Library and archives

Anthropology Library

The Anthropology Library is now part of the new Centre for Anthropology, situated near the north entrance of the Museum. The library is one of the world's major specialist anthropological collections with its origins in the nineteenth century; its holdings were greatly enhanced by the gift of the Royal Anthropological Institute Library to the Ethnography Department Library on 1976.

History

Both collections have a distinguished history. The Ethnography Department Library was much enlarged by Augustus Wollaston Franks, who from 1866 to 1896 was Keeper of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities, to which Ethnography was then attached. Franks purchased some two thousand volumes from his own resources and added these to the Christy Library, a collection of contemporary travel books received in 1865 from the industrialist Henry Christy.

The RAI Library began by combining the collections of the Ethnological Society, founded in 1843, and the Anthropological Society of London, which seceded from it in 1863 but returned in 1871. It was built up by purchase, bequest and a journal exchange programme with other learned institutions throughout the world. The RAI continues to support the Anthropology Library most generously.

Today the library contains around 120,000 books and pamphlets and 4,000 journal titles (of which about 1,500 are current), in addition to microfiches, microfilms, maps, newsletters, sound recordings and congress reports. There is also an important collection of photographs and other pictorial material.

The literature held covers every aspect of anthropology: cultural and social anthropology with a strong emphasis on material culture and art, archaeology, some biological and medical anthropology and linguistics, together with such related fields as history, sociology and description and travel.

Geographically, its scope is worldwide; it is particularly strong in the areas of the Commonwealth, Eastern Europe and the Americas, notably Mesoamerica.

The journal collection is indexed by the Anthropological Index Online, a free online service. Fellows and Junior Fellows of the Royal Anthropological Institute are eligible to borrow items donated by the RAI; other researchers may only consult material in the library.