Mathematics Collection Policy

OVERVIEW

subject description and guidelines

  • Mathematics at Cornell University is collected to supports the research and instructional needs of faculty, graduate students and undergraduates for library materials on pure mathematics, applied mathematics, mathematical statistics, the pedagogy of mathematics and the history of mathematics. For the working mathematical scientist the literature is the laboratory. The core users are about 100 faculty members and 200 graduate students from the Department of Mathematics, the Center for Applied Mathematics, and the Department of Statistical Science. Addition users come from traditional fields like engineering, the physical and biological sciences. The ever increasing quantification of the social sciences and even the humanities has brought the collection increased use from such fields as economics, management, planning, ecology, etc. New research in mathematics builds on established result and old materials are cited and utilized much more than in some other scientific fields. The reliability of the literature is extremely important and scholars count on the peer reviewed literature. While the majority of the use is scholarly journals books are very important and mathematics books are most heavily used books on campus. The literature is increasingly online and the users have embraced online use. We have been actively acquiring electronic access to the older literature as it become available.


COLLECTION SCOPE

collection strength

  • Research and undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education.

collection level

  • research 

geographical guidelines

  • Not geographically determined.

language guidelines

  • English language only. English has become the accepted language world wide for communicating research in the mathematical sciences. Only a small percentage of currently acquired materials are not in English. However, the older materials in the library are multilingual.

language

  • English 

chronological guidelines

  • Research materials in mathematics do not become obsolete. The History of Science Collection in Kroch Library houses 18th century and earlier original editions. We actively collect new editions of the works by and about mathematicians from all eras. Materials from the 19th century are of continuing interest to researchers and remain in use. Material from the 13th century can be considered modern mathematics. In general, mathematics materials are not edition sensitive and the most recent edition or a good reprint edition is sufficient.

exclusions

  • Pre-College, Preprints, Non-Cornell dissertations, Technical reports, Undergraduate textbooks are not actively collected.

material types

  • Academic journals, books, and bibliographic databases. Electronic format is the preferred format for all materials.


COLLECTION CONTEXT

housed in

  • Mathematics Library 

related library subject collection


AFFILIATIONS

academic department

  • Biological Statistics and Computational Biology (BSCB) 
  • Computer Science (COM S) 
  • Mathematics (MATH) 
  • Operations Research and Information Engineering (OR&IE) 
  • Statistical Science (STSCI) 

graduate field/program

  • Applied Mathematics 
  • Computational Biology 
  • Mathematics 
  • Statistics 
  • Theoretical and Applied Mechanics 


RESPONSIBILITY

library contact

  • Spoon, Henrik -  Physics, Astronomy, and Math Librarian