Collection Policies

Computer Science

PURPOSE

The mission of the Department of Computer Science is to teach and conduct research in computer science and to provide service to Old Dominion University, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the United States of America, and the international community. The faculty of the Department of Computer Science offers programs of study that produce graduates with Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Master of Science (M.S.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in computer science, conducts research in computer science and publishes results of that research in the open scientific and engineering literature, and teaches courses in computer science required by students seeking degrees in other departments and disciplines within Old Dominion University.  High performance computing and communications, broadly interpreted in all of its computer science, computational science, and information science aspects has been designated by the University as one of five strategic areas favored for development to a level of national prominence. 

The library’s computer science collection must support faculty and graduate student research in that discipline, as well as related information systems and engineering fields.  The computer science collection also supports undergraduate instruction in computer science and selected engineering, information systems, business, and education disciplines.   

GENERAL COLLECTING GUIDELINES

Language Guidelines :

Material purchased in computer science is in English.  The library occasionally purchases dictionaries of scientific terminology in foreign languages.

Chronological Treatment of Subject Guidelines :

Computer science developed as an outgrowth of mathematics and electrical engineering in the mid 20^th century.  Most computer science materials purchased by the library relate to developing research areas.  Materials relating to the social/cultural aspects of computing, the history of computing, and biographical materials on significant figures in the field are acquired selectively.

Geographical Guidelines :

Most computer science materials purchased by the library are produced by publishers and professional societies based in North America and Europe.  Nonetheless, Computer science is a worldwide field and the library may selectively purchase English language materials from other geographic areas.

Treatment of Subject:

The library collects scholarly and professional computer science materials in both theoretical and applied areas. 

Types of Material :

The library purchases monographs, journals, conference/symposia proceedings and videos/DVDs.  Textbooks and programming language manuals (C++, Basic, Fortran, etc) may be acquired if they have potential application to students in a number of different courses/disciplines.  The library does not collect software, which is usually purchased and distributed over the campus network by the Office of Computing and Communications Services. 

Date of Publication :

The library purchases new materials in computer science.  Older materials may be selectively purchased to fill gaps in the collection if requested by faculty or library bibliographers.

Other General Considerations :

Interdisciplinary Relationships / Related Policy Statements:

Related collection development policies are information systems; decision sciences; computer and electrical engineering; mathematics/statistics; library and information science.

Local/Regional/Consortia Resources:

The computer science program at ODU maintains close ties with NASA Langley.  They also partner with the computer science programs at University of Virginia and Virginia Tech in administering the Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library (http://www.ncstrl.org/), a digital library of technical reports. 

Virtual Library of Virginia:

VIVA subscribes to the ACM Digital Library and Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (which includes Computer and Information Systems Abstracts, and Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts).  VIVA’s subscriptions to online journal collections from Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Elsevier Science Direct include a number of fulltext computer science journals. 

Government Publications:

Technical reports from NASA and other governmental agencies are important to faculty and graduate student computer science research.  The library receives some of these reports through participation in the Federal Depository Library Program, and can access others through web-based technical report collections or the National Technical Information Service.

Distance Education:

The CS Department is using Internet technology to develop and deliver a complete upper-division distance education program leading to a B.S. in Computer Science. According to data acquired from the University Planning & Institutional Research office, four degrees have been awarded through this program to date. 

Summary of Collection Strengths and Weaknesses

A collection assessment of the library computer science collection was carried out in 2002.  The journal collection includes most of the titles heavily cited by faculty and graduate students.  However, crucial journals and proceedings published by the IEEE are not currently available to the ODU community in online form.  Online access to the IEEE digital collections would benefit both computer science and engineering programs at the university.  The book collection has primarily grown through the library’s approval plan and would benefit from increased selection by faculty and library bibliographers. 

COLLECTING CODES

Discipline: Computer Science
Bibliographer: Stuart Frazer
Date: 8/02

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