LibGuides: Subject Collection Policies: Plant Sciences

Plant Sciences Collection Policy

OVERVIEW

subject description and guidelines

The Libraries seek to support research, instruction and extension outreach in the plant sciences. Many researchers and student read outside their fields and the library collects broadly in the general plant science disciplines and deeply in specialized areas. The library broadly collects information on taxonomy, biochemistry, biomechanics, cell biology, molecular genetics, paleobotany, vegetative growth and development, reproductive development, plant metabolism; plant physiology, root growth, soils and plant nutrition, evolution of cultivated plants, breeding for resistance to diseases, insects and stress.

constituencies

The major departments associated with the plant sciences are located on the Geneva and Ithaca campuses and include Crops and Soil Sciences, Horticulture, Plant Biology, Plant Breeding and Genetics, and Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology. Many plant sciences concentrations are multi-departmental programs administered by faculty in the departments. Students in the program share a common interest in topics associated with plant growth and development in the broadest sense, but their individual interests and career goals vary widely.

geographic focus

country (self-governing)

COLLECTION SCOPE

collection strength

Overall, the collecting goals for the Plant Sciences are suitable for dissertation-level research and undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education.

collection level

geographical guidelines

Most materials in the collection pertain to plant science research in North and South America and Europe. Chinese plant sciences are now emerging as a collection emphasis.

areas of significant geographic coverage

country (self-governing)

language guidelines

Chinese, English, French, German and Spanish are the main languages of scholarly communication in the Plant Sciences. Publications in Arabic, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian are acquired selectively.

language

chronological guidelines

exclusions

material types

Broadly, the plant sciences emphasize scholarly communication through academic and specialized journals. Scholarly, trade and popular monographs and serials, textbooks and data sets.

COLLECTION CONTEXT

housed in

special collections or noteworthy resources in the field

Mann Library's Special Collections hold materials that are too rare, valuable or fragile to be housed in the regular stacks. The 147 volumes in the Language of Flowers Collection include many early 19th-century texts on the art of expressing emotions, sentiments, and moral lessons through floral arrangements. They are a valuable resource for researchers in Victorian culture, horticulture as art, and women's lifestyles. The Ethel Zoe Bailey Horticultural Catalogue Collection, begun in 1888 by Liberty Hyde Bailey and continued by his daughter, Ethel Zoe Bailey, the Collection includes over 134,000 seed catalogs from the U.S. and other countries. Finally, the Everett Franklin Phillips Beekeeping Collection, established in the mid-1920s, is the world's largest and most valuable collection of books and manuscripts on bees and beekeeping.

related library subject collection

AFFILIATIONS

academic department

RESPONSIBILITY

library contact