Collection Development Policy: Engineering
  • Subject Librarian(s):
    Lee Pedersen

  • Departmental Library Representative (DLR):
    Vivek Shenoy

  • Description of the Academic Program | Home Page
    The undergraduate engineering program at Brown University is the oldest in the Ivy League and the third oldest civilian engineering program in the country. The first specific engineering course at Brown was established in 1849 in Civil Engineering. In 1916, the separate Departments of Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineering were combined into one Division of Engineering with a common core of basic engineering courses. Since this time, the program has expanded. Currently, the department offers undergraduate programs in biomedical, chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, computer, and materials engineering. The curriculum emphasizes an in-depth understanding of the fundamentals of physical and chemical science, mathematics, and engineering science which underlie technical work in all fields of engineering. Courses are provided in support of all the areas of study and the emphasis on fundamentals provides preparation for dealing with the rapid pace of technological change with the interdisciplinary demands of modern engineering design and analysis.

    Graduate students at Brown pursue research in many of the same fields of study as the undergraduate. Research areas include Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Electrical Sciences and Computer Engineering, Fluid, Thermal and Chemical Processes (FTCP), Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Mechanics of Solids. For graduate education and research the faculty in the Division can be viewed as organized into four research groups: (1) Electrical Sciences and Computer Engineering; (2) Fluid, Thermal, and Chemical Processes; (3) Materials Science; and (4) Mechanics of Solids and Structures. The Center for Advanced Materials Research is presently anchored within several engineering disciplines.



  • Overview of the Collection
    The Engineering Collection is an integrated part of the Sciences Collection. Consisting of 37,000 engineering titles, of which almost 1000 are print and/or electronic serials, the collection is very extensive in its coverage of all fields of engineering. The interdisciplinary nature of engineering allows it to benefit from many other science collections. Collections in mathematics and applied mathematics, physics and chemistry, and geology and environmental studies all contribute support to meet the needs of the Division of Engineering.

    There are three major electronic resources that support research in engineering that are available. Compendex is the most comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering database in the world with almost seven million records referencing 5,000 engineering journals and conference materials dating from 1970. Inspec, a bibliographic database providing abstracts and indexing to the world's scientific and technical papers in physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computing and information technology. Inspec provides coverage from over 3,500 journals, 1,500 conference proceedings as well as numerous books, dissertations and reports. The Materials Science Collection brings together in one place the majority of the leading materials science databases, with specialist content on materials science, metallurgy, ceramics, polymers, and composites used in engineering applications.

    Other electronic resources that provide support the interdisciplary areas of engineering include ACM Digital Library for computer science. and Medline for medicine, and MathSciNet and Zentralblatt MATH for pure and applied mathematics.



  • General Collecting Guidelines
    The engineering collection is a strong collection in older and current materials and it continues to develop. The library attempts to maintain a RESEARCH level collection in support of engineering as well, except for the area of civil engineering which is supported at the STUDY level since it is currently taught at the undergraduate level. A RESEARCH level collection includes the major 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 also includes all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs, as well as a very extensive collection of journals and major indexing and abstracting services in this field.

    It is an important priority to acquire all important new publications in the field of engineering. All primary publishers in the field of engineering are to be reviewed in order to ensure that all works are evaluated. Except for lower level engineering titles, all works are acquired from publishers such as MIT Press, Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, and Yale University Press. Other publishers that should be heavilty evaluated include Springer-Verlag, Wiley, Academic Press, Clarendon/Oxford, Kluwer, World Scientific, American Chemical Society, IEEE, ASME, McGraw-Hill, and other university presses. Consideration is given to works created by all noted authors and researchers in engineering.

  • Specific Collecting Guidelines
    • Language: English, original or in translation.
    • Chronological Span: Primarily contemporary works.
    • Imprint Date: Current imprints. As needed retrospective materials in support of research needs, as well as to replace missing or damaged volumes, or to fill in identifiable gaps in the collection. Occasional acquisition of out of print material.
    • Geographical Range: Primarily United States, Europe, Asia, and India.
    • Types of Material Included: Monographs, journals, proceedings, annuals, reference tools, and web resources. Very limited purchase of audio-visual materials. Excluded: Textbooks, that focus on low level introductory engineering.


  • Areas of Distinction
    The very broad based collection serves to cover many of the fields of engineering with significant titles that cover foundational areas of study. Of note is the growing quality of the collection of materials science and engineering resources. Since the Brown Engineering program has a very strong mathematics focus, a strong mathematics collection provides significant support. Brown has been acquiring materials to support pure and applied mathematics since its founding, making the retrospective collection quite strong. From very early works found in the Special Collections, to the most current works published, the whole collection serves as an area of distinction. Of significance is the coverage of titles published in Europe, especially those published during the late 1800's and the first half of the 1900's. The collection currently holds all of the major titles published in all fields of pure and applied mathematics.

  • Special Collections
    Lownes Collection of Significant Books in the History of Science contains over three-quarters of those texts recognized by scholars as the "great books" of science published since the middle of the 15th century. This collection is held at the John Hay Library.

    John Hay Library History of Science Collection is a major source for the history of mathematics.

  • Related Collections
    Brown is a member of the Center for Research Libraries, which "operates a global cooperative collection development program that assists academic and research libraries in making otherwise inaccessible and important research materials permanently available to scholars and researchers." CRL holds collections of international journals, newspapers and dissertations. The resources of the Ivy League institution's libraries are also available to Brown faculty and students via the Borrow Direct service and the Virtual Catalog makes the resources of the participating members of the Boston Library Consortium available upon request. For further information, check with the Interlibrary Loan Office (Phone: (401) 863-2750; Email: sci-ill@brown.edu

  • Selected List of Key Internet Resources