School of Political and Social Inquiry

1.The School

The 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 Political and Social Inquiry is made up of the disciplines of anthropology, behavioural studies, criminal justice and criminology, sociology and politics. It also includes the  Global Terrorism Research Unit, the Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, the Centre for Work and Society in the Global Era (W.A.G.E.) and the Centre for Population and Urban Research. The School offers undergraduate and graduate courses, and honours and higher-degree supervision in all disciplines along with interdisciplinary graduate courses and supervision in international relations, counter-terrorism studies, women's studies and  applied research. The School teaches on the Clayton, Caulfield, Peninsula and Berwick campuses. 

In 2004 The School had a student load of 1,786 EFTSU, of which approximately 237 were postgraduate. There are 58 teaching staff in the school.

The following departments within PSI offer teaching programs

Anthropology : The department teaches anthropology, at the Clayton campus only, with expertise in the department extending through South and Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Fiji to the study of minority communities and their cultures in Australia, incorporating a range of theoretical perspectives. Students have  access to units which are cross-cultural and comparative. Research interests in the department include theorising of culture, women and gender studies across cultures, contemporary Indonesia, Fiji, ethnicity and nationalism, Anthropology of Religion, Third World studies, Asian labour migration, role and identity of women in the Pacific, and visual anthropology.

Behavioural Studies : Major and minor sequences are offered at the Caulfield, Clayton and Gippsland campuses. A minor sequence only is offered at the Berwick campus. The courses run at Gippsland and Berwick are taught by the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences. Honours units are offered at the Caulfield campus specialising in research methodology and mediation. Areas of study include human behaviour, the mind including perception, sensation, consciousness and learning, the criminal mind, interpersonal communication, mediation including conflict resolution principles and strategies. Other areas include the study of personality, physical, social and cognitive aspects of human development, drug and alcohol use, addiction and prevention strategies, the community and social action.

Criminal Justice and Criminology : This formerly included units in police studies which have now been designated as the broader study of criminal justice and criminology and is taught on the Caulfield campus. Postgraduate research is available in the areas of community-based corrections, police accountability, police ethics, police-government relations, policing of industrial relations, prisons, and crime prevention. In justice studies, research strengths include police ethics and accountability, civilian oversight of police, victims and victimisation, crime prevention, politics of policing protests, public order policing, crime fiction, mediation and the courts.

Politics : The politics program offers courses on the Caulfield and Clayton campuses, specialising in four broad areas: Australian politics, international relations and global politics, culture and identity politics, and social and political theory. The Gippsland campus specialises in Australian politics; Australian history; citizenship and governance; public policy; social policy; cultural theory; media studies; gender studies; feminist theory.

Research strengths in politics include global politics, social and political theory, contemporary political cultures, foreign aid, history of political thought, green politics and philosophy, and Australian politics. In international relations, research strengths include Australian foreign policy, US foreign policy, international relations in East and Southeast Asia, arms control and strategic studies, the 'war on terrorism', United Nations, globalisation, international political economy, international law and human rights, nationalism, international relations theory, ethics and international relations, and international history.

Undergraduate, honours and postgraduate studies are offered on the Caulfield and Clayton campus. Undergraduate and postgraduate studies are also available on the Gippsland campus, taught by the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences. Postgraduate studies are also available in the area of international relations and terrorism at Clayton.

Sociology : Major and minor sequences are offered at the Clayton, Caulfield and Gippsland campuses. The course on the Gippsland campus is taught by the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences (www.arts.monash.edu.au/humcass/). The department also offers graduate studies on the Clayton campus in applied social research as well as sociology. Research strengths include implications of immigration policy, Australian society from an historical and developmental perspective, sociology of religion, sociology of the family, social psychology, technological change, the future of work, employment and organisations, social class, environmental issues, prison issues, mass media, gender studies including new wave feminisms, feminist political and social theory, sociology of men and masculinity, bisexuality and  gender relations in the family, sociology of youth, ethnicity and multiculturalism , political sociology,  Sociology of Education, the Holocaust and  new social movements.

Women's Studies : the Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research teaches on the Clayton campus. Studies in this area are offered on the Gippsland campus by the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences. The Centre provides links between a variety of disciplines within the Faculty of Arts, as well as with several courses offered by other faculties. Research strengths include feminist cultural studies, cross-cultural feminisms, critiques of medicine, research on pregnancy, birth and fertility rates, post colonialism and indigeneity,  sexual and cultural difference,  feminist literary and cultural theory,  women's literary writing and personal papers, film studies,  feminist pedagogy and research methodology.

