School of Historical Studies

1. The School

The School of Historical Studies offers subjects in the disciplines of history, archaeology and ancient history, in religion and theology, and in the fields of Jewish civilisation, comparative religion, medieval and renaissance studies, military history and Australian and Asian studies. Honours programs are available in history, Jewish civilisation, archaeology and ancient history, and  in religion and theology.

The School is made up of two departments and two centres – Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Department of History , the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation and the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology as well as The Institute for Public History.  The School has a student load of 1542 FTSU, of which approximately 112 is postgraduate. There are 48 (FTE) academic staff in the school.

Archaeology and Ancient History : The culture, history and legacy of the key civilisations examined include those of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, the Hittites, Israel, Minoan Crete, Mycenaean and classical Greece, Persia, Rome and especially Egypt Research strengths in the department include settlement and mortuary archaeology with specific reference to the Predynastic Period – Old Kingdom, the New Kingdom and the Roman Period, both within the Nile Valley and the Saharan Region; ceramic studies; ancient technology; numismatics; and the archaeology of early Christianity. The application of scientific techniques to the study of archaeological material, along with virtual computer reconstruction, is also encouraged.

History : Areas covered include Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East, 20^th century United States, American Civil War, Jewish history and public history. Teaching at Caulfield covers World War II, Holocaust, 20th century Middle Eastern, Australian Aboriginal history and 20^th century Australian history. At Berwick, a unit on the heritage industry is offered. Specific research strengths include indigenous history and the history of racial and ethnic relations; the history of gender and sexuality, especially in Australia, Britain and Europe during the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries; Australian social and cultural history, especially urban history, local history, education and social welfare; South and Southeast Asian history, the history of imperialism, colonialism and post-colonialism; European social history, especially French history, German history, renaissance studies, urban history, family history and the intellectual history of religion and belief in medieval and early modern Europe; military history; Jewish history; and oral history, memory, biography and life writing.

History on the Gippsland campus is taught through the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences, and Australia, Asian and U.S. history subjects are offered. The Gippsland campus also accommodates the Centre for Gippsland Studies, which undertakes teaching and research into local (Gippsland) history.

Jewish civilisation : The Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation offers courses in Jewish studies to postgraduate level and sequences in Hebrew and Yiddish language and literature. 

Religion and Theology : The Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology offers sequences in religious studies and theology. Research strengths include historical, literary and contemporary (post-modern) approaches to the study of religious questions, particularly in the areas of ancient and medieval religious traditions, religion and society, contemporary hermeneutics, gender studies, environmental thought, philosophical theology, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity

2. General policy statement

The 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 collection

a. Location

Material acquired for the School of Historical Studies is located in the Matheson Library on the Clayton campus, with collections to support teaching at the Caulfield and Berwick campuses. There is also significant material located in the Rare Books collection and the microform collection. Asian history material in the vernacular purchased for the School of Asian Languages and Studies is housed in the Asian Studies Research Library. The School of Asian Languages and Studies also purchases English-language historical surveys of Asian civilisations, as well as subjects which explore the history of Indonesia, Japan, China and Korea.

Material is also purchased by the departments of the School of European Languages and Cultures which supports the teaching of European history, in particular French, German and Italian historical periods. This material is located in the Matheson Library.

Materials in the areas of U.S., Australian and Asian history are purchased for the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences for the Gippsland campus. The Centre for Gippsland Studies, located on the Gippsland campus, collects comprehensively in the area of local (Gippsland) history.

Courses offered by the Department of Politics are often underpinned by the historical context of the period, and so material acquired by the department is of relevance to the Department of History.

The Centre for Indigenous Australian Studies collects material in the area of Australian Aboriginal history that is relevant to the courses offered by the Department of History.

The Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation and the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology also purchase material on Judaism and comparative religion.

b. Language

While the majority of the material acquired for the School is in the English language, items in French, German and Italian are purchased to support research. Items in Hebrew and Yiddish are purchased to support the teaching of  language studies at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation.

c. Classification used

Material acquired for the School of Historical Studies is classified using the Dewey Decimal system.

d. Formats

No format is excluded, although in practice the majority of the collection is monographs or serials, both print and electronic. There is a large collection of videorecordings and DVD's to support courses offered by the Department of History.

e. Size of the collection.

Estimated number of monograph volumes purchased per annum : History, est 3,700

Number of print serial titles received : Approximately 65 for Archaeology, and 165 for History.

