Collecting Goals:

The Linguistics collections support teaching and research at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Department of Linguistics and in other departments and programs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They also serve as a resource for the people of the State.

Reference Collections:

The library has extensive reference materials to support Linguistics. Access to many of the major abstracting and indexing tools is available online, notably Linguistics Abstracts, the Linguistic Bibliography Online, the MLA International Bibliography Plus Full Text via Chadwyck-Healey's LiteratureOnline, and the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences. Printed materials are available primarily in the Reference Department of Davis Library. E-Reference materials are a good place to begin the study of linguistics, while subject guides and tutorials facilitate exploration in depth in selected areas. For further information about reference materials or help using them, please consult the Reference staff.

Electronic Collections:

The Library offers online access to full-text titles that are important to the study of linguistics. They include CogPrints Electronic Archive, which contains self-archived papers in Linguistics and many other science and social sciences disciplines. Information about electronic journals related to the study of linguistics is available on a collected list. However, the best way to find information about individual electronic serials is to enter a title search on the Library's "E-Journal Finder" web page. For further information about these titles or help using them, please consult the Reference staff. To request a title, please contact the West European Bibliographer.

General Collections:

Linguistic training at UNC-Chapel Hill began in the 1930s and expanded with the creation of a Department of Linguistics in the late 1960s. Collecting patterns reflect these historical facts. The Library contains materials in 214 languages, including hundreds of grammars and dictionaries for American and other indigenous languages around the world. There are also scholarly monographs, journals, and series in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, historical linguistics (especially Indo-European), first-language acquisition, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and cognitive science in all the major languages of scholarly inquiry pertinent to the field. The collections of Germanic and Romance philology, historical collecting interests at the University, are particularly strong, especially for earlier imprints. Working papers are relevant to this discipline, and the Library has subscriptions to several series. There is also a small collection of materials on artificial languages such as Esperanto, Interlingua, and Picto. Because journal literature is essential to linguistics research, the Library subscribes to dozens of journals in the field. A list of current print subscriptions in the discipline is available. For further information or to request a title, please consult the West European Bibliographer.

Media Collections:

The Media Resources Center in the House Undergraduate Library has a language learning collection for use in studying over 96 languages of the world. For further information about this collection or to request a title, please consult the Media Resources Librarian.

Microform Collections:

The Microform Reading Room contains material that may relate to teaching and research in linguistics. For further information about microforms or help using them, please consult the Reference staff. To request a title, please contact the West European Bibliographer.

Other UNC Collections:

The Rare Book Collection in Wilson Library has materials that may pertain to the study of Linguistics. For further information, please consult the Curator of the Rare Book Collection. Materials related to computing and mathematical languages may be found in the Brauer Library. For further information, please consult the Brauer Librarian.

Related Collections:

Collections related to the major language and literature departments, especially English, French, Italian, Russian, and Spanish, and other fields such as communications studies, computer science, history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology extend library holdings. Perkins Library, at Duke University, also has some relevant titles, although UNC has had primary collecting responsibility for linguistics for many decades. Stanford University Library collects working papers comprehensively, and researchers may consult the online catalog there for these materials. The Center for Research Libraries supplements local library holdings with dissertations produced in Europe on linguistic topics, government publications, books and periodicals in languages other than English, newspapers published abroad, ethnic newspapers published in North America, and large microform sets (especially for foreign area studies). UNC faculty and students can request unlimited amounts of materials from CRL via the web and keep them indefinitely, or until another person needs them. For further information, please consult the West European Bibliographer.