Detailed Selection Criteria I. Characteristics of the Community History is offered as a subject of undergraduate at all University of Connecticut campuses, but upper division course work is concentrated at Storrs. Regional Campus acquisitions in history are limited to instructional support. The graduate program is centered at Storrs and most students, whether resident or commuter, rely on physical access to Babbidge Library for the period of their course work. Current Patterns of Information Service A. Characteristics of the Literature Historians require more monographs and published primary source materials than any other discipline. Only a small percentage of historical literature loses a substantial part of its value over time.
Most monographs remain obligatory points of reference for decades.
Source materials are never superseded, though some lose evidentiary salience or fall out of favor. For this reason, an ownership and access plan for history must encompass preservation decision making as well as robust current and retrospective acquisitions strategies. Because of the long half-life of historical literature, the radically decreased inventory carried by contemporary publishers, and our recognition that both instructors and the topics of instruction change, we have typically bought more books in more areas of history than the needs of instructional support have required. At the same time, we have had to be selective. In those areas that are not actively taught acquisitions are largely limited to synthetic surveys and monographs with comparative import.