The Monash University Library is a repository for the Eighteenth Century microfilm collection, now available online, which contains every notable item printed in any language in Great Britain and its colonies and English-language items printed anywhere in the world between 1701-1800.

f. Significant electronic resources

The Library continues to purchase resources in electronic format, including networked or internet databases, and full text resources, including suites of electronic journals. Relevant databases are listed.
Online subject guides :

• History

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 collection

The library resources acquired for the School cover in general those areas of the Dewey Decimal Classification emphasising ancient civilisations, the 930s, history, 940-999, Jewish religion and culture, and religion, the 200s.

The main areas of collecting for Archaeology are detailed below

The Matheson Library collects in the origins of the cultures of the Mediterranean, especially Egypt and including Israel, with an emphasis on the social, cultural, political, religious and economic issues as they occurred and their influence on modern thought. The research areas currently focus on the Dakhleh Oasis, Kellis, numismatics, ceramics, aspects of urbanism in the Dakhleh Oasis, private religion in the New Kingdom and the Egyptian army

The main areas of collecting for History are detailed below

The Matheson Library supports a strong microform research collection of primary source material in many fields in the discipline where there is research interest, with particular strengths in the history of Southeast Asia and the Eighteenth Century in general. A number of historic Australian and overseas newspaper files and significant governmental publications are held, such as the British House of Commons sessional papers. The Library has a strong collection of U.S. State Department files and records and British documents on foreign affairs.

Australian history : The Matheson Library collects extensively in Australian history, with an emphasis on social, cultural and urban aspects, catering to a variety of undergraduate programs as well as a strong core of postgraduate research in these areas. The history of immigration from 1788 to the present and the ethnic experience and multiculturalism is an area of significance, as is the history of the Australian people in the context of social and economic change from the colonial period up to the twentieth century. Australian Aboriginal history from the period of first contact between indigenous peoples and Europeans from 1770 is an important area of collection, as is the relationship between Australia and the British Empire. The history of Australian popular culture through many forms of leisure pursuits and the material culture of workplace, home and garden are important areas of collection as is the history of urban change in Australian cities and feminism.

The Caulfield Library maintains a teaching level collection in twentieth century Australian history.

Asian history : The Matheson Library collects in various areas of Asian history to support teaching and research programs. The Library collects in the history of Asian civilisation from the pre-modern period to the present day. There is particular emphasis on the history of Vietnam since 1945, colonial India, traditional and modern China, Southeast Asia and modern Indonesia, early and modern Japan, Cambodia, and Thailand.  The collection of research materials in Southeast Asian history is particularly strong for Indonesia and the Vietnam War.

The Caulfield Library has a collection in the history of Japan which is no longer maintained.

Modern European history : The Matheson Library collects very broadly in modern European history to cater for a variety of teaching programs and research interests. The Library collects material on the cultural and social history of Renaissance Europe, with particular emphasis on the Italian Renaissance and especially the history of Renaissance Florence, and on the history of Western European culture and society from 1750 to the contemporary period. The Library collects in the history of France from the French Revolution through to the First World War, the history of Germany from 1815 to the contemporary period. The collection in modern European history is fairly even across these areas of interest at the teaching level. Research collections and more detailed monographs both in English and in French, German and Italian languages are purchased to support the period of the French Revolution, twentieth century German history and the history of Renaissance Florence as appropriate.

American history : The publication of scholarly works in American history in general is enormous, and the Matheson Library can only hope to purchase a small fraction of publications in the field. Despite this, there is a good collection across a wide range of subjects. Collection emphasis is on the social, economic and political history of the period 1760-1877, especially the Civil War.

British history : The Matheson Library collects in many periods and themes in British history in varying degrees. Basic collections are maintained for all periods except for the twentieth century post-war period, in which there is minimal collection. There is a much stronger collection in eighteenth and nineteenth century British history. The eighteenth century is well represented in research collections and the nineteenth century collection supports both teaching programs and research particularly Victorian London. The publication in nineteenth century British history is significant and the Library collects extensively in social and political aspects, especially the history of the Empire in relation to Australia.

Middle Eastern history: A collection of monographs, videos and DVD's is being developed in the area of 20th century Middle Eastern history to support newly developed units being taught at Clayton and Caulfield campuses. 

Medieval history : The Matheson Library collects broadly in the history of medieval Europe to support teaching programs, with particular emphasis on social, gender, music, popular culture and religious aspects and on the cultural activities of 'the twelfth-century renaissance' in France, England and the Rhineland 1070-1170. A very good research monograph collection is maintained in English, French, German and Italian on medieval religious and intellectual history.

History of war and genocide : The Library collects extensively in the history of World War II to support a strong teaching program at Clayton and Caulfield. Both campus Libraries collect monographs on the key aspects of the war, with the Matheson Library collecting a larger number of appropriate titles. Both the Matheson Library and the Caulfield Library maintain a good video/DVD collection for this subject. A good collection is maintained at the Matheson Library on the history of the Holocaust. The Caulfield Library maintains a teaching level collection in the history of the Holocaust. The Matheson Library collects in the history of modern warfare in Europe and the United States from the eighteenth century onwards and a basic collection is maintained on the history of World War I. 

