Library

The largest American studies collection in Poland

The American Studies Center Library has been collecting humanities and social science publications on the United States of America since 1976.

Drawing on long-term financial support from numerous US institutions and foundations (including USIA, Peace Corps, Mellon Foundation, Sabre Foundation), we have built the largest American studies collection in Poland, which is further enhanced by interlibrary loans (including from U.S. Library of Congress, Indiana University Library, Kent State University Library, University of Kansas Library, and the University of Pittsburgh Library System).

In 2017, the collection of the UW Center for Latin American Studies (CESLA) was added to the ASC Library holdings. In 2020 the Polish-American Ethnological Society donated part of the prof. Andrzej Wala book collection to our American Studies Center.

Our collection at your fingertips

When opening our library, we strove to create a welcoming and pleasant space providing free and open access to our growing library collection, following the example of Western universities. At the ASC library, you do not need to wade through online catalogs and order books in advance. You can just stop by in between your classes and easily access most of the books in our collection. Our staff is always there to help you find what you’re looking for. With books organized into categories, you can quickly find similar titles on the topic you are interested in, expand your bibliography and dig deeper into the topic of your research.

Latest arrivals

ASC Library rules

The library of the American Studies Center is a scientific library which, together with the University Library in Warsaw (BUW) and other libraries of organizational units of the University of Warsaw, forms a common University Library and Information System. The collection of the UW American Studies Center Library can be used by all interested persons. Readers have free access to the entire book collection, which is arranged by subject area according to the Dewey Decimal Classification.

According to the Regulations of the Library and Information System of the University of Warsaw of 20 June 2020, all libraries of the System make their collections available to students, doctoral students and employees of the University of Warsaw according to the uniformed rules. Borrowing is done on the basis of a library card issued by BUW or a student’s electronic ID card or a UW employee’s ID card or UW employee’s electronic ID card. For details, visit the BUW website under “Registration”.

ASC library catalogues

All ASC Library holdings are catalogued.

Main Library catalogue (BUW) covers the holdings pertaining to Latin American (former CESLA collection) and about 90% of books about the USA (as of December 2023). The library continues retroconversion (cataloging books into the BUW’s catalog).

Print indexes cover special holdings, e.g., the author title, and subject index of The Microbook Library of American Civilization and the subject index of the The New York Times School Microfilm Collection.

ASC library holdings

The ASC Library holds primarily books in English:

• Books – 28294 volumes (as at 31 Dec. 2022).
• Microforms (miniature photographs of printed texts on film or plastic fiches:
  • microfiches – e.g., The New York Times 1986-1990; the unique collection Library of American Civilization, whichincludes sources (documents, letters, memoirs, paper clippings, maps), monographs, reproductions of art works etc. Pertaining to the US and published in the US between mid-18th century and 1914. The optical technology used is responsible for a single microfiche containing up to a thousand pages of print. A print index allows you to search byauthor, title, key word, and subject area.
  • microfilms (miniature photographs of printed texts on film or plastic fiches) – e.g., Atlantic Monthly (1857-1935), American Popular Culture (1897-1949), Harper’s Weekly (1857-1916), New York Times School Microfilm Collection (wybór z lat 1851-1979), The Yale Review (1934-1982).
• Audiovisual materials:
  • films – educational series, features, television programs
  • transparencies – the collection covers primarily US architecture, film, theatre, literature, history, and visual arts.

Online resources

ASC faculty and students can access UW online resources via the BUW (Main Library) website.

• Online database (List A-Z, e.g. JSTOR, Newspaper Source, ScienceDirect, Scopus, SpringerLink, Web of Science)
• E-journals (also newspapers e.g. Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post)
• E-books
• Multi-search (enables integrated search of e-resources and UW Libraries catalogue)
• Oxford English Dictionary (an electronic dictionary of English with an extensive part for linguists)

Also recommended:

• Library of Congress,
• John F. Kennedy Institute Library (Berlin),
• Project MUSE, (open access content to books and journals in the humanities and social sciences from the world’s most distinguished university presses and scholarly societies),
• HathiTrust (a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally by libraries),
• Making of America (MOA) (digital collection of source materials on US social history up to the Reconstruction, including in education, psychology, sociology, religion, science, and technology),
• Ehistory (a joint project by Ohio State University Department of History, The Harvey Goldberg Program for Excellence in Teaching, and Web Media Collective of Ohio State University, grouping together source materials on US history).

All ASC Library patrons may access online resources from computers located in the ASC Library.

Library staff