Popular treatments are acquired very selectively. The following topics pertain to the study of social welfare and form core, curricular specific areas, for which the collection level is almost at the Research Level. According to the Research Libraries Group, a Research Level collection is one that includes the major published source materials required for dissertation and independent research, including materials containing research reporting, new findings, scientific experimental results, and other information useful to researchers. It is intended to include all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs, as well as a very extensive collection of journals and major indexing and abstracting services in the field. Pertinent foreign language materials are included.
Older material is retained for historical research and actively preserved.
A collection at this level supports doctoral and other original research. Declining acquisition budgets and dramatically increased costs in serial subscriptions has made it difficult to maintain an on-site Research Level collection as defined above. No longer collected are some peripheral journals, newsletters, digests, and foreign language materials. New periodical subscriptions are severely restricted. Increased electronic access and interlibrary networking, and concomitant interlibrary loan and coordinated collection development has in the case of social welfare allowed the University Libraries to continue to support doctoral level research and original research in social welfare.