UM Libraries

 

The U-M Libraries, with over 8.4 million print volumes and more than 8 million microform, map, and multimedia units, comprise one of the largest research collections in the country. Print holdings related to EU member and candidate countries total more than 830,000 titles in English and more than 840,000 in other languages. The libraries together spend more than $1.8 million annually on materials directly related to current members and candidates of the EU. The overall acquisition budget remains one of highest of all US research libraries, and provides significant opportunities for additional purchases to meet the research and instructional needs of campus scholars. Eleven subject specialists coordinate collection development and user services (reference, instruction and outreach) relating to EU members and candidates. Remote access to library materials is supported for faculty, staff, and students, while in-building use is free to all, so that visitors can easily obtain full access to library holdings, databases and services.

 

Support for European Center's programs is particularly strong in several of the specialized libraries on campus. The Law Library houses one of the foremost international law collections in the world, and was the first academic library depository for the predecessors of the EU.  The Law Library automatically receives copies of all official EU documents, and also buys supporting commercial materials such as codes, treaties, court reports, and legislation from all European countries, as well as publications of relevant IGOs. The Government Documents Center holds historical censuses and statistical serials for all European countries. It is a depository for the UN, and has standing orders for a wide range of EU-related supporting materials, including electronic and print publications of OECD, the Council of Europe, and the World Bank. Research guides developed by the Law and Documents libraries direct students to a wide variety of EU-related resources, including Eur-Lex, Europa, Celex, ECLAS and Eurostat. Other campus strengths include the Map Library, which holds a complete set of topographical maps, at the largest available scale, for the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Poland. The Map Library also supports Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for a wide range of digital spatial data sets, with particular focus on major European cities. The Library's Numeric Data Services unit provides support for quantitative research on EU member countries, including data set selection, acquisition and extraction, including election returns, political behavior, international relations and public opinion data (e.g. the various Eurobarometer series).  The University Library provides access to a very wide range of searchable online news sources and other databases for research and teaching relating to the EU.  Online access to research materials on the EU is also facilitated through OAIster, a University of Michigan service that indexes open access resources from a wide variety of repositories, including the Archive of European Integration.

 

FRENCH COLLECTION

 

French language holdings of the University of Michigan Libraries are both diverse and extensive, currently in excess of 295,000 titles, and growing at a rate of some 12,000 titles per year. The history collection is one of the largest in the nation, and additional areas of notable strength include literature, social science and publications of French academies and scholarly societies.

 

Special Collection highlights include:

• 1,100 political pamphlets from the 17th century;  
• legal memoranda and other documents from 19th century political trials;
• François Guizot pamphlet collection, ca. 1789-1870;
• 1,000 works of boulevard farce and light comedy, ca. 1900-1930;
• 14,000 maps and atlases, including extensive historical maps and complete modern topographic mapping of France at 1:25,000;
• artists' books, early-mid 20th century.