| Library home | Catalogue | Resources | Services | Help | Libraries | About us |
| Staff directory | A-Z index | Site map |
| Library home | Catalogue | Resources | Services | Help | Libraries | About us |
| Staff directory | A-Z index | Site map |
School Geography and Environmental Science1. The SchoolThe Faculty of Arts is one of the largest in the university, in terms of student numbers, and was one of the foundation faculties of Monash University. It offers courses on the Berwick, Caulfield, Clayton and Gippsland campuses in Australia and at the Monash Malaysia and South Africa campuses. The faculty has an enrolment of over 7,400 students, of whom nearly 1,200 are postgraduate. There are 287 academic staff in the faculty. Most honours courses and graduate courses are offered on the Clayton campus. The faculty is structured as eight academic schools, many of which have several departments. The schools are as follows: School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, School of Geography and Environmental Science, School of Historical studies, School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, School of Music-Conservatorium, School of Philosophy and Bioethics and School of Political and Social Inquiry. Some schools incorporate interdisciplinary centres as follows: Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies, National Centre for Australian Studies, Centre for Biography and Life Writing, Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Centre for European Studies, Centre for Human Bioethics, Centre for Japanese Language Education, Australian Centre for the Study of Jewish Civilisation, Research Centre for New Media in Language Learning, Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology, Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research and Centre for Research on Work and Society in the Global Era. The School of Geography and Environmental Science teaches in five major areas in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Science on the Clayton Campus: Australian Indigenous Archaeology, Environment and Society, Geographic Information Science, Human Geography and Physical Geography. Studies are available at undergraduate and postgraduate research level. In 2006 the school will offer first year units on the Berwick campus to support the Bachelor of Regional and Urban Planning. In addition the school offers four postgraduate coursework degrees, Master of Environment and Sustainability, (ME&S); Master of International Development and Environmental Analysis, (MIDEA); Master of Corporate Environmental and Sustainability Management, (MCESM); and Graduate Certificate and Postgraduate Diploma in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). These courses are offered in partnership with government and corporate sectors through Monash Sustainability Enterprises and Monash Environment Institute. Areas of research interest follow the five areas taught in the school. There are a number of associated research centres which enable the school to work with other faculties at Monash or other universities, government departments or research institutes and with the corporate sector. Australian Indigenous Archaeology has strengths in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander archaeology and includes the Australian Indigenous Archaeology research centre. Environment and Society has strengths in environmental policy, corporate environmental management, community based resource management, social roots of environmental issues, religion and ecology. Associated research centres are the Monash Centre for Environmental; Management, the Political Ecology Research Group and the National Urban Water Governance Program Geographic Information Science has strengths in remote sensing, Applied GIS mapping and modelling. Its research centre is Geographic Information Systems. Human Geography has strengths in cultural geography, international development studies, economic geography and urban geography. The School contributes to The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. Physical Geography has strengths in climatology, earth systems science, ecological change and geomorphology. Associated research groups include the Climate Group and the Palynology and Palaeoecology group In March 2004 the school had a student load of 275 EFTSU, of which approximately 73 were postgraduate. There were 31 academic staff in the school. 2. General policy statementThe Collection Development Policy covers printed books and journals, electronic resources, multimedia and any other formats acquired for the Library's collection. The Policy is regularly monitored to ensure that the selection and acquisition of new resources supports the teaching and research needs of the faculties and their departments. While every effort is made to meet known information needs some gaps in the collection may develop which need attention, and suggestions to address them are welcome. This may be done through liaison with library staff or, for individual titles, using the recommendation form at lib.monash.edu.au/forms/acquisition-request.doc To ensure that the library provides collection materials to support new courses and subjects, completion of a Library Impact Statement lib.monash.edu.au/forms/impact.doc is required. When establishing new research directions staff are encouraged to liaise with the library about the provision of supporting information resources. All titles listed as prescribed or recommended reading for teaching subjects are acquired as high priority and in multiple copies depending on student enrolment numbers. This is particularly necessary for undergraduate students, who need access to adequate resources on their home campus. Electronic versions of these texts are also provided where possible, so that access is more readily available regardless of location and number of copies held. The inter-campus loan and photocopy services for undergraduates further support the needs of those students. However, the library cannot acquire every item that could conceivably be needed by Monash staff or students. The reciprocal borrowing scheme enables Monash library users to borrow from other university libraries. Post-graduates and staff may also use the document delivery service to obtain books and articles from other libraries in Australia and overseas. 