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 Political and Social Inquiry is located predominantly in the Matheson Library on the Clayton campus. Caulfield Library has a collection of material to support the teaching of behavioural studies, criminology, sociology and politics on that campus, and there is a small collection on the Berwick campus to support the teaching of units in behavioural studies. Material supporting the teaching of behavioural studies,  sociology, politics and women's studies by the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences is located in the Gippsland campus library. There is also significant material located in the Rare Books collection and the microform collection on the Clayton campus.

Courses offered by the Department of Politics are often underpinned by the historical context of the period, so that material acquired for the School of Historical Studies  is of relevance. Materials in the area of U.S., Australian and Asian history are also purchased for the School of Humanities, Communications and Social Sciences to support teaching in these areas on the Gippsland campus.

Material is also purchased for the departments of the School of Languages Cultures and Linguistics to support the teaching of Asian as well as European languages cultures and history This material is located in the Asian Studies Research collection if in Asian languages, or in the Matheson Library if not.

The School of Historical Studies also teaches in the area of women's studies. The School of Geography and Environmental Science has interests in demography and urban sociology, human settlement and cultural geography and Australian Indigenous archaeology. Material bought for these schools is located predominantly in the Matheson Library

Social and cultural theory is collected in depth that reflects the teaching and research interests of a number of schools, focussed in the School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies. The sociology and anthropology of the Jewish people is taught through the Centre for Jewish Civilisation.

The library buys material for the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies in the area of Australian Indigenous anthropology, archaeology, sociology, politics and history that is relevant to the courses offered by the Department of Anthropology and the  School of Geography and Environmental Science .The Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies has an interest in psychoanalysis, and the Library collects in this area. The Department of Psychology (Faculty of Medicine) and the Department of Psychological Medicine (Faculty of Medicine) also need material in personality and psychoanalysis of relevance to the teaching of Behavioural Studies. This material is located in the Hargrave-Andrew Library on the Clayton campus, or in the library of the Monash Medical Centre, Clayton.

There are significant resources in criminology and criminal justice in the Law Library on the Clayton campus.

b. Language

Material is acquired for the School of Political and Social Inquiry mainly in the English language.

c. Classification used

Material acquired for the School of Political and Social Inquiry is 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. There is a collection of videorecordings and DVDs which are being steadily expanded for Anthropology courses. These are contemporary films potentially useful for other courses in the Arts Faculty.

e. Size of the collection.

Estimated number of monograph titles purchased in 2004 : ca. 1,300 in anthropology and sociology for Clayton and Caulfield campuses,  300 in behavioural studies for Caulfield and Clayton campuses,  400 in criminology for Caulfield and Clayton  campuses,  1,300 in Politics for Caulfield and Clayton Campuses, and 300 in Women's Studies for Clayton campus.

Number of print serial titles received : approximately 220 for sociology and anthropology (Clayton and Caulfield), 25 in Criminal Justice and Criminology, 175 in Politics, and 20 in Women's Studies.

The Monash University Library is a repository for the Eighteenth Century microfilm collection, 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.  Most of this collection is also available online via the Library Databases Page as ECCO Eighteenth Century Collections Online.

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. As a result, an increasing proportion of the budget for library material for the Faculty of Arts is spent on these resources.

Resources  include:

Online encyclopedias such as:

• International encyclopedia of the social and behavioural sciences

Indexing and abstracting services such as:

• Anthropology Plus
• Bibliography of Asian Studies
• Contemporary Women's Issues
• Studies on Women and Gender Abstracts
• PAIS
• Sociological Abstracts
• IBSS (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences)
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
• Criminal Justice Abstracts
• AusStats
• and a large number of Australian Databases available via Informit including:
• APAIS (current affairs)
• CINCH (Australian criminology database)
• AFPD (Australian Federal Police Database)
• Family
• MAIS

Fulltext databases or electronic journal suites include:

• Communications Studies
• Expanded Academic ASAP (over 1,500 titles, of which approximately 520 are in fulltext)
• Project MUSE (over 100 journals)
• Factiva (fulltext predominantly  newspaper sources)
• LegalTrac (approximately 1,950 titles of which 222 are in fulltext)
• Taylor & Francis journals collection
• Sage journals collections
• PCI Full text
• JSTOR
• Criminology: A Sage full text collection (21 journals published by Sage)
• Political Science: A Sage full text collection (23 journals published by Sage)
• Sociology: A Sage full text collection (31 journals published by Sage.

Online Archival Collections include Women and social movements in the United States 1600-2000

Subject gateways include the library subject pages for anthropology, behavioural studies, criminology, politics, sociology and women's studies. 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 collection

The library resources acquired for the School cover in general those areas of the Dewey Decimal Classification concerned with sociology and anthropology, 300-307, 320s, economics, 330s and social welfare, 360s.

