Library of the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities Sibiu

The Library of the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities Sibiu is a research and documentation library.

Programme

Tuesday to Friday: 11:00-15:00

Contact

Bulevardul Victoriei nr. 40; 550024 Sibiu; Tel: 0269-212604, Fax. 0269-216605
e-mail: biblioteca@icsusib.ro

Librarian

Dr. Corina Cioltei-Hopârtean

Curriculum vitae

The Library of the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities Sibiu has a collection of over 20,000 specialized books and scientific journals, mostly from the fields associated with the research directions of the institute: archeology, medieval history, modern history, contemporary history, urban history, ethnology, ethnography and Transylvanian Saxon dialectology.

The library offers various collections of books and periodicals, amongst them:

• Bibliographic files from the Dictionary of Transylvanian Saxon Dialects / Siebenbürgisch-Sächsisches  Wörterbuch, 2,000,000 files.
   
• The collections of journals published by the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities:
  • The Yearbook of the Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities Sibiu (1994-Present);
  • Forschungen zur Volks- und Landeskunde (1959-Present);
  • Historia Urbana (1993-Present);
  • Ethnological Studies and News (1992-Present).
• The collections of periodicals and newspapers:
  • Archiv des Vereins für siebenbürgische Landeskunde (1853–1934);
  • Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins für siebenbürgische Landeskunde (1978–1941);
  • Siebenbürgisch-Deutsches Tageblatt (1874–1943).

Library Services

The library reading room has 18 seats for research, study and conferences.

• All publications can be consulted in the reading room only;
• The library does not have a photocopier, so the copying of files from the library collections can be done with the devices owned by the visitor (phone, camera, tablet).

The beginnings of the current library can be traced back to 1956, when the Sibiu Department of Social Sciences of the Romanian Academy Branch from Cluj was established. The first collection of books and periodicals was assembled from the archive of the Dictionary of Transylvanian Saxon Dialects. The initial fund was gradually enriched and diversified with books received from the Cluj Branch of the Romanian Academy. In 1970, when the Sibiu Section became the Center for Social Sciences, the library had about 3,000 books and periodicals. Today, the library has a collection of over 20,000 items, both specialized books and periodicals. Over the course of six decades, the library has grown through acquisitions, subscriptions and donations. The exchange of volumes has contributed, in a considerable way, to an even greater collection of books and periodicals. The library has a significant collection of books and publications in German, some of them with a significant documentary value due to their age and rarity: the collection of edited documents Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenbürgen, the encyclopedic dictionary Der Grosse Brockhaus, the dictionary thesaurus of the German language Deutsches Wörterbuch of the Brothers Grimm, the publications Archiv des Vereins für siebenbürgische Landeskunde (1853-1934), Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins für siebenbürgische Landeskunde (1978-1941), the daily newspaper Siebenbürgisch-Deutsches Tageblatt (1874-1943), linguistic atlases, dialectal dictionaries, books and pamphlets written in Transylvanian Saxon dialects and a rich archive of witness-sheets (2,000,000 files) with lexicological material for the Saxon dialects. Collected at the beginning of the 20th century from the region inhabited by the Transylvanian Saxons, this linguistic material was the basis for the research conducted for the publication of the Dictionary of Transylvanian Saxon Dialects.

Currently, the library holdings are organized into domains and then alphabetically (within the domains). The volumes are stored in the library or in the offices belonging to the researchers. As a specialized library with a closed circuit, it is accessible not only to our staff, but to all those interested: researchers from other institutions, museographers, teachers, students, etc.