Collections

The library offers a diverse range of materials in a variety of formats. The GED will provide access to over one million documents, including scholarly books and journals, digital materials, photographs, audio-visual materials, maps, theses, and grey literature. 80% of these will be accessible directly on site.

The GED’s collections will be organized into four main thematic research areas (Research and Scholarship; History; Texts, Meaning, Creation; and Spaces, Populations, Societies) and four geographical research areas (Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Eurasia). And since researchers will be able to recommend materials for purchase on the homepage of the catalogue, the collection will grow and evolve to meet research needs. 

Research and Scholarship

This research area consists of over 40,000 monographs and is envisaged as an introduction to the breadth of the library’s collections.

Its primary focus is the history and epistemology of science, and it brings together the FMSH history and philosophy of science collections and the collections of EHESS’s Centre Alexandre-Koyré.

It has a secondary focus on social science research methods and theories. Here, visitors will encounter spaces designed to communicate the transdisciplinary themes of modern research, all of them key areas of focus for the GED.

History

History is a major focus of the GED’s collections, and the library has over 80,000 monographs, primarily from FMSH’s history collections as well as the resource centres of CNRS, Paris 1, and EHESS. The collection is heavily weighted towards contemporary history, with about two thirds of the materials in this area pertaining to that period, but ancient, medieval, and modern history are represented as well. The contemporary history collections are strengthened by the inclusion of special collections in social history (from the Centre d'histoire sociale du XXe siècle) and the histories of World War Two, totalitarianism, and decolonization (from the Institut d'histoire du temps présent).

Texts, Meaning, Creation

This research area brings together collections focused on the study of text, thought, and image over time and from any perspective, whether it be conceptual, spiritual, artistic, etc.

Philosophy is at the centre of this collection, which boasts 16,000 monographs in this area mainly from the incredible philosophy collection at FMSH as well as those of research centres specializing in political and social philosophy.

Philosophy of language and aesthetics are represented in the languages, writing, and creation section, which features more than 20,000 monographs from FMSH’s literary and artistic theory and linguistics collections.

Another section of this research area is devoted to the psychoanalytical sciences, whose 7,000 volumes consist of the FMSH’s psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychiatry collections and the collection of Serge Moscovici, the founder of the EHESS social psychology laboratory.

Book history is a major focus in this research area. The study of Hebraic, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Roman texts from Antiquity to the Renaissance, book history is foundational to the research on religion, literature, science, philosophy, and society in Europe, Africa, or the Middle East. The 25,000-item strong collection is made up of materials from the L’Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes (IRHT) and L’Institut des traditions textuelles (ITT).

The learning sciences section brings together several disciplines whose methodologies provide a means by which any kind of historical source can be understood. The GED boasts a collection in these disciplines of almost 60,000 openly available works. Among them are volumes on the history of art and iconography, written sources and writing, philology, and ancient languages. They come to the GED mainly from the historical and philological sciences section of L’École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) library and the collections of the IRHT and ITT.

Consisting of around 25,000 openly available items, the religious studies section is one of the library’s largest. The individual collections that constitute it are among the most important in France, and include the religious studies section of both the EPHE library and EHESS’s Centre d'études en sciences sociales du religieux.

Because philosophy, book history, and religious studies share not only a large number of common references but also an author-first approach, a section of the library brings together works by authors of common interest whose writings are considered as primary sources by researchers in these fields.

Spaces, Populations, Societies

This area brings together the social sciences collections: demography, sociology, anthropology, political science, law, economics, and geography. It is also the core focus of the library’s Gis CollEx-Persée collections. Over 100,000 books in these disciplines are openly available to researchers.

The demography section consists mainly of Ined materials, while the core of the sociology and anthropology sections consists of materials from FMSH. Because these two subject areas are so closely related, users will benefit greatly from the colocation of materials from both institutions.

Demography, sociology, and anthropology are at the hearts of this research area. The content of several FMSH collections is vital to research in these areas. The political, legal, and economic sciences section collates materials from political science, economics, and law that are collected here as branches of sociology. The spaces and environment section brings together documents that deal with environmental and ecological issues, cities, urbanism, and rural spaces.

Cultural Areas

Because the Campus Condorcet library brings together the collections of several libraries with strengths in specific geographic regions, its own collection is particularly rich in this domain. The disciplines represented here (contemporary history, sociology, and anthropology, as well as the humanities and social sciences more broadly) are those of the research centres whose libraries form the GED, and those represented throughout the library.

Now that the collections of L'Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne’s Bibliothèque de recherches africaines and of EHESS’s former Centre d'études africaines are under one roof, visitors can access 35,000 volumes housed in open stacks in a dedicated African Studies section at the GED.

The Americas area brings together the collections of the L’Institut des hautes études d'Amérique latine at Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and the document collections at L'Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and EHESS that pertain to the American continent. More than 100,000 books are available for browsing in open stacks. While most of them cover Latin America, North American Studies also has its own dedicated section.

The Asia area, focusing primarily on south-eastern Asia, and is the result of the merger of 11 special collections from EHESS, EPHE, and CNRS covering the different countries in this region and equalling over 100,000 browsable monographs.
 
The Eurasia area covers the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, and Central and Western Europe. The richest collection in this area, pertaining to the history of the USSR and contemporary Russia, comes to the GED from the CERCEC (the Centre for Russian, Caucasian and Central European Studies) and the Centre de recherche en histoire des Slaves (CRHS). Thanks to the collections of the Centre d'études turques, ottomanes, balkaniques et centrasiatiques, the contemporary history of the Middle East, particularly Turkey and the Balkans, is well represented. Another section in this area consists of the Central European history collection of the Centre de recherches sur l'histoire de l'Europe centrale contemporaine (CRHECC).