The main areas of collecting for Anthropology and Sociology are detailed below

While the majority of the collections relevant to anthropology and sociology comprises titles published in the post war twentieth century, there is some valuable nineteenth century on Aboriginal Australians. This is mostly treatises by early European explorers of, and travellers to Australia, mainly British. Some significant French and Dutch accounts are also held. This material is housed in the Rare Book collection at Clayton. There is also an excellent collection of Early Indonesian material, of relevance to Anthropology, in Dutch and Indonesian including the Dutch East India Company (VOC) archives index, 1607-1798.

The Library holds the massive cross-cultural studies microfiche collection - the Human Resources Area Files, as well as the complete collection of League of Nations and United Nations documents to 1981. The Matheson Library also has a complete collection of Australian Bureau of Statistics material, in print, microfiche or electronic format.

Caulfield Library holds teaching level collections in the areas of sociology of family, childhood, gender and sexuality, religion, prisons, popular music, media, education, ageing, illness and health, technology and society, also the methodology and theory of sociology and statistics.

The Matheson Library collects at teaching level in the areas of sociology of the human body, the self, the Third World, literature, education, language, media, Jewish society, Japanese society, law, also the anthropology of Hindu culture and North American Indians.

The Matheson Library collects at research level in Australian society and the sociology of the family, race, prejudice and discrimination, social research and anthropology of race and witchcraft. Anthropological material on Australia including that dealing with indigenous Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders is collected extensively. Collecting on Asia is extensive, with a significant proportion of this material being of primary interest to anthropology and sociology. Major regional strengths include Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean material where the library attempts to collect all significant English language monographs. There is a particular focus on culture and intercultural relations between Asia and the West that extends to all campuses.

Material in the area of social and critical theory is collected by the Matheson Library at research level. This interest is shared by a wide range of departments within the Faculty of Arts, focussed via the Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. As well as acquiring a majority of English language books in this area, original French and German language titles by seminal writers are acquired.

Research level collecting also occurs in "The City", another multidisciplinary interest within the faculty, gender studies and social policy.

The Matheson Library has also built up over time large research collections in the areas of Gay and Lesbian studies, Media studies and Urban studies, which are no longer reflected in current teaching areas.

The main areas of collecting for Politics are detailed below

Library holdings in the politics field are extensive and include many valuable specialised collections. Australian materials are particularly strong. The library has been a deposit library for all Australian Government Publishing Service publications since 1980, and parliamentary publications for the Commonwealth and Victoria are considerable.

There are significant microfilm collections covering Asia and the Pacific, as well as important historical collections that are highly relevant to politics particularly from the United Kingdom.

The Matheson Library has significant collections in the international relations field, in particular international relations theory, human rights and international organisations. There is some overlap in collections with the Law Library. There are substantial collections of United Nations documents, International Labour Office, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Monetary Fund and World Bank publications, and document collections dealing with British, American and Australian foreign policy from the nineteenth century.

The Matheson Library also has significant American political holdings including the United States Congressional Record from 1789. There is also the complete collection of Official Congress documents from 1970, housed at Melbourne University but partly owned by Monash and La Trobe universities.

The main areas of collecting for Women's Studies and Gender Research are detailed below

There are good collections across the full range of women's studies, with strengths in sexuality, feminist theory, feminist research and cross cultural feminism and women's writing.  Clayton aspires to collect at research level. Material on the sociology of gender is collected at all campuses, but there is more anthropological work collected at Clayton. There is a lot of interest in the area of women in higher education and the practice of women's studies.

The main areas of collecting for Criminal Justice and Criminology are detailed below

Caulfield Library has a strong teaching collection in Police Studies, in particular policing and police organisations in Australia and overseas. It is also building up its collections in criminology, justice studies and victimology. The Caulfield Library also has a collection of crime fiction. The Law Library on the Clayton campus also has a strong collection in criminology.

