Computer Science and Information Security

Collection Development Statement

Last updated July 2020

Overview

The computer science collection supports all research and teaching in the Whiting School of Engineering, as well as almost all of the University’s other schools, departments, programs, institutes, centers, and offices.

CS offers a BS degree, a BA for students wanting a liberal arts focus or combining Computer Science with a non-engineering major, a major in Computer Engineering, a Combined Bachelor’s/Master’s in Computer Science, and a minor in Computer Science.

In addition, as of Summer 2020, the Master of Science in Security Informatics (MSSI) is also part of the CS department, having formerly been administered by the JHU Information Security Institute (JHUISI). All students must complete a Capstone project in order to graduate.

Focus areas for CS and for the MSSI include:

• cryptography and privacy; health and medical security; machine learning; robotics, vision, and graphics; language and speech processing; computational biology and medicine

Departments/disciplines/programs/subject Areas Supported

This collection supports:

• Most other departments, programs, and schools across JHU
• Countless institutes and labs, including the Center for Imaging Science, the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics, the Center for Language and Speech Processing, and the Institute for Computational Medicine

General

This collection supports all patron groups from freshmen through research faculty.

Like most other Whiting School departments, there is a great deal of interdisciplinarity within Computer Science.

In 2020, faculty research included: algorithms (including distributed algorithms, intrusion tolerance, and fault tolerance), large data sets for scientific applications, scalable systems that support neuroscience imaging analysis and annotation, distributed computing, approximation algorithms, social media, health informatics, and human-robot interaction.

Some of the main call number ranges:

• Q335 and nearby – artificial intelligence
• QA 76-79 – computer manuals
• T385 – computer graphics

While CS supports all other patron groups on campus, the MSSI program is supported by collections in CS, ECE, and areas of Social Sciences such as business and global studies.

Formats Selected

CS and MSSI students and researchers have a strong preference for online resources, although students have requested computer manuals in print even when they are available online.

Despite this, books are not preferred because so much up-to-date information is available online.

Preferred formats:

• Journals
• Conference proceedings
• Handbooks and manuals
• Books (more for the InfoSec patrons)
• Specialized databases (e.g., TRAC; although these are generally bought through the Social Science group)

Material acquired by request or selectively:

• Reference works (such as O’Reilly for Higher Education)
• Textbooks

Material not collected:

• Biographies
• Ephemera
• Histories
• Juvenile works
• Manuscripts
• Microform
• Workbooks
• Pamphlets
• Preprints

Languages Collected

English

Chronological or geographical focus

Emphasis is on current and recent applications and scholarship.

Collaborations

Three joint graduate programs are offered:

• Computer Engineering (CE) degree in partnership with the ECE department
• Minor in Computer-integrated Surgery
• Minor in Robotics