History of gender and sexuality : The Matheson Library collects in the history of nineteenth and twentieth century sexuality in Australia, Britain and North America and on changing ideas about sexual difference and the construction of gender in Europe from 1780-1920 with particular emphasis on England and Europe from 1880-1918. The Library also collects in the development of gender as a theme in historical debate and sexuality and gender as factors in the history of deviance.

History of religion : The Matheson Library collects in the history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam from late antiquity to the modern period, with particular emphasis on the role of modern Islam in the political arena and in the main religious traditions of Asia including Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The Library also collects in the area of millenarian thought, religious life in Renaissance Florence, and on Hildegard of Bingen.

Jewish history : The Matheson Library supports a collection in aspects of Jewish history and Judaism.  Funding of $10,000 per annum from 1994 to 2003 was made available by Mr and Mrs Israel Kipen, supporters of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, to purchase materials in all the fields of Jewish Studies taught by the Centre.

In the field of Jewish history, the Library collects in Jewish civilisation before the modern era from Egypt and Babylonia to Jewish community life in the middle ages, with emphasis on the period of interaction of Judaism with Hellenism and Roman culture from the conquest of Alexander to the rule of the Emperor Trajan. The Library collects in Medieval European Jewish history, and modern Jewish history from the eighteenth century to the present time in Europe, America, the Soviet Union, Israel and Australia, with particular focus on Zionism, the Holocaust, modern Israel, Australian Jewry, and Polish Jewry from 1918-1939.

Theory and method of history : The Matheson Library collects material on the theory and method of history to support a number of teaching programs in the field. Focus is on the contemporary and vocational uses of history, source material and how historians use it, the debate about the relationship between social theory and social history with emphasis on Marx, Weber, Freud, Bloch, Braudel, E P Thompson and Foucault, biography as a form of historical writing, historical writing in the classics of the ancient Greeks, the Islamic literati of the Muslim world and the European medieval and early Renaissance historians, the writing of prominent Australian historians, understanding the past through culture, or 'ethnohistory' as it is sometimes called, and the significance of poststructuralist, postmodernist, feminist, and postcolonial theories for the practice of history.

Urban history : The Matheson Library collects in some pockets of urban history, specifically on the major Australian cities with an emphasis on Melbourne, and on Paris, Vienna and Chicago. The urban history collection is essentially non-geographical in focus with an interest in the history of the environment and even though there is an interest in the history of architecture in the Department of Visual Arts, there has generally never been any collection in town planning. There is collection in Victorian local histories that are of a scholarly nature. There is collection in Australian urban history in rare books but not in local histories.

History of childhood and the family : The Matheson Library collects in the history of childhood and the family in America, Australia and Europe from 1780 to 1990 with particular emphasis on the changing concepts of 'the family', 'motherhood', 'fatherhood', 'childhood', and 'adolescence', and on such topics as the images and realities of family life in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe, twentieth century maternity and family life in Nazi Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union, the 'black family' in America and Aboriginal family life in Australia.

History of racial thought : The Matheson Library collects in any of the areas of racial thought in Western societies from the fifteenth century, from the classical views of human types to the 'new racism' in contemporary thought, especially anti-Semitism and Nazi ideology.

Cultural heritage : The Matheson Library collects in the area of landscapes and environments as historical documents of heritage, and on world heritage decisions and their implications for tourism, development and preservation of sites, with particular emphasis on Australia and South Asia.

Public history : In addition to collecting in cultural heritage, the Matheson Library collects in environmental history, community histories, the heritage movement, oral history, Aboriginal heritage, theme parks and cultural tourism, to support the Public History program offered by the department. This program will be offered at Caulfield from 2006.

The Matheson endeavours to maintain a very basic collection of general works in all fields of history. Some areas of special consideration in this category are History of Ireland, Africa, South Africa, Central America, South America, Melanesia and Papua New Guinea, history of other parts of the Pacific and Polynesia, New Zealand, Canada, history of medicine (particularly Australian), history of science, Family history and genealogy, history of civilization, world history.

The Caulfield collection supporting the Department of History is estimated at 5,000 volumes.

The main areas of collecting for Jewish Civilisation are detailed below

The Israel and Laura Kipen Judaica Collection supports undergraduate teaching in the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation. The focus of collecting to this point has been on modern Jewish history and more recently on Jewish philosophy and aspects of Judaism. Material has been purchased for other areas of Jewish Studies as well, including modern Hebrew language and literature, the archaeology of ancient Israel, Jewish law, Jewish philosophy, Australian Jewry, and Judaism.  Now that an Honours program has been established at the Centre, the collection supports and is being strengthened in the areas where required.  The teaching of Yiddish has grown significantly and the collection is currently being developed in Yiddish language, literature and culture.

