About the Library

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The Library of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research was established in 1984 as a non-circulating reference library with subject-specific holdings, specializing in the social and political sciences and contemporary history. The Library serves the needs of research staff at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research and provides information for other departments of the Institute such as the publishing house and the Press and Public Affairs Office.

The Library is also open to the public; all holdings can be used on site. Library staff assists users from outside the Institute in procuring literature and information and provides informal orientation tours of the Library for new users upon request.

The Institute’s non-circulating Library currently houses some 40,000 media, including some 260 subscription journals in print.

All Library resources can be searched through the Catalog. Library periodicals are also included in the German Zeitschriftendatenbank (ZDB, Data Bank for Periodicals) and in the German database Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund (GBV, Common Library Network).

Library services are designed to fulfill the specific research and information requirements of its users.

In response to these needs, a diverse spectrum of activities has developed in recent years, which, besides the specific fields of scholarship reflected in the holdings, define the specific character of the Library. The following points summarize briefly the Library’s unique profile:

Requests for new books are filled via domestic and international suppliers in the shortest possible time. Review copies of publications relevant to research conducted in the Institute are procured for staff members each week.

Holdings are presented in a classification system tailored to the needs of the Institute and its specific research focus. Institute staff members have access to the open stacks around the clock.

Holdings reflect the thematic focus of research and include in many sections substantial amounts of literature in languages other than German as well as a large amount of grey literature.

Online services provided by the Library are updated and extended regularly and include a subject-specific collection of Web Links. This information portal leads to selected electronic resources, focusing on collections that are relevant to the Institute’s research profile. DigiBib is a further, highly useful tool that enables users to conduct simultaneous meta-searches in 25 databases.

Books or photocopies of relevant articles are acquired for research staff members from other libraries via local lending systems or interlibrary loan.

Library staff members also conduct in-house and external information searches and compile bibliographies on specific topics for Institute staff on request.