Holdings
Besides books, CD-ROMs, DVDs, videos, and databases, the Library holds subscriptions to some 260 academic and political journals in print and 30 online periodicals, all of which can be used on site. A further 1,700 periodical titles from the special collection Protest, Resistance, and Utopia in the Federal Republic of Germany within the Institute’s Archives are also included in the Catalog.
The Library utilizes a classification system tailored to the Institute’s profile and designed to facilitate on-site orientation and direct stack access to literature on specific subjects. In the subject area headed Social Movements, the classification system is applied to both the Library’s stocks and Archives holdings.
Current Subscriptions to Periodicals
New Acquisitions to the Library
Classification System of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research’s Library
Downloads
The Library’s holdings reflect the Institute’s research profile and work of the three research units at the Institute. Over the years, extensive collections on specific themes that include interesting and rare resources have been acquired. One quarter of the media is in languages other than German, including for the most part literature published in English or French.
Currently, three disciplines, namely, history, political science, and sociology, account for the largest part of Library holdings, which now total about 40,000 volumes.
On an average, approximately 1,500 media are acquired annually. New acquisitions appear in the online catalog when they are ordered and are available to users shortly after delivery. To facilitate searches, all holdings are assigned extensive keywords. Collections from the special collection on Social Movements / Protest Movements can be accessed with the aid of an extra thesaurus.
The special collection Social Movements / Protest Movements in the Federal Republic of Germany comprises holdings from the Library and the Archives of the Institute and is associated with the Research Unit: The Society of the Federal Republic of Germany. This collection encompasses about 4,000 single volumes and multiple-volume books and 1,700 periodical titles, including about sixty current journal subscriptions.
Through purchases of newly published books and acquisitions of older volumes relevant to the study of protest movements, this special collection continues to grow.
The following lists offer an outline of the Library’s holdings related to the three research units:
Theory and History of Violence
Holdings on: peace and conflict studies; theory of violence; Cold War and Vietnam War; colonial wars; modes of warfare; terrorism, the future of war; war and gender; debates on totalitarianism; Holocaust; Gulag; genocide research; "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" and the politics and culture of memory; politics and history of the USA in the twentieth century
The Society of the Federal Republic of Germany
Focal points include here: contemporary and historical social movements and protest movements; transformations of the social state; precariousness; social inequality and processes of exclusion; the labor court system; the German question in politics (division and unification); post-World-War-II war crime trials; new world order; globalization; the Berlin republic; social class
Nation and Society
Literature on the following topics: nation/nationalism; state sovereignty; immigration and society; xenophobia; anti-Semitism and other prejudices; right-wing extremism; anti-fascism/political initiatives against right-wing extremism; policies affecting foreigners/refugees/people seeking political asylum
The Library also has substantial holdings on the war in the former Yugoslavia and its impacts. Some 400 volumes focus on the history of sexuality in the twentieth century (sexual politics, sex education, sexual morals, the science of sexuality, homosexuality and gender relations). Gender studies and feminist theory and philosophy are also well-represented in the Library’s holdings.