The main areas of collecting for Religion and Theology are detailed below

The Library supports teaching and research in the Centre for Religion and Theology. The Centre is interdisciplinary by nature and draws together many existing subjects offered in history, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies and literature. Much of the collecting therefore falls into these disciplinary areas. Supplementary collecting is done for the subjects offered by the Centre for undergraduates in classical and modern spiritualities, introduction to the New Testament, Christian Theology, comparative religions of the East and West, and God.

Subjects for postgraduates, including honours students, include Buddhism, authority of the text, religion in Australian society, ecology, gender and the sacred, social theory, belief and history, belief and perception, the reforming impulse, medieval religious women including Hildegard of Bingen, living faiths : the search for meaning , a history of popular Christianity, sacred writings : the hymn, myth and ritual, and the range of subjects in rites of passage, life cycle events, and legal, ethical and personal issues in the civil ceremonies offerings. The challenge for collecting for the Centre for Religion and Theology is to provide a basic spread for an enormous range of subjects. Individual researchers' needs are supported at research level as appropriate.

4. Other significant Monash collections or resources

Archaeology and Ancient History

The Centre for Archaeology and Ancient History maintains a departmental library, with an extensive collection focussing on Egyptology and archaeology, as well as classical literature and ancient languages.

The Centre for Archaeology and Ancient History also maintains a small museum that displays antiquities from around the Mediterranean. The majority of the collection is on loan to the University. Cultures represented include Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Cypriot, Etruscan, Greek and Roman; the major types of objects include sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, glass, cylinder seals and scarabs.

Rare books collection : From the Sands of the Sahara : ancient Kellis and its texts is a significant collection of books, documents and artefacts in the Matheson Library Rare Books Collection.

Jewish Studies

The Laura and Israel Kipen Judaica Collection in the Matheson Library on the Clayton campus provides access to resources supporting all aspects of Jewish studies, including works in Hebrew. The Collection also houses the Giligich Yiddish Collection, which consists of Yiddish books in a wide range of subjects.

Together with the Department of Music, an Archive of Jewish Music has been initiated, which collects selected records, tapes, CDs, videotapes, films, field recordings, musical folk history recordings, oral histories, journals, scores, ritual items, personal collections and musical instruments.

Microform collection : Yad Vashem, archives of the destruction, a photographic record of the Holocaust (245 fiche)

History

Rare Books collection : This collection is well placed to support strengths in the Eighteenth Century. It houses a world class Swift collection and collects in such areas as the history of mathematics, the history of the book trade in England and France, and material relating to the Australian book trade, French writing from the Enlightenment period, eighteenth to mid-twentieth century Dutch material on Indonesia, Malay language material from the colonial period, accounts by European travellers, the history of cookery in general and Australian household management, Australian popular culture, nineteenth century German Australiana, nineteenth century accounts by visitors to Australia and Australian urban history. The Rare Books collection also houses a number of significant 19^th century English periodicals. on works of political and religious controversy.

Microform collection : This collection contains a wide variety of useful resources for the study of history. Some of the major items are listed.

• Yad Vashem, archives of the destruction, a photographic record of the Holocaust (245 fiche)
• Great Britain Parliament House of Commons sessional papers, 1731-1977 (81,200 microcards)
• Great Britain Parliament House of Commons Journal, 1547-1900 (2,200 microcards)
• United States Department of State Diplomatic papers
• League of Nations documents and serial publications, 1919-1946 (407 reels)
• United Nations documents and official records from 1946 to the present (341 boxes of microcards)
• Records relating to Australia series (various)
• Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of economic literature (3833 reels)
• United States Congressional record, 1973-1972 (597 reels)
• United States Foreign Broadcast Information Service daily report 1947------1964 (198 reels)
• Eighteenth Century microform collection (2870 reels)

Monash University Library is part of a consortium of libraries which acquires two major research collections, the Eighteenth Century and the Nineteenth Century. The Eighteenth Century provides a microfilm collection of every notable item printed in any language in Great Britain and its colonies and printed in English anywhere in the world between 1701 and 1800. Monash University Library is fortunate enough to be the repository for this collection which is also now available online.

The Nineteenth Century republishes English-language books and pamphlets published in all parts of the world except North America between 1801 and 1900. The General Collection is housed at Deakin University and Monash University Library holds the specialist collection "Publishing, the Book Trade and diffusion of knowledge."

Collections Table

(T = teaching level, R = research level)

Amendment history
First issued: December 2000
Amended:
August 2005, October 2008

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