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Education Collection - Overview
The Van Pelt Library houses the majority of the University Library collections in education. Originally a separate education library, the collections of the former Penniman Education Library were integrated into the Van Pelt Library collections.
The largest portion of the education collection is located in the Library of Congress L Classification on the fourth floor of Van Pelt. Related and frequently used materials are in the following LC Classification ranges: BF (psychology), HQ (child study), P (language acquisition, second language learning), Q-QA. (teaching of mathematics and sciences at the primary and secondary levels). There is also a significant amount of material in the 300s within the Dewey section of Van Pelt.
Educational theory and practice, the history of education, educational psychology, school administration/organization, and higher education have been the traditional focus of the collection. Paralleling current directions in GSE programs and research, new and continued collecting focuses include urban education, international education, multicultural issues in education, the teaching of math and science, literacy, and language learning.
The Library provides access to many important electronic databases. Frequently used electronic databases in the field of education are ERIC, the Professional Development Collection, and Education Index. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of education, numerous other databases are regularly consulted. These include: PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts, Anthropological Abstracts, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, ProQuest Digital Dissertations, ISI Citation Indexes, and Scopus. In addition to database access, the library maintains a strong collection of current subscriptions to journals in education. Most current journal subscriptions are to the online format.
Finally, the University of Pennsylvania is a partial depository for U.S. government publications (34 percent) and for many English language publications from the United Nations and the European Community. Van Pelt also received UNESCO English language books and pamphlets and English and French periodicals. In 1996, the Library received the ERIC document microfiche collection from 1966 to 1995 as a gift from Research for Better Schools and, at that time, started a subscription to the microfiche set. The ERIC document collection ceased being produced in microfiche in 2004. Online access to the ERIC documents is now provided by ERIC - Education Resources Information Center.
