Library Support for Language and Literature Units
December 9, 1998

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General Introduction
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 particular language (as these books may be on totally unrelated subjects, and not of interest to the program in question)

As background to some of the information presented here, I should say something about how various subjects are treated by the Library. Budget allocation, and the tracking of expenditures, are generally done according to departments, programs, and centers of the University. Thus, our support of such subjects as English, French, and German is easy to determine in terms of both expenditures and number of titles in the collections (because the subject is classed in readily determined LC classes). Some of our language and literature programs, however, are part of a larger area studies program, and there is no way for us to determine how much of the expenditure was for literature, and how much for history, political science, and other subjects within the program’s compass. This will be true for East Asian Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Judaic Studies, Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, and Modern Greek Studies. For these subjects, we can only report the total expenditure, though we will report only the language and literature portion of the library’s holdings. On the other hand, our expenditures for Sanskrit are included in the allocation for the Classics Department, and so are not included here.

Selection of the resources for these different programs is done by some 10 librarians, each responsible for one or more programs. It should also be said that, although the Library makes such assignments by academic unit, there is no such assignment for the Center for Language Study. Material to support the languages taught through the Center is generally purchased through the allocation for some other academic unit, such as Comparative Literature, Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences, or with the Library’s interdisciplinary fund. I have made a point of acquiring newer grammars and dictionaries in any of the world's languages, whether these are taught here or not. Ideally, collections are built and maintained according to the needs of the Library's users, and we often respond to requests for material from faculty, graduate students and undergraduates. Most of the consultation, however, is with faculty, and it is often assumed that they are the indicators of the needs of the other constituents. This again has an impact for any support we might provide for the Center for Language Study, since we have no direct relations with its programs

In fiscal 1997/98, the Library spent some $293,054 to support these programs. Here is the breakdown:

• French  
• German  
• Russian (Slavic Studies) - Includes Czech language and literature 
• Spanish (Hispanic Studies)  
• Italian Studies  
• Portuguese & Brazilian Studies  
• East Asian Studies - Includes Chinese/Japanese/ Korean languages and literatures 
• Comparative Literature  
• Center for Language Study - Includes Hindi/Urdu and Swedish
• Arabic  
• Modern Greek  
• Sanskrit  
• Hebrew (Judaic Studies)