COLLECTIONS:

Special Collections

University Archives

Collection Preservation

Research Collections:
Communication Collection

Collection Overview
The collection supports the study and research needs of faculty and students in the Communication Department.  The department offers courses in mass communication, rhetoric, journalism, television and radio production and theory, advertising, public relations, media law, and electronic (including the World Wide Web) publishing and design.  The communication collection covers a variety of topics, many of which overlap with other subject areas such as English, business, political science, psychology and sociology, and media and film studies.  Monographs, serials and electronic resources are selected to support the study of communications in all forms.

Communication is one of the fastest growing undergraduate majors at Boston College.  The program has over 860 student majors.  An honors program and an active program of student internships are also available to students.

There are currently twelve full-time faculty members in Communication; two new full-time faculty will join the department in Fall 2000.  Additional courses are taught by part-time faculty who teach at other institutions or who are practicing professionals in the fields of radio, television, journalism, advertising, and public relations. Some of the research interests of the full-time faculty members include: communication law; advertising and visual communication; gender issues in communication; public relations and crisis communications; freedom of expression; television criticism; classical rhetoric; the role of minorities and the outer-culture in electronic media; talk radio; political broadcasting; ethics and communication; interpersonal communication; and intercultural communication.

Marilyn Grant
Communication Bibliographer
617-552-4452
E-Mail: grant@bc.edu

Selected Resources

In the O'Neill Library:

• Monographs covering the theoretical, critical or historical aspects of mass communication, rhetoric, speech, journalism, television, radio, other forms of electronic communication, advertising, and public relations.

• Works covering popular culture; verbal and nonverbal communication; rhetorical analyses of film, politics, literature and a  wide range of other subject areas.

• Reference works: International Encyclopedia of Communications, Encyclopedia of Television, Encyclopedia of American Journalism, Macmillan Dictionary of Marketing and Advertising.

• Journals to support the subject areas taught by the Department.

• Indexes and abstracts: Communication Abstracts, Linguistics and Langauge Behavior Abstracts, Alternative Press Index, Humanities Index, Social Sciences Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index

On the Web (Restricted to the BC Community):

• Subject index to the literature: ComAbstracts.

• General indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index (Web of Science), Expanded Academic Index ASAP (InfoTrac).

• Full text databases: Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe.

• Full text electronic journals: EJC/REC Electronic Journal of Communication and International Journal of Listening. Other electronic journals in communications may be found at the following e-journal gateways: JSTOR and Project Muse.

• Many other databases may be searched to find information relating to the various courses taught in the department. Some of these databases include: Readers Guide Abstracts, Article1st (FirstSearch), PCI-Periodical Contents Index, P.A.I.S. (Public Affairs Information Service), Ethnic NewsWatch, America History & Life, Historical Abstracts, Psyclit (Psychological Abstracts), Sociological Abstracts (Sociofile), MLA Bibliography, ERIC, Education Index and Abstracts.

• Databases that are useful for information on companies in the media field or for advertising, marketing or  public relations include: ABI/Inform, Business & Industry, General BusinessFile ASAP, Predicasts PROMT.

• Databases that contain statistical information include: Statistical Universe, TableBase.

• Other databases in the humanities: Subject Indexes to Online Databases: Humanities. This web page also has links to databases outside the humanities.

Research Guides
More information about available resources can be found in the following resource guide:  Research Guide: Communications and Mass Media.

Interdisciplinary Elements of Subject Area
The Communication Department has shared interests with several other departments at Boston College.  Materials supporting advertising and public relations are also used by students in the Carroll School of Management.  Works supporting the topics of the debate team as well as the courses on Elements of Debate, Debate Practicum,  and the Seminar on Political Debate are often drawn from the collections in political science and government documents. There is some overlap between the history and law collections in supporting the Freedom of Expression seminar and the Communication Law courses.  The media collection's support of Film Studies provides films that students may analyze for the Seminar in Fiction, Film and Video or for research in several other communications courses.  Many titles in literature, cultural studies, political science, history and popular culture are added to the communication collection as examples of rhetorical analysis of a topic.  Databases in all of these subject areas are used regularly to find journal literature.

Formats and Types of Materials
Formats collected include print, electronic, microform, and audiovisual. Types of materials include monographs, serials, and reference works including major indexes, abstracts, catalogs, bibliographies, yearbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, research guides, and directories.

Languages
English is the primary language of the collection.

Geographic Areas (Subject Approach)
The United States has been the primary area of interest.  However, the program has taken a more global approach for several years. Materials, especially major monographs, on the media of a particular country are collected.

Time Periods (Subject Approach)
Mass communication is a relatively young field; therefore, works of the twentieth century are the primary focus of the collection.

Date of Publication
Emphasis is on current imprints with some retrospective purchases to support new department or faculty research interests.

Subject Areas Collected by Library of Congress Classification Number
BCAT, the online catalog, can be searched by LC classification number to get a better idea of what specific titles the communication collection contains.  For example, the command c=P87 will produce the beginning of a list of works on communication.  This list can be browsed by pressing the F8 key or typing f and pressing the Enter/Return key.