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School of Chemistry

1. The school

The Faculty of Science is made up of six schools and several faculty centres, some of which are cross-faculty, offering a diverse range of disciplines in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Ten departments from other faculties, primarily the Faculty of Medicine, contribute to science teaching at all levels. There are approximately 3600 students in the Faculty of Science, including over 304 postgraduates, and an academic staff of 295

The faculty conducts undergraduate and postgraduate studies on the Clayton, Gippsland and Peninsula campuses in Australia and at Monash Malaysia.

The schools within the faculty are: Applied Sciences and Engineering; Biological Sciences; Chemistry; Geosciences; Mathematical Sciences; and Physics.

The School of Applied Sciences and Engineering operates on the Gippsland and Peninsula campuses and offers studies in applied biology, applied chemistry, mathematics and modelling, and resource and environmental management.

Amendment history
   amended 5.12.03
   amended 6.06.06

The School of Chemistry teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the Clayton campus, where there is an academic staff of 30 and about 100 postgraduate students, in a teaching load of approximately 368 EFTSU. Together with the School of Materials Engineering & Physics, the school teaches studies in materials science. The School of Applied Sciences teaches undergraduate chemistry courses on the Gippsland and Berwick campuses, and postgraduate courses on the Gippsland campus.

Research interests of the school include analytical and instrumentation chemistry, chemical biology and medicinal chemistry, electrochemistry and electroanalytical chemistry, environmental and green chemistry, industrial applications, materials chemistry, nano-chemistry, polymer chemistry, spectroscopy and molecular properties, synthetic and catalytic chemistry, theoretical and computation chemistry, coal product development.

The research centres of the school include: Centre for Biospectroscopy: The group makes use of vibrational spectroscopy, ab initio quantum mechanical calculations and chemometric techniques to carry out research in the following areas: High resolution molecular spectroscopy and Biospectroscopy.

The Water Studies Centre (www.sci.monash.edu.au/wsc/) is a multidisciplinary research centre within the School of Chemical Sciences at Monash University, and is a major partner in the CRC for Freshwater Ecology (freshwater.canberra.edu.au). The Centre operates a multidisciplinary research portfolio that focuses on four broad areas: Biogeochemical cycling, Real-time instrumentation, Aquatic colloidal chemistry and Aquatic biology (with Melbourne Water)

The Centre for Green Chemistry engages in fundamental research and development in the design, manufacture, and use of cleaner chemical processes that have little or no pollution potential or environmental risk and are both economically and technically feasible.

More information about:

2. General policy statement

The Collection Development Policy covers printed books and journals, electronic resources, multimedia and any other formats acquired for the Library's collection.

The Policy is regularly monitored to ensure that the selection and acquisition of new resources supports the teaching and research needs of the faculties and their departments. While every effort is made to meet known information needs some gaps in the collection may develop which need attention, and suggestions to address them are welcome. This may be done through liaison with library staff or, for individual titles, using the recommendation form at lib.monash.edu.au/forms/acquisition-request.doc

To ensure that the library provides collection materials to support new courses and subjects, completion of a Library Impact Statement lib.monash.edu.au/forms/impact.doc is required. When establishing new research directions staff are encouraged to liaise with the library about the provision of supporting information resources.

All titles listed as prescribed or recommended reading for teaching subjects are acquired as high priority and in multiple copies depending on student enrolment numbers. This is particularly necessary for undergraduate students, who need access to adequate resources on their home campus. Electronic versions of these texts are also provided where possible, so that access is more readily available regardless of location and number of copies held. The inter-campus loan and photocopy services for undergraduates further support the needs of those students.

However, the library cannot acquire every item that could conceivably be needed by Monash staff or students. The reciprocal borrowing scheme enables Monash library users to borrow from other university libraries. Post-graduates and staff may also use the document delivery service to obtain books and articles from other libraries in Australia and overseas.

