Collection Development Policy: German Literature
  • Subject Librarian(s):
    Dominique Coulombe

  • Departmental Library Representative (DLR):
    Roberto Simanowski

  • Description of the Academic Program | Home Page
    The Department of German Studies at Brown University opens the doors to students who are interested in the language, literature, and culture of the German-speaking areas of Central Europe. A curriculum is offered which combines intensive study of the German language with an interdisciplinary approach to German Culture. Language courses in the Department of German Studies are culturally motivated from the beginning, stressing an integral approach to building language skills and to understanding the German cultural environment. Ample conversation practice is provided, along with exposure to a variety of texts, including literature film, music, and German television.

    In addition, German language sections of courses in other departments are periodically offered, such as History, Political Science, and History of Art and Architecture. Our curriculum looks back at the German literary, cultural, and historical tradition, from Goethe to Christa Wolf and includes figures such as Marx, Freud, Nietzche and Heidegger, whose texts form the building blocks for contemporary discussions in such diverse fields as cultural criticism, women's studies, ethnography, and minority studies. At the same time, we also concentrate on current developments in Germany that perhaps illustrate more clearly than in other places the extreme ruptures of twentieth century history, the consequences in all spheres of the reunification of the socialist East with the capitalist West, as well as trends towards a more multicultural society after the opening up of national borders. We invite students "to learn my language, investigate my culture. Meet me. And get to know yourself."



  • Overview of the Collection
    The library collections for German Language and Literature include an estimated 40,000 titles, of which some 194 are currently received serials, all housed in the Rockefeller Library. These numbers include only materials supporting the study of language and literature. Because the interests of the Department of German are broader, it benefits also from materials purchased for History, Political Science, Linguistics, Modern Culture and Media, History of Art, Philosophy, Women's Studies, Comparative Literature, and other fields distributed over a range of classifications.


  • General Collecting Guidelines
    The desired coverage is at the research or study level. A research level collection includes major source materials required for dissertation and independent research, including primary sources, specialized journals, important reference works, major indexing/abstracting services and a wide selection of specialized monographs. A study level collection supports undergraduate and graduate course work, but may not hold the specialized primary sources and journals necessary for graduate and faculty research. The purpose of the German Studies collection is to support the needs of undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and other users within the Brown University community. Its collection development policy focuses on the Curriculum of the German Studies Department, collecting primarily the language and literature of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (LC classes PD, PF, and PT). Also supported is a Swedish language program (LC class PT9201-9999).

  • Specific Collecting Guidelines
    • Language: Primary sources in German with English translations of some major and contemporary authors. Works of literary theory and criticism are acquired primarily in German and English.

    • Chronological Span: Medieval period to the present.

    • Geographical Range: Emphasis has been traditionally on the literature of Germany with acquisitions of works from the major authors of Austria and Switzerland.

    • Excluded: For audio-visual and networked resources used for teaching and learning the German language, consult the Center for Language Studies collections (CLS). The Department also has a collection of videos.


  • Areas of Distinction
    The German language collections of the Library are second in size to English language collections with 163,964 volumes in German with many German scientific books and periodicals . In terms of strengths and weaknesses, the Library has a very strong East German literature collection which was built between 1974 and 1989 through an exchange program. The postwar modern literature collection is also excellent since the Library had a comprehensive German literature approval plan. In 1995, the plan became a selective plan in order to permit more purchases of secondary works and the critical editions of major authors. Based upon the broad interests of the faculty, the library has selected materials: from eighteenth and nineteenth century women writers; from contemporary literature of minorities in Germany (particularly the Turks); on Nietzsche; on areas of German Intellectual History and Philosophy; on twentieth and twenty-first century media, particularly digital literature; on disability studies; on the German Democratic Republic; on medieval language and literature, on contemporary Austrian literature, on cultural aspects of Germany, and on Germanic philology. There has also been an emphasis on Yiddish materials which are well supported in Special Collections. The department also supports a Swedish language program.

