University of Michigan-Flint

The Women's & Gender Studies division is not a division of the WLN conspectus. It was created to measure how well the collection supports the curriculum of the Women's & Gender Studies program, which offers an undergraduate minor.

Because it is an interdisciplinary program, relevant books and other materials are found throughout the collection. It is therefore difficult if not impossible to gauge the number of titles that would be appropriate. The assessment of the collection relies on the percentage of holdings from bibliographies.

Monographs. The Library collection holds 51% of the titles sampled from MacLam, Choice Reviews in Women's Studies, 1990-1996 (American Library Association: 1997), and 44% of the titles from Loeb, Searing, & Stineman, Women's Studies: A Recommended Core Bibliography, 1980-1985 (Libraries Unlimited: 1987), both covering a variety of disciplines. This is quite adequate to support an undergraduate minor program.

Acquisitions. The Women's & Gender Studies program does not have its own allocation for library acquisitions. Rather, it benefits from the acquisitions of regular departments and reference and librarians' budgets.

Periodicals. The Library has a print subscription to Women Studies Abstracts, and access via FirstSearch to Contemporary Women's Issues. There are 27 Wilson-indexed periodical titles pertinent to women's studies, gender studies, and feminism. The Library has paper subscriptions to 5 (19%=2a) and web access to 9 more (52% total=3a).

The Wilson-indexed periodicals mentioned above come from several disciplines. If the Library and the various academic departments that have serials allocations were able to increase the number of subscriptions (or gain electronic access to more periodicals), it is likely that the number of women's studies titles would also increase.

Recommendations. The periodicals deficit is the product of the overall weakness of the serials budget for the departments and for the Library's acquisition fund. This deficit could be corrected either by creating a separate fund for the Women's & Gender Studies program or by maintaining the current structure, but increasing funding for all the existing funds. The latter option seems more appropriate for the time being, especially because the Library is already acquiring a comfortably adequate number of books on women's and gender studies. This option depends, of course, on the Library's being able to secure increased funding, especially for periodicals. If extra funding does not come through, or if it does but the number of subscriptions to women's studies periodicals does not increase enough, then a separate fund should be considered.

Sources consulted: WSRC, CRWS

Prepared by Paul G. Streby, in consultation with Prof. Peggy Kahn.

0 -- Out of scope

1 -- Minimal level
1a ---- Minimal level, uneven coverage
1b ---- Minimal level, even coverage

2 -- Basic information level
2a ---- Basic information level, Introductory
2b ---- Basic information level, Advanced (Appropriate for community college students)

3 -- Study or instructional support level
3a ---- Basic study or instructional support level (Adequate to support lower division undergraduate courses)
3b ---- Intermediate study or instructional support level (Adequate to support upper division undergraduate courses; not adequate for master's degree programs)
3c ---- Advanced study or instructional support level (Adequate to support master's degree programs)

4 -- Research level (Adequate to support doctoral research)

5 -- Comprehensive level