However, since the focus of the discipline is nothing less than the study of humankind, anthropological literature is used by a broad constituency, and supporting anthropological research and teaching implies a comprehensive and complex approach. The Department, which offers M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, defines its interests broadly, citing archaeology, biological anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology. However, a perusal of faculty interests breaks these basic categories into a wide variety of specialties including, area studies, history of anthropology, applied anthropology, social organization, psychological anthropology, comparative religion, women's studies, economic anthropology, expressive culture, urban studies, and visual anthropology. The anthropology collections also support research and teaching in history and art history and in the Archaeology and American Indian Programs. Because of the breadth of the field and the interests of the faculty, coordination between a number of campus selectors is a must.
Geographical coverage is irrelevant to anthropology.
However, the activities of other selectors, cited in the coodination section above, focus the Anthropology bibliographer's activities on the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Because of the absence of an Oceania selector at Cornell and consistent with the Department's interest in the area, the Anthropology bibliographer is the principal selector of materials from the region. Similar circumstances apply to Gypsies in Western Europe. Anthropological collections have a series of particular characteristics. Because of the centrality of field work to the discipline, anthropology collections stress report literature published by university departments, research bureaus, scholarly societies, etc., outside the mainstream of scholarly monographs and journals.