Library Course Assessment for
Earth Sciences 105
October 7, 2004
revised August 18th 2005
Introduction | Monographs | Serials | Bibliographic Tools | Costs
Introduction
This is the Library’s assessment for EASC 105 Geology and the Environment. This course will first be offered at the Surrey campus in 2006-3 and at least once every 3 semesters thereafter. It is planned as a designated breadth course, with an expected enrolment of 80-100 students. This assessment considers the resources required to support this course at the SFU Surrey campus.
Monographs
The course textbook is not in the Surrey Library collection. Based on the expected enrollment, 2 copies of the course text will be required for course reserve.
Environmental Geology / Murck, B., Skinner, B., Porter, S.BJ Skinner. Wiley. 0471310336. 1996. $42
One-time cost: $84
A core collection of books on the topics of this course should also be acquired for the Surrey collection. This subject is currently not within collecting scope for Surrey. For example, the Library of Congress Subject Heading “Geology,” which applies to the course text and many other titles treating the course material at an introductory level, retrieves 573 books in the SFU catalogue system-wide (including sub-headings), but none at Surrey. Other holdings were analyzed using sample LC Subject Headings and are listed below. Surrey holdings are listed first, and total SFU holdings in brackets. These include only the books on the main headings, not the sub-headings associated with each.
Atmosphere 0 [42]
Biosphere 0 [24]
Climatic changes 0 [128]
Earth 0 [47]
Earthquakes 0 [44]
Geology 0 [573]
Landslides 0 [16]
Overpopulation 1 [14]
Plate tectonics 0 [45]
Sustainable development 6 [464]
Volcanoes 0 [77]
Water 0 [55]
A core collection of 20 books should be established in support of this course. At an average book price of $105, this represents a one-time cost of $2100. This will include adding a few titles to the reference collection at Surrey for use by students requiring background and definitions to pursue course readings, such as basic encyclopedias and dictionaries of Earth Sciences.
There will also be a need to add a small number of new titles each year to maintain the currency of the collection. 5 x $105 = $525/year
Serials
The Library’s electronic journals in Earth Sciences are available to students at the Surrey campus. For an introductory Earth Sciences course, this, along with the Library’s collection of electronic journals in Science, will provide adequate access to journal literature.
Bibliographic Tools
The primary tool for students in this course will be GeoRef, already accessible at the Surrey campus by SFU-wide license. Other secondary sources are similarly already available, such as GeoBase, General Science Indexes and Web of Science.
Costs
One-time cost: $2184
Ongoing cost: $525/year
These costs will be covered by designated funding for the Surrey Library collection. There is no cost to the Department of Earth Sciences.