National Library of Australia


State Library of Queenland collection assessment
Geography & earth sciences

Division Report Comments:

A total of 8873 monographs are held in this division. This represents 2.23% of the 397,000 monographs quoted for State Reference Library and Special Collections in the 1995/96 annual report.

This division overlaps with the division of History and Auxiliary Sciences in the area of Dewey 910-919. In this overlapping area 6987 monographs, that is 78% of the total for the division of Geography and Earth Sciences, are held in the general collection, with 115 items in Reference, that is, 83% of the total Reference holdings for the division.

This division includes two distinct areas - Geography represented largely by Dewey 910-919 - and Earth Sciences.

In both areas coverage is very uneven. For Earth Sciences, Dewey 549-560, there are a number of categories out of scope having little of no material. In the geography/travel areas, took coverage is uneven with poor representation of some areas where good representation could be expected, for example, New Zealand and Canada, and little or no coverage of some other countries.

Collection strength is in the good collections of current travel guides for the United Kingdom and the countries of Europe, North and Central America and "popular" travel destinations in Asia.

Holdings in the Maps Unit of Special Collections and the John Oxley Library have not been considered in this assessment. John Oxley Library with its focus on Queensland history and its role as Legal Deposit Library has significant holdings of works published in or relating to Queensland.

The Maps Unit holds a wide range of maps and atlases covering the world and all its regions, but has particular emphasis on Queensland, Australia and certain regions with close links to Australia. The Unit also has an expanding collection of electronic products including material related to desktop mapping and CD-ROM databases which support the research needs of State Library's clients.

It is Collection Development Policy not to acquire any juvenile literature, school or tertiary curriculum texts or advanced academic research material.

Relevant sections of the following major standard bibliographies have been checked against State library's monographic holdings:

Title Total checked SRL Holdings % Held
Australian National Bibliography 1992-1996

Colliers Encyclopedia

Reader's Adviser (14th ed)

Walford's Guide to Reference Books (11th ed.)

From Stone to Star (1992)

The Dynamic Earth (1995)

The Changing Worlds of Geography (1989)

The Real World (1991)

Geography (1994)

Physical Geography 5th ed. (1991)

1045

424

322

1119

67

172

230

154

653

305

249

171

152

383

21

71

72

66

268

76

24

40

47

34

31
41

31

43

36

25

Serials:

There are 257 open and 533 closed serials subscriptions. Many of these are travel guides, e.g. Fodor's.

Relevant sections of the following bibliographies have been checked against State Library's holdings:

Title Total checked SRL Holdings % Held
Magazines for Libraries (8th ed)

Annotated World List of Selected Current Geographical Serials

Periodicals in Print

35

126

214

9

11

47

26

9

22

Last modified: August 18 2004.