Collection Policies

At the undergraduate level, a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Health is offered. The curriculum encompasses a variety of disciplines aimed at preparing environmental health specialists and industrial hygienists. At the graduate level, the Master of Science—Community Health Major with an Environmental Health emphasis area is offered. Within this graduate program, a student may choose to concentrate on general environmental health, industrial hygiene or hazardous materials management.

Among areas of interest in this program are general environmental health, administration and law, air pollution and control, communicable diseases and their control, ecological risk analysis, epidemiology and biostatistics, food and milk protection, food microbiology, hazardous materials, hazardous waste management, industrial hygiene, occupational safety, residential and institutional housing in re: human health, sampling and analysis of chemical agents in the environment, vector control, and water and waste water technology.

It is the goal of the library to develop collections which support this curriculum, as well as the research needs of the faculty.

Language: English will be the exclusive language for materials in the collection. Included will be materials originally published in English as well as materials translated into English.

Chronological guidelines: Current research is the exclusive emphasis. There is no need to acquire historical material, since such resources are available through the Center for Research Libraries, if needed.

Geographical guidelines: The greatest emphasis should be on materials published in the United States. Publications from other technologically-advanced countries will also be considered.

Treatment of subject: Works dealing with methods used in environmental health, as well as those works pertaining to education, administration, law, and standards, will be acquired for both the general collection and the reference collection. Theoretical, historical, and biographical treatments will be acquired selectively.

Types of material: Both monographs and serial publications, including handbooks, standards, regulations, conference proceedings and other collected works, will be acquired. Print and electronic formats will be collected; however, microforms will only be acquired for certain back issues of serials.

Date of publication: Current materials will be acquired. Only material published within the past five years will be considered.

Other general considerations:

• Related subject policy statements:

Biological Sciences
Chemical Sciences
Community Health Professions
Geological Sciences
Medical Laboratory Sciences
Nursing
• Area library resources: The Eastern Virginia Medical School’s Moorman Memorial Library has a collection of books and journals which are accessible to Old Dominion University students; its online catalog will likely be on the World Wide Web by June 1998.
• Center for Research Libraries (CRL) holdings: CRL’s pertinent collections consist of approximately 300 titles related to all aspects of environmental health, many of them published in countries other than the United States. Old Dominion University Library is affiliated with CRL, whose holdings are available on extended loan to ODU faculty and students.
• Virtual Library of Virginia resources: Three database suppliers—FirstSearch (OCLC), InfoTrac (IAC), and Cambridge Scientific—provide access to relevant databases, including the Health Reference Center, Medline, and Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management, which includes twelve subfiles that can be searched independently. The subfiles include Pollution Abstracts, Risk Abstracts, Water Resources Abstracts and Health & Safety Sciences Abstracts. Full-text articles from certain journals related to environmental health are available though InfoTrac’s Health Reference Center and Academic Press Ideal. Among the most relevant of these full-text journals is Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety.
• Government publications: The ODU Library’s web site provides access to Virginia information (Department of Health Professions, Department of Health, etc.) and to U.S. federal information. MARCIVE and the ODU Library catalog identify federal government titles within our collection related to environmental health topics; these catalogs can be searched by subject, keyword, agency, etc. Notable among federal agencies publishing much important material for environmental health are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Department of Transportation (DOT).
• Distance education considerations: Although no environmental health courses are currently offered through TELETECHNET, the hazardous waste management courses are offered at the Virginia Beach Center.

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