Collection Development

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Collection Development

Subject Policy Statement - CIVIL ENGINEERING

 

A. Purpose and Program Description

The Libraries seek to support research and teaching in the Civil Engineering Department. The Collection supports the needs of the educational programmes offered by the Department, at both undergraduate and the postgraduate levels leading to the BEng (CivE), BEng (CivE)(Law) and BEng (Environmental Engineering), the research-based MPhil and PhD degrees and the degree of MSc(Eng) by coursework . In addition, the collection supports the CPD courses offered by the Department i.e. professional training courses for civil engineers and engineering graduates.

Research Focus
The current research activities of the Department cover 5 major areas: (1) Construction Engineering and Management, (2) Geotechnical Engineering, (3) Structural Engineering, (4) Traffic and Transportation Engineering and (5) Water and Environmental Engineering.

These include construction procurement system selection, sustainable construction, soil and rock mechanics, slope engineering, GIS applications to natural terrain hazards, soil dynamics, pavements, undergrounds excavation, computational mechanics, earthquake engineering, tall buildings, bridge engineering, concrete technology, hazardous wastes, bioengineering, groundwater hydrology, hydraulics and water resources, structural mechanics and dynamics, structural reliability, ocean engineering, earthquake engineering, transport demand modeling, continuum modeling in transport, traffic management and control, transportation systems engineering, road safety, environmental biotechnology, resource recovery, solid and hazardous waste management.

Multi-disciplinary treatment of subjects
They are usually courses that are concerned with : Built and natural environments, Environmental systems and Sustainable developments.

User Groups
Primary users are faculty members, undergraduates and postgraduates major in the subject. The collection also serves users from other Departments who work in collaboration and/or have study interests related to the subject e.g. Earth Sciences, Business & Finance, Real Estate & Construction and Mechanical Engineering.

 

B. General Selection Guidelines (See classed analysis-link to conspectus table)

Overall, the Libraries’ existing collection and acquisitions commitment, based upon available resources, and its collection goal for the subject areas are at the research level.

 

C. Specific Delimitations

  1. Formats collected: Extensive variety of formats are collected. We collect monographs, annuals, reference tools, scholarly series, periodicals, CD-ROMs and other electronic tools, and videocassettes extensively ; textbooks and dissertations (other than HKU dissertations), selectively.
  2. Imprint Dates Collected: We collect current publications extensively, and earlier materials, selectively.
  3. Chronological Focus: Contemporary. No limit to coverage in terms of intellectual content but emphasis is on collecting most recent materials.
  4. Languages Collected: We collect English language materials extensively and non-English language materials selectively, with translations into English are preferred.
  5. Place of Publication: We collect extensively materials from North American, European and United Kingdom and other materials selectively.