SFU Library Geography collections policy

The Department of Geography at SFU offers undergraduate and graduate training leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy. Major areas of study in the department include spatial information science, computer cartography and remote sensing, biogeography, geomorphology, climatology, urban geography, economic geography, and social-cultural geography.

Research by faculty and graduate students can, for the sake of simplicity, be divided into three streams - human, physical and spatial information science. Areas of research are:

Human Geography:

• Economic geography: the local/regional impact of economic structure on resource-based communities, resource and environmental issues associated with food production, water resource management and agricultural land use, labour, and theories and strategies of development. Much of this research has been carried on in the context of British Columbia and Canada, but the department also has a growing interest in international aspects of geographical development, particularly in the context of Western North America, the Pacific Rim and Latin America.

• Social-cultural and political geography: interrelationships between geography and law; urbanization and the geography of housing; landscape interpretation; tourism and community development; health and social policy; urban politics; environmental politics; tactile mapping; migration and settlement patterns; emotional geographies; gender relations and the environment; and consumer culture and the social production of space.

Physical Geography:

• Biogeography is the study of the geographical distributions of organisms and their habitats, and the evolutionary, ecological and historical factors which control them.

• Biogeochemistry is concerned with ecosystem-scale investigations of the cycling of nutrient-elements through aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and their potential control of ecosystem structure and function, with emphasis on the interactions among biological, hydrological, and geological factors.

• Soil science research at SFU focuses on nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems; forest soils, particularly the influences of management practices on fertility; and applications of Geographic Information Systems in resource management.

• Research in climatology and hydrology at SFU focuses on the physical controls on energy and water cycling, particularly in the atmospheric boundary layer and the shallow subsurface.

• Geomorphology: glacial geomorphology, sedimentology and processes, fluvial geomorphology and sedimentology, subsurface architecture and depositional environments of deltas and wandering gravel-bed rivers; analysis of modern basin fills.

Spatial Information Science:

• Geographic Information Systems, Remote Sensing, Spatial Statistics, Cartography, Geographic Information Science, Geographic visualization/Geovizualization, Spatial Cognition, Spatial Modeling, GeoComputation, GeoSimulation.

Collection development is the responsibility of the Geography Liaison Librarian. Liaison with the Geography Department is maintained through the Departmental Representative(s) as well as with other faculty members when required. Regular contact with other liaison librarians and teaching departments is nurtured through the sharing of relevant review material.

Interdisciplinary Relationships

Centre for Sustainable Community Development – an interdisciplinary program in which Geography participates.
Department of Earth Sciences
School of Resource and Environmental Management
Department of Economics
Department of History
Department of Political Science
Urban Studies Program

SFU Library Resources

The WAC Bennett Library is the major location for the University’s Geography collection. Belzberg Library, at the SFU Vancouver Campus, has a small collection – chiefly of Urban Studies material. SFU's Surrey Library has additional Spatial Information Systems materials. The RDL/Map Library houses print maps, atlases, aerial photos, digital maps and data sets.

Regional Resources

The UBC Library has a large collection in all areas of Geography. The Geographic Information Center in the Geography Building at UBC houses an important collection of aerial photographs.

Consortia and Document Delivery

SFU belongs to three consortia (Electronic Library Network; Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries; and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries). Document delivery agreements exist with all three of these consortia, which allow delivery of journal articles and books from these libraries in a timely manner. Holdings and direct requesting from over 40 libraries are accessible through the Interlibrary Loan web page and from many databases.

General Collection Guidelines:

Languages:  the emphasis is on the acquisition of materials in English.
Chronological guidelines:  the emphasis is on contemporary material, except for Historical Geography and History of Geography, which cover all time periods.
Geographical guidelines:  emphasis is on British Columbia, western United States, and Canada – particularly Western Canada.  Materials on Latin America and the Asia Pacific are important in some areas.
Treatment of subject:  all treatments except clinical and religious aspects.
Types of materials:  collecting is split between books and journals. There is an emphasis on e-journals and web resources.
Date of Publication:  emphasis is on current publications. Retrospective acquisitions are normally only for replacement of important titles which have deteriorated or disappeared.
Coordination and cooperation with other campus resources:  GIS and Maps/Research Data Library.
Other factors for consideration:  none at this time.

Subjects and Levels of Collecting

The following table lists the main subjects collected by the SFU Library in support of the Geography teaching areas and research interests. Subjects are those used on the selection profiles we have with our distributors. The subjects listed are collected to varying depths. The method in which the library selects books on each subject is listed in the second column of the table. A designation of “Books” in this column means that items which fit the General Guidelines (above) for the subject in question are sent on an approval basis to the library. In such cases, a significant portion of the books on that topic will be acquired for the collection. A designation of “Forms,” on the other hand, means that only brief descriptions of the books on the subject in question are sent to the library. The liaison librarian, often with the assistance of the department or faculty representative or other faculty members, then selects the relevant items for acquisition by the library.