3. The Library's collectionMaterial bought in support of research and teaching in the School of Geography and Environmental Science is housed in the Matheson library but there are strong collections of relevant material in the Hargrave-Andrew Library. The Matheson Library collection is particularly strong in environmental science, urban geography, rural and regional Australia and international development Geography and travel in particular regions is not a priority for its own sake but there has been great emphasis on the South-east Asian region in the past and there is increasing interest in Africa south of the Sahara a. Location Material acquired to support the courses offered by the School of Geography and Environmental Science is located in the Matheson Library on the Clayton campus. Material on biogeography and palaeoecology is also located in the Hargrave-Andrew Library. Material on tourism and ecotourism is also purchased by the Department of Marketing (Faculty of Business) and is located in the libraries on the Caulfield, Berwick and Gippsland campuses. Significant amounts of material on tourism are also purchased by the Department of Australian Studies, which teaches tourism at postgraduate level on the Clayton campus. Material on energy and the environment, climate and geomorphology is also acquired by departments within the Faculty of Science, and is located mainly in the Hargrave-Andrew Library on the Clayton campus, but also in the Gippsland and Berwick libraries. The Department of Earth Science (Faculty of Science) collects material in the area of palaeontology and fossils, and this material is located in the Hargrave-Andrew Library on the Clayton campus. b. Language The material acquired for the School of Geography and Environmental Science is in the English language. c. Classification used The Library's collections relevant to the School of Geography and Environmental Science are classified using the Dewey Decimal Classification. d. Formats. No format is excluded, although in practice the majority of the collection is monographs or serials, both print and electronic. e. Size of the collection. Estimated number of monograph titles bought in 2004 was 4,360 Number of print serial titles received : approx 120 f. Significant electronic resources The Library is purchasing increased numbers of resources in electronic format, including networked or internet databases, full text resources including suites of electronic journals from particular publishers and electronic books from suppliers such as NetLibrary . CD-ROM databases that are only accessible within a particular branch library are increasingly rare. An increasing proportion of the budget for library material for the Faculty of Arts is spent on these resources Resources include: Online encyclopedias
Indexing and abstracting services
Fulltext databases or electronic journal suites include:
Subject gateways include the library subject pages for geography and environmental science, international development and atmospheric sciences. All can be found from the Library home page under Subject guides. 20% of the library materials budget for the Faculty of Arts is spent on serials, and more than 15% on electronic resources. g. Coverage of the collectionThe library resources acquired for the School cover in general those areas of the Dewey Decimal Classification concerned with economic geography, archaeology, the environment, climate, urban and rural development and international development. The main areas of collecting for the School of Geography and Environmental Science are detailed below
Material bought to support research and teaching in the School of Geography and Environmental Science is housed in the Matheson Library, but there are also strong collections in the Hargrave-Andrew Library, purchased to support research and teaching interests of departments within the faculties of Science and Engineering. The Matheson collection is particularly strong in environmental science, urban geography, rural and regional Australian development and international development. 4. Other significant Monash collections or resourcesArts Imaging : The School of Geography and Environmental Science has available a photography, processing and printing service for Monash University Faculty of Arts and other business units. Its archive includes images of the university from the 1960sCartographic Services : The School possesses an extensive range of maps and aerial photographs. Approximately 35,000-40,000 maps are held, covering Australian topographical maps; Australian geological maps; world coverage in 1:5m and 1:1m topographic maps, with a varying coverage of most countries at more detailed scales; approximately 500,000 aerial photographs giving a 95% coverage of Australia and mostly dating from the 1960s-70s; and a collection of atlases, Land Conservation Council reports, salinity reports and other sets of publications. Cartographic Services, provides a design service for the schools of the Faculty of Arts Hargrave Map Collection : A valuable adjunct to the collections in geography is the map collection in the Hargrave-Andrew Library. The focus of this collection is on Australian geological material, topographic material and thematic material in the form of maps, atlases, gazetteers and reports. Some material is also collected from other parts of the world. Collections Table
Amendment history Need help? Library frequently asked questions and online
enquiries: current students/staff | public users, online chat,
or phone +61 3 9905 5054 |