Multicultural Collection (MCC)

Introduction

The Multicultural Collection (MCC) is a circulating collection covering the political, social, cultural, economic, and intellectual history of African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans [1] in the southwestern United States from United States independence to the present, with emphasis on 20th and 21st century problems and progress. The collection is designed to support the needs of a number of departments within the university community. As library patrons are led to ask questions about how African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans have contributed to the United States in general and the Southwest in particular, they will find much needed information in the MCC.

General Subject Group Guidelines:

  1. Language: Most materials in the MCC will be in English, which is the primary language of the library patrons. Reference material which supports Spanish, Asian, and Native American language material may be purchased for the collection.
  2. Chronological Guidelines: Emphasis is on material of the 20th and 21st  Century. Material about blacks prior to the arrival of Africans to the New World is excluded. Material about Southwestern peoples prior to European contact is also excluded.
  3. Geographical Guidelines: Emphasis is on the modern Southwestern United States (i.e. Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas). Excluded is material dealing with issues or subjects of local emphasis to areas that lie beyond these five states. Works about nationally important issues and movements are included, as are works by and about nationally important African American, Asian American, Mexican American, and Native American writers and leaders.
  4. Treatment of the Subject: Material by and about African Americans, Asian American, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans, their works and accomplishments, will be sought. Biographies of noteworthy Blacks, Asian Americans, Chicanos, and American Indians, literary works, literary criticisms, and historical material will be secured. Material covering the legal, sociological, political, and economic aspects of the minority status of these four groups will be chosen. Textbooks are not ordinarily purchased for the collection, and juvenile material (with the exception of juvenile folklore) will be excluded.
  5. Type of Material: All types of material will be acquired. Reference works, bibliographies, encyclopedias, indexes and abstracts, guides, directories, and handbooks will be selected.
  6. Date of Publication: Current, in print, publications are emphasized, but selective retrospective collection development is important to fill gaps in the collection and to replace lost or damaged material.
  7. Other Considerations: It is impossible to avoid some overlap of the subject specializations within the collections of the UT Arlington Library. Special Collections, for example, may have material of interest to the user of the Multicultural Collection.

[1] Parenthetically, the terms "African Americans," "Afro-Americans," and "Blacks" have been used interchangeably in this document although the term "African American" has been predominant. The same is true for the terms "Mexican Americans" and "Chicanos." The term "Mexican Americans" predominates. Also, the terms "Native Americans" and "American Indians" are used interchangeably; the term "Native Americans" is preferred. The term Asian American is used to encompass a number of groups: Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Filipino Americans, Korean Americans, South Asian Americans, and Vietnamese Americans.