March 2007
1. Purpose
2. Collection Scope: Subject, Language, Geographic, and Chronological
3. Format
4. Exclusions
5. Interdisciplinary and Cooperative Relationships
6. Special Collection
7. Collection Levels by Subject
To serve the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Community
The A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning (TCAUP) at the University of Michigan ranks among the finest in the country in both graduate and undergraduate training and research. The College prides itself on the diversity of culture, nationality, and ethnicity that characterizes its faculty and student body, and seeks to embrace those differences in supporting a rich curriculum, diverse research interests, and innovative professional endeavors. The curriculum couples technical design training with theoretical discourse. Approximately sixty-two faculty teach in the Architecture curriculum and twenty teach in the Urban and Regional Planning curriculum. Several cross disciplines and several teach Urban Design. Another twenty faculty, from academic units affiliated with the Urban and Regional Planning program, address the breadth and interdisciplinary nature of the program. About 550 students are enrolled in the College, of which approximately thirty-five percent are in the undergraduate degree program in Architecture, approximately forty-five percent are in a graduate degree program in Architecture, and approximately twenty percent are in a graduate degree program in Urban and Regional Planning.
CAUP Degrees and Specializations
- Bachelor of Science in Architecture
- Master of Architecture
- Master of Urban Design
- Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development
- Joint/Dual Master's Degrees in
- Architecture/Urban Planning
- Architecture/Business Administration
- Architecture/Engineering
- Master of Science in Architecture
- PhD in Architecture with specializations in Building and Environmental Technology, Design Studies, and Architectural History and Theory
- Master of Urban Planning
with concentrations in Development Planning, which includes Economic Development, Community Development and Housing, and International Planning and Development; in Physical Planning and Land Use, in Urban Design, in Transportation Planning, and in Environmental Planning
2. Collection Scope: Subject, Language, Geographic, and Chronological
Subject
The Architecture and Urban Planning funds allocated to the Art, Architecture & Engineering Library support the purchase of and subscription to materials that are vital to the curriculum and the research interests of TCAUP, though their use is not limited to that community. Materials in the Architecture subject area are generally classed in the NA division of the LC classification schedule, though also include selections from the KF division, when relating to construction law and liability. Subdivisions within the NA class reflect divisions according to country or culture, historical period, architect, building type, as well as architectural details, and conservation and restoration. Materials in Urban Planning span several subdivisions with H, J, and K. These subdivisions include: HD (land use planning, housing, and energy), HE (transportation), HJ (municipal governments), HT (urban studies, urban history, city planning, zoning, and urban renewal), and judicious selections from HV (when relating to social welfare and public policy), JS (when relating to codes and government regulations), and KF (when relating to planning law). Because of the interdisciplinary nature of each program, there is necessarily crossover between the two, for instance, materials on housing and residential development, and urban design are relevant to both programs. The collection focuses on research level materials. The subject focus is necessarily broad for both Architecture and Urban Planning. In Architecture it includes most aspects of the field of Architecture, such as, design, materials, construction, individual architects, computers in architecture, environment, and photography for architects. In Urban Planning the program has expanded to include not only urban and suburban planning, but also regional planning. In light of this, land use and sustainable development are relatively new areas of concentration. Changes in the curriculum have reduced the need to purchase materials on historic preservation and interior design. Collection concentrations and levels can be found at the end of this document in the Collecting Levels by Subject section.
Language
Materials on Architecture and Urban Planning are purchased in English when available. Materials published in other languages are purchased selectively and are sought if 1) they are unavailable in English, 2) they contain significant graphic content of value independent of the text, or 3) the original language is seen to be important for the proper study and use of the material.
Geographic
The greatest emphasis on geographic coverage is of the Western World, primarily North America and Europe. Nonetheless, architecture is a worldwide and international endeavor. Additionally, TCAUP has recently initiated study abroad programs and studios in India, South Africa, Ghana, China, Mexico, Italy, Japan, etc. and encourages students to travel broadly. To meet changing needs and expectations increasingly works relating to contemporary architecture in Central and South America, Asia, Australia, and Africa are sought for the collection. Likewise, Urban and Regional Planning materials, while concentrating on urban issues and design in North America, include materials from around the world to reflect changing emphases within the discipline.
Chronological
The chronological emphasis of the collection is contemporary architecture and urban planning and their immediate precedents. The library collects materials dealing with architecture from the late nineteenth century to the present. Works relating to historical architecture are collected only generally and in support of survey courses. The collecting of Urban and Regional Planning materials focuses on contemporary issues and case studies, but includes also the history of urban planning.