4. Other significant Monash collections or resources

Anthropology/Sociology

Microform collection :

• Human relations area files (65,000 fiche)
• Societe des Missionnaires du Sacre-Coeur Records, 1881-1951 (7 reels)
• Documents relating to the social and cultural history of Java in the 19^th century (68 reels)
• Papua New Guinea records project 1883-1972 (101 reels)
• League of Nations documents and serial publications, 1919-1946 (407 reels)
• United Nations documents and official records from 1946 to 1981 (341 boxes of microcards)
• Dutch East India Company (VOC) archives index, 1607-1798.
• Aboriginal artefacts in the Donald Thomson collection : a microfiche catalogue
• Aborigines General-newspaper clippings 1924 - 1972.
• Colonial discourses. Series one: Women, travel, and empire, 1660-1914. Part 1: Early travel accounts by women and women's experiences in India, Africa, Australasia, and Canada.
• Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program, Modern Indonesia Project, Monographs, 1945-1968
• The East Timor question
• George Gibbs memorial collection re Aboriginal rights in the Northern Territory
• Indonesian Nationalist Movement: Selected printed materials from the R.I.L.A. on Modern Nationalism
• Music and Dance in Surinam: A Comprehensive Collection of Source Literature Extracted from over 4,000 Publications
• The native tribes of South-east Australia
• Sex & sexuality, 1640-1940: literary, medical and sociological perspectives

And many Dutch Indonesia microform collections 

The School of Political and Social Inquiry maintains a museum of about 1500 objects, mainly from Australia and Melanesia. Included are containers, musical instruments, ornaments, weapons, apparel, tools, axes, and other artefacts. There are also collections of photographs, some taken by lecturers in the field, and some which were donated with the collections.

Politics

Microform collection :

Asian resources include:

• Burma 1959-1990, newspaper clippings (206 fiche)
• Chinese People's Movement, Spring 1989 (34 fiche)
• Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program, Modern Indonesia Project, Monographs 1945-1968, (17,149 fiche)
• East Timor question 1975-1996 (691 fiche)
• History of the Vietnam War, Indochina Archives 1961-1975 (2,166 fiche)
• Indonesian Nationalist Movement 1902-1967 (290 fiche)
• The London Times Intelligence File : Far East 1906 to 1969 (27 reels)
• National Development Plans Southeast Asia (426 fiche)
• The Philippines, 1963-1983, newspaper clippings (230 fiche)
• The Philippines : US policy during the Marcos years, 1965-1986 (652 fiche)
• Stanford University. Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Microfilms on Chinese Communism 1919-1956 (52 reels)
• Political pamphlets from the Indian subcontinent 1940-1950 (1033 fiche)
• Taiwan's opposition magazines 1975-1986 (865 fiche)
• Thailand, 1963-1977 newspaper clippings (239 fiche)
• Vietnam documents and research notes series; translation and analysis of significant Viet Cong/North Vietnamese documents (6 reels)

Great Britain resources include:

• Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature: Resources in the economic, social, business and political history of modern industrial society, 1500-1850 (3,380 reels)
• Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Sessional Papers 1731-1977 (81,200 microcards)
• The Left in Britain, 1904-1974 (42 reels, 334 fiche)
• The publications of Freedom Press, 1928-1976 (16 reels)
• Radical periodicals of Great Britain, 1794-1914 (46 reels, 1,128 fiche)
• Rare, radical and labour periodicals of Great Britain 1790-1890 (17 reels)
• Underground and alternative press in Britain, 1961-1980 (18 reels and 630 fiche)

International relations resources include:

• British Broadcasting Corporation. Monitoring Service. Summary of World Broadcasts, 1939-1959 (398 reels, 450 fiche)
• China and the United States : from hostility to engagement, 1960-1998 (374 fiche)
• League of Nations documents and serial publications 1919-1946 (407 reels)
• Stanley Foundation Publications, 1960-1980 (80 fiche)
• United Nations documents and official records from 1946 to 1981 (341 boxes of microcards)

Middle East resources include:

• Iranian opposition to the Shah 1962-1979 (790 fiche)
• The London Times Intelligence file : Middle East 1914-1945 (19 reels)

Pacific resources include:

• National Development Plans (113 fiche)
• Papua New Guinea records project : microfilms of papers relating to the Pacific area and Papua (101 reels)

United States resources include:

• CIA reference aid collection 1972-1980, (1300 fiche)
• Declassified documents. Retrospective collection 1945-1976, (1020 fiche)
• The Lyndon B. Johnson national security files. Asia and the Pacific : national security files, 1963-1969 (27 reels)
• Presidential directives on national security from Truman to Clinton (441 fiche)

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 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, accounts by European travellers, Australian popular culture, 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 as well as a collection of political pamphlets with a particular focus on the Australian Communist Party

Women's Studies and Gender Research

Microform collection :

• Social and political status of women in Britain, 1870-1928 (17 reels)
• Cornell University collection of women's rights pamphlets (118 fiche)
• Women advising women (58 reels)

Criminal Justice and Criminology

Microform collection : Protest movements, civil disorder and the police in inter-war Britain (6 reels)

Collections Table

(T = teaching level, R = research level)

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