Library Support for Modern Greek
December 8, 1998

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The Library has, historically, provided extensive support for the language and literature programs of the University, and our collections in languages and literatures form a very large part of the Library’s holdings. Measuring, alone, the portion of the collections which are classed in the Library of Congress Classification, the P classes (languages and literatures) hold more than 300,000 titles. This classification includes some disciplines (such as Classics, Egyptology, linguistics) which are not covered in this report, but most of this number is relevant. It should be noted that the title counts include books and serials on or about the particular languages, whether in that language or in English (or other languages). They do not reveal how many books we may have in the specific language (as these books may be on totally unrelated subjects, and not of interest to the program in question)

Modern Greek language and literature is supported by the Library differently from other languages. Although it is taught in the Classics Department it is no longer supported through the funds we use for support of that Department's programs. Rather, since 1996/97, we have been receiving transfers of funds for support of Modern Greek Studies (including history, literature, and other subjects), and we use these funds to support Modern Greek Studies as we would another area studies program (like East Asian Studies, Portuguese & Brazilian Studies, etc.). I should add that we were fortunate to have recently hired a cataloger who has the language ability to select and catalog this material, and who was willing to take on the collection develpment responsibility for this. The Collection Development Librarian for Modern Greek Studies is Linda Ewbank (Box A, x9963, Linda_Ewbank@brown.edu).

These are our expenditures for the past three years:

Before (and even through) 1996/97, this subject was supported, through the various related departments: History, Classics, Comparative Literature, etc. We began to use the new funds only at the end of 1996/97. The 1997/98 figures are not completely accurate. They really only show the total amount spent. We did use these funds to purchase books on our approval plan, but for some reason, these expenditures were not recorded as such. (The approval plan is the method we use to acquire most of the new books from publishers who are distributed in the U.S., i.e., university presses, American and British trade publishers, etc. This does not include much in the area of Modern Greek studies, but there are occasionally translations of modern Greek authors, and some books on modern Greek history.) We also began subscriptions to some serials in 1997/98 (mostly in literature and history), but our general policy for serials is to pay for them on the firm order allocation for the first three years, so serials expenditures will not be shown as such until 2000/01.

The Library's holdings in modern Greek language and literature have increased tremendously in the past two years. When we were first approached by the faculty about building in this area, and provided with the funds, we had almost nothing outside of some translations of well-known Greek writers such as Cavafy and Kazantzakis. As of this month, these are our title counts for this area:

More than 500 of these books are in modern Greek. These collections are being built in close consultation with visiting faculty who are teaching modern Greek literature and history

» William S. Monroe, Head, Collection Development