Minutes of the July 3, 2006 TERMinators meeting

Present: Hector Escobar, Mary Lehman, Tom Lehman, Marina Smyth

The goal for the meeting was to review and finalize a draft statement regarding the DDW page "General and Multidisciplinary" for sharing with others outside the TERMinators group.

During discussion, the focus of the statement morphed into the more broadly applicable "Guidelines for assigning resources to DDW pages" as shown below.

Guidelines for assigning resources to DDW pages

The purpose of the General and Multidisciplinary page is to provide a list of general resources that are:
-- good for undergraduates starting their research
-- good for graduate students and faculty engaging in research outside of their discipline
-- intended for the non-specialist and generalist
-- good for research on multidisciplinary topics

Resources which cover more than one subject, but the subjects all belong to one of the following:
-- Arts and Humanities (General)
-- Social Sciences (General)
-- Science and Technology (General)
are appropriate for one of those respective pages. They are not appropriate for the General and Multidisciplinary page.

Resources with a clear subject focus are appropriate for that subject page. They are not appropriate for the General and Multidisciplinary page nor for the three general pages listed above. Resources which are broader in scope than a single subject, but which are important for that subject, may be listed on that subject page.

Examples:
-- Encyclopaedia Britannica, a general resource covering all topics, is a candidate for the General and Multidisciplinary page.
-- Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a resource with a specific subject focus, and is not appropriate for the General and Multidisciplinary page, nor the three general pages.
-- Humanities International Index covers several subjects within the humanities, and is therefore suitable for listing on the Arts and Humanities (General) page, but not for the General and Multidisciplinary page.
-- International medieval bibliography (IMB) which covers art, religion, history, sciences, etc., is multidisciplinary within the subject Medieval Studies. However, because the focus is on a particular chronological period, IMB is not suitable for the General and Multidisciplinary page. Similar examples would be resources which are multidisciplinary, but focused on a geographic region, etc.

Next meeting: Tuesday, July 18th, 1:30-3:00

--Mary L.