3. The library's collection

a. Location

Resources purchased for the School of Chemistry are located in the Hargrave-Andrew Library on the Clayton campus. Resources purchased by the School of Applied Sciences to support chemistry teaching are generally located on the Gippsland, Berwick or Peninsula campuses. The Department of Chemical Engineering (Faculty of Engineering) collects considerable material which overlaps with areas of interest to the School of Chemistry. This material is located in the Hargrave-Andrew Library.

Significant resources in the area of environment and ecology are acquired for the School of Geography and Environmental Science (Faculty of Arts), and these are housed in the Matheson Library on the Clayton campus. The School of Biological Sciences also purchases material in this area.

b. Language

Generally only material in the English language is acquired, apart from some German-language serials.

c. Classification used

Material acquired for the School of Chemistry is classified using the Dewey Decimal Classification.

d. Formats

While no format is excluded, in practice the greater part of the collection is monographs and serials, both printed and electronic. A large number of monographic series are also collected. Due to the nature of research in chemistry, serial literature is seen as vital and so a high proportion of the library budget is spent on serials.

e. Size of the collection

Estimated number of monograph volumes purchased per annum: approximately 200+

Number of print serial titles received : The school subscribes to approximately 70 titles and these are located in the Hargrave-Andrew Library.

f. Significant electronic resources

The library is purchasing increased numbers of resources in electronic format, including networked or internet databases, fulltext resources, including suites of electronic journals, and CD-ROM databases that are only accessible within a particular Branch library. As a result, an increasing proportion of the budget for library material for the Faculty of Science is spent on these resources.

These include

Electronic Databases

  • SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts)
  • Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management
  • Web of Science
  • Digital Dissertations
  • MathSciNet

Fulltext journal collections

  • ACS publications (American Chemical Society)
  • Annual review of physical chemistry
  • Royal Society of Chemistry journals
  • ScienceDirect
  • Cambridge journals online
  • SpringerLink

Electronic Books

  • Encyclopedia of polymer science and technology
  • ENVIROnetBASE
  • Knovel
  • MATHnetBASE

Subject gateways

75% of the library materials budget for the Faculty of Science is spent on serials, and 6.5% on electronic resources.

g. Coverage of the collection

The library resources acquired for the school cover in general all areas of the Dewey Decimal Classification in the 540s, chemistry.

The main areas of collecting for the School of Chemistry are detailed below

333.7 Natural resources and energy
363.7 Environmental problems
540 Chemistry and allied sciences
541 Physical and theoretical chemistry
542 Techniques, procedures, apparatus
543 Analytical chemistry
544 Qualitative analysis
545 Quantitative analysis
546 Inorganic chemistry
547 Organic chemistry
548 Crystallography
549 Mineralogy
662.62 Coal fuel

The strength of the collection is on the Clayton campus, where research is concentrated. The greatest strengths are in physical and organic chemistry, with research level collections also in inorganic chemistry and crystallography.

Additional collecting focus is being given to subject areas concerned with green chemistry and nano-science and nano-technology.

4. Other significant Monash collections or resources

SESTICON: As a member of SESTICON (South Eastern Scientific and Technical Information Consortium), Hargrave-Andrew cooperates with the member libraries covering this subject to consolidate and maximise holdings, thus providing the most effective access to information resources. Selected serial titles in areas of shared research interest are also circulated among the SESTICON libraries. (More infomation about SESTICON available lib.monash.edu.au/hal/sesticon.html)

Collections Table

(T = teaching level, R = research level)

DDC Description Caulfield Matheson Law HAL Gippsland Peninsula Berwick
333.7 Natural resources and energy -     R & T T    
363.7 Environmental problems -     R & T T    
540 Chemistry and allied sciences -     R & T T    
541 Physical and theoretical chemistry -     R & T T    
542 Techniques, procedures, apparatus -     T -    
543 Analytical chemistry -     R & T T    
544 Qualitative analysis -     R & T T    
545 Quantitative analysis -     R & T -    
546 Inorganic chemistry -     R & T T    
547 Organic chemistry -     R & T T    
548 Crystallography -     R & T -    
549 Mineralogy -     R & T -    
662.62 Coal fuel -     R & T T    

Amendment history

Amended February 2004
First issued November 2000

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