    Databases which index works by and about German authors are: Xipolis a German language interdisciplinary, full text database that contains reference resources such as a German encyclopedia, a dictionary, a world almanac, and lexicons of literature, music, theater, film, geography, chemistry, physics, and chemistry. A few examples of resources in Xipolis are Brockhaus Enzyklopaedie, Duden--Das grosse Woerterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Baenden, Duden--Das grosse Fremdwoerterbuch, Lexikon der Geowissenschaften, Lexikon der Neurowissenschaft, Das Neue Musiklexikon, Fischer Weltalmanach, Film-Dienst-Lexikon, and many others; Kafkas Werke Current; an electronic version of the critical edition of Kafka's complete works, Franz Kafka, Kritische Ausgabe, Schriften und Tagebücher, of which the first volume was published in 1982. This product makes it possible to search Kafka's complex body of work for his central themes and to follow their development throughout his writings. Databases which index works by and about German authors include the MLA Bibliography, Dissertation Abstracts, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index and WorldCat.


  • Special Collections
    Within Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays there is Yiddish-American poetry, plays, and music. There is also a Yiddish sheet music online exhibit: Further there is a much larger project underway in Digital Initiatives to digitize all the Yiddish Sheet Music. Also within the Harris Collection, there are German language hymnals. And there is a section of dialect poetry and works related to immigrants. For example, Charles Follen Adams. There are also the "Dutch" or German songsters, many associated with performers or dialect specialists, comic plays, such as the Harrigan and Hart comedies of the late 19th century. The Miller Collection has similar humorous texts. Within the Hay Sheet Music collection, in addition to the Yiddish music, there is much music composed by mid-nineteenth century German immigrants. There is also music associated with German singing groups of the period.

    For the historical record, there is Hitler material, in the vault. Within the early printed books. Starred Books, Lownes, History of Science, Smith, and the Annmary Brown Incunables there will be significant holdings of early German imprints. For example: one book is: Valentin Schindler's Lexicon Pentaglotton Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Talmudico-Rabbinicum & Arabicum. This volume, printed in Hanover in 1612, might also be considered Brown's first antiquarian book since it was over 150 years old when given to the library. There are also early German Scientific monographs: See John Stanley's "From Euclid to Newton" that includes information about numerous German and Swiss mathematics imprints. Again for the historical record, in the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, there are numerous volumes from Germany, Austria and Switzerland covering the Napoleonic wars, the War of 1870, World War I and World War II.

  • Related Collections
    The Language Resource Center (LRC) houses a variety of materials such as audio, video, laserdiscs, DVDs, computer software and television news broadcasts and develops electronic resources in the support of the learning and teaching of languages. LRC is affiliated with the Center for Language Studies which "aims to promote the teaching and learning of languages at Brown University."

    The John Carter Brown Library houses extensive holdings in the literature of European exploration and travel in the Western Hemisphere including rare contemporary narratives of German discovery and exploration of the New World. See: Die wunderbare Neue Welt : German books about the Americas in the John Carter Brown Library, 1493-1840 / Ilse E. Kramer, compiler.

    Brown University 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 materials permanently available to scholars researchers. CRL holds a collection of German Drama on microfiche, 592 German Newspapers on microfilm, 4,733 dissertations from German universities some major German historical collections such as German records seized during World War II, German Foreign Ministry Archives 1867-1945, Nazi Party Archives, Official and Personal Papers of the Prussian Military Leaders, and many other collections. For further information check with the Interlibrary Loan Office (Phone: (401) 863-2750; E-mail: Interlibrary_Loan@brown.edu

    The Virginia Baldwin Orwig Music Library located in the eastern part of the Brown University campus supports a Ph.D. program in ethnomusicology and includes recordings of music from various German regions.

    Other collections in the vicinity include the University of Rhode Island Library and the National Yiddish Book Center. The Brown University Library is a member of the Association Research Libraries, German Resource Project.

Illustration: Frontispiece and title page, Volume7, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe's schriften .., Leipzig, Bey George Joachim Göschen, 1787-90 PT1891 .A87 Hay Star