Collection Development Policy: Religious Studies
  • Subject Librarian(s):
    William Monroe

  • Departmental Library Representative (DLR):
    Stanley Stowers

  • Description of the Academic Program | Home Page
    At the undergraduate level, the Department of Religious Studies teaches the religious traditions of the entire world, from antiquity to the present, as well as the study of religion as a cultural phenomenon. In addition, the Department offers Ph.D. studies in four areas: Ancient Judaism, Early Christianity, Religion and Critical Thought and a new program, Religion, Comparison and Culture. The interests of the Department overlap with those of other departments and programs within the University, especially Philosophy, Classics, History, Anthropology, and all of the area studies programs.



  • Overview of the Collection
    The Brown University Library holds collections of major strength in the field of religious studies, especially for those subjects serving the graduate programs: ancient and Rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, and modern religious thought. Much of the collecting for other religious traditions is done in support of related area studies programs: Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian Studies. More recently, we have been building the collections on Islam, particularly Islamic law. Our collections on Eastern religious traditions (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism) are at Study level, i.e., adequate to support teaching at the undergraduate level. There are some strengths here beyond the undergraduate level, however, because of the existence of other related programs and interests in the University, especially History of Mathematics and East Asian Studies. Our strongest collections are in those serving the study of ancient and Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. We have research level collections on the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, as well as in early Christian literature and history. We hold the major collections of sources in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Coptic and other relevant languages, as well as the major journals and monographic series in these fields.



  • General Collecting Guidelines
    We make an effort to collect all important scholarship on religion published in English and, to a lesser extent, in other western European languages (especially French, German, and Italian). In those areas for which we collect at the research level (see the table below), we try to have the major sources in the original languages, as well as secondary scholarship in relevant modern languages. This is a field in which texts are the major object of scholarship, and it is important to have critical editions, as well as translations, commentaries, concordances and other tools to aid the scholar. More and more of these texts and tools are becoming available in electronic form, and we make every effort to obtain access to them.

  • Detailed Subject Breakdown

  • Specific Collecting Guidelines
    • Language: Western European languages, and languages of sources (Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Classical Syriac, Latin, Arabic, Sanskrit, etc.), other languages as appropriate.
    • Chronological Span: Ancient to modern.
    • Types of Material Included: Books, journals, electronic formats, DVD. Excluded: Textbooks, ephemera.


  • Areas of Distinction
    Religions of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East

  • Special Collections
    Early printed books Medieval manuscripts Occult Alcohol and Temperance

  • Related Collections
    Teaching and research in Religious Studies are supported mainly by the collections classed in BL-BX (religion) of the Library of Congress Classification, although they are also served by collections in philosophy, psychology, history, languages (especially classical and Semitic). It is important to note that these other fields are also served by the collections shelved in BL-BX. The Library’s Special Collections hold many rare books and manuscripts of possible interest for the study of religion, including manuscripts and early printed books, as well as some of the specialized named subject collections (see: http://dl.lib.brown.edu/collatoz/)