Materials in many formats are collected, although the dominant format is printed material in monograph and serial form. Books and journals are purchased to meet the research and curriculum needs of the CAUP faculty and students. In addition, collection strengths are used as foundations for further development. Exhibition catalogues and catalogues raisonnes are purchased selectively as they support the curriculum and collection scope. Microform is purchased only occasionally, particularly when it offers a unique resource that is unavailable in any other format. The collection includes some blueprints; these continue to be collected only in rare instances to build on current strengths. Digital images, which now provide the basis for teaching, are collected alongside videos, DVDs, and CD-ROMs, which are becoming increasingly important tools for teaching. Slide collections are increased primarily by donation and then are digitized for online access. In addition, we seek out purchases of or subscriptions to web-based visual resources. Faculty requests and curriculum offerings provide the primary guidelines for collection of these visual media. Acquisitions of visual media (slides, digital images, dvds, cd-roms, and videos) are kept in Imageworks.
In keeping with our mission to serve the academic community, publications geared toward a popular or pre-college audience are excluded. This includes such materials as collections of house plans, home planning kits, or "do-it-yourself" home repair books. In addition, pamphlets and works published with the aim of advertisement are excluded. Materials in unsupported formats (16 mm film, 35 mm film, 1/4" tape) are not collected. Several areas of tangential interest to architecture and urban planning faculty and students are selected by other library units, and therefore are excluded from this policy statement. (See Interdisciplinary and Cooperative Relationships below.)
5. Interdisciplinary and Cooperative Relationships
Interdisciplinary Relationships within the Arts and Engineering Cluster
Because of the interrelationships between disciplines and necessary overlaps in collection policies, the Architecture and Urban Planning selector works closely with the Art & Design selector at the Art, Architecture & Engineering Library and the Fine Arts selector in the Fine Arts Library. Intersecting areas of particular note with Art & Design are industrial, interior, and furniture design. Areas of overlap with Fine Arts include architectural history. Decisions about large ticket items (e.g., electronic subscriptions) that serve the entire Arts community are discussed with both the Art & Design selector and the Fine Arts selector.
Cooperative Relationships within the University Library
The Architecture and Urban Planning selector works closely with the Geography/Urban Studies selector in Hatcher Graduate Library to minimize the duplication of purchases relating to urban and regional planning, while at the same time meeting the research and curricular needs of patrons across the campus. Less frequently, but no less importantly, there is cooperation with the selector for the School of Natural Resources, with selectors for Area Programs, and with Economics, Public Policy, Humanities and Social Science selectors as scholarship at TCAUP and in other areas across the university becomes more interdisciplinary and more international. Despite these cooperative arrangements with selectors in throughout the University Library system (and even because of them), the importance of a resource or the projected use of it by TCAUP faculty and students warrants the occasional duplication of items within the library system.
Cooperative Relationships outside the University Library
Use of the architectural collections and primary source materials at the Bentley Historical Library is strongly encouraged to augment the secondary sources available in the Art, Architecture & Urban Planning Library. The University Library is committed to extending access to locally held scholarly information to state and regional partner institutions. In exchange, faculty and students enjoy convenient access to library materials held at Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the CIC Libraries ("Big 10" institutions plus the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, Chicago).
The Special Collections includes rare, fragile, and/or limited publication materials relating to architecture and urban planning, as well as art and design (the art and design portion of the collection wil be addressed in the Art and Design Collection Policy). Some of the older architectural materials include pre-nineteenth-century editions, including Ware’s 1738 translation and imprint of Leon Battista Alberti’s Ten Books on Architecture (1538), Andrea Pozzo’s discourses on the rules of perspective, as well as architectural treatises by Palladio, Soane, Stuart, and Gibbs. Newer editions include limited publication art monographs and facsimiles (e.g., sketchbooks from Le Corbusier's travels in Germany and Asia). Strengths in the special collections area include publications from the first decades of the twentieth century, especially those by Le Corbusier, various Soviet, Dutch, and German architects and designers from the Bauhaus (especially pertaining to early twentieth-century urban design and architecture), and work published by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. Several dozen black and white photographs of Frank Lloyd Wright residential architecture taken by Henry Fuermann in the first decades of the twentieth century augment these writings. In addition, there are several thousand early twentieth-century black and white photographs and postcards documenting much art and architecture of Western Europe before the wars. Recent additions include blueprints from Mies van der Rohe's Chicago office made during the 1940's. These rare and special materials provide a valuable teaching tool to introduce students to historical editions of works, as well as primary source material. They also offer a potential area of development in building on current strengths, as well as in developing a collection with a strong identity and role in University of Michigan art, architectural, and urban planning studies.
7. Collecting Levels by Subject
I = Instructional Level, R = Research Level
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