titles were acquired in the sixties and early seventies. With the shrink-age of book funds few foreign language publications are acquired because the highest priority is for English language material. English translations of foreign language works are collected when available and relevant.
Geographical Coverage
Canadian publications suitable for an academic collection are acquired comprehensively. American and British publications receive the next priority and are selectively acquired. English language publications from all over the world receive the third priority. The language restriction described above limits the acquisition of materials from several parts of the world. In collection development, material on countries that have close economic or political relationship with Canada, is emphasised.
Chronological Coverage
As a young university library, the strength of the collection is in modem publications published within the last 30 years. Historical, scholarly and theoretical works in economics are purchased irrespective of the publication year.
Date of Publications
The emphasis is on the acquisition of current imprints. Retrospective acquisition has not been attempted in recent years due to the paucity of book funds. Exceptions are backruns of journals and gifts. Significant additions to the retrospective collection are made when private collections become available as donations to the library.
Gifts
Opportunities to acquire good collections of individuals or institutions are actively followed-up. Many special libraries do not have room to retain back files of periodicals, this is a good source for filling missing issues in the York collection. Out-of-date editions of textbooks received as gifts are not added.
Relegation and Weeding
The Economics collection has not been weeded in a systematic manner. It will be done when cost, human resources and logistic circumstances are favourable.
Types of Materials
Print material, microform and electronic files are acquired. Other formats of materials are collected by the appropriate sections of the York University Libraries. Theses and dissertations are bought in paper copy or in microform on the request of faculty or students. Bibliographic and numeric data is increasingly being marketed in CD-ROM or floppy disc format and whenever the usage can justify the relatively high cost of these formats, the library has begun acquiring them. The number of such reference tools in electronic format is expected to increase in future. The major indexing/abstracting service in the Economics subject area ECONOLIT in CD-ROM will be acquired shortly. The Citeline databases offered through Yorkline and some of the other CD-ROMs available in the Library partly cover the Economics subject area. The library also has access to a large number of databases in the Economics/Business subject area on a cost-recovery basis. So far, magnetic tapes containing numerical data have not been acquired. If in the future there is a demand for such tapes it will be considered.
Working papers of the Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts, are collected and maintained in vertical files in the BG Library. Occasionally, working papers are received from other universities. These are kept for three years.
In selecting publications in Economics priority is given to theoretical or scholarly works, titles reporting research, empirical and analytical studies, proceedings and reports of scholarly conferences, country studies and industry studies. Text books are selected only if they are actually used in a course or specifically requested by faculty or students. Advanced level textbooks and textbooks in new areas are selected with discretion. Heavily practitioner-oriented titles, self-help publications, and purely local studies (other than Canadian) are not acquired normally. Research and professional organizations in this subject area are identified and publications of such bodies are collected. The extremes, popular general works or very specialized and often expensive publications are not acquired normally.
New journals are added only on the recommendation of the faculty. When subscribing to new journals an effort is made to cancel a lower priority journal. Lack of funding combined with escalating subscription rates have made it difficult to keep up with the acquisition of many new journals.
Numerous reference services become available on a regular basis. These are added very selectively. Often one or more services are cancelled and replaced by a newer and better service. Canadian reference tools are added more generously. More and better Canadian reference services are appearing all the time and are given priority over a similar service from the U.S.
There are no formal resource sharing agreements with any other librar y in the Economics subject area. However, informal consultations among librarians do occur especially before buying expensive items. Such consultation takes place with corresponding librarians in the University of Toronto, Ryerson, Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library and North York Public Library. Two informal groups of Librarians meet occasionally, one in the industrial relations area and another consisting of academic business librarians in the Southern Ontario region. These forums provide opportunities to compare notes in collection development.
A systematic effort is made to identify and collect publications authored by persons in York University in the subject areas of this policy. Faculty and Departmental reports are monitored to identify such publications.
Resources Elsewhere in the Toronto Region
The economics collection in the University of Toronto Libraries and especially in the John Robarts Research Library has greater depth than the York collection as can be expected of a collection that is over a hundred years old. There are other very specialized corporate and institutional libraries in the Toronto region, the use of which is frequently restricted. They cannot be relied upon except for an occasional request.
Collecting Levels
An assessment of the collection was carried out towards the end of 1989 for the North American Collection Inventory Project. The York University Library collection in the subject area of Economics falls on the whole in level 4 - (Research level, low). Some topics within the subject area will fall in level 3 b (study or instructional level, advanced). The level 4 (research level) is assigned with the reservations mentioned earlier, i.e. that the collection is predominantly in English language and that the retrospective collection lacks depth. The aim of the collection policy is to maintain this level 4 and to improve the collection to this level where it is at present in level 3 b. Reflecting the focuses or directions followed by the constituent academic units as described in the first part of this policy, additional emphasis will be given to the following topics in the development of the collection. They are: country studies/analysis, environmental economics, telecommunications, public finance, economics of natural resources, public choice, rent seeking, energy economics, health economics, real estate, applied econometrics and the history of Economic thought.
Last updated 1999