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The library of the New Europe College (Institute for Advanced Study) was founded in 1994 as a support for our initial fellowship program (the NEC Fellowships). In the beginning it focused on reference literature in the major fields of the humanities and social sciences; over the years it grew into being a much more diverse collection, consisting – beside the initial reference core – of books, journals, and electronic resources in the aforementioned fields. The main guidelines in ordering titles for our library are the following:
By complementing the resources of other libraries in the country, and by answering the readers’ need for quick access to recent relevant literature that the university or state libraries are much too seldom able to offer, the NEC library has succeeded to become over the years – although still a small library with respect to its number of items – a much sought of and highly regarded scholarly resource, both for its fellows and alumni, as well as for a constantly increasing number of students, researchers, academics, and scholars (mostly Romanians, but also foreign scholars either coming from the region under NEC’s Regional Program, or others pursuing their research in Romania). The NEC library currently holds some 20,000 volumes in the fields of the humanities and social sciences (Anthropology, Archaeology, Architecture, Art History and Theory, Balkan Studies, Classical Studies, Cultural Studies, Economics, Education, Gender Studies, History, Media and Film Studies, Human Rights, Journalism, Law, Linguistics and Semiotics, Literary History, Theory & Criticism, Philosophy, Politics and International Relations, Religion, Sociology, Visual Arts, etc.) mainly in English, French, German, Italian, and Romanian. There is also a smaller number of books in Arabian, Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish, etc. Given the high profile of the NEC in the local academic and scholarly milieu, several special collections were donated to our institute over the years both from Romania and abroad (s. list of all donors below). The largest one is the André Scrima Collection, comprising over 3000 titles and a significant number of manuscripts of the donor. It comprises mainly works in the fields of religion and philosophy, but also includes books on art history and theory, literary history and theory, as well as on history and sociology. In 2004, the NEC library subscribed to 16 journals. Our collection of multimedia resources (CD-ROMs and DVDs) is being to date installed on a server, in order to make it accessible from all computers in the NEC network (library, fellows’ offices and accommodations on the premises). A special feature of our library has resulted from the HESP financed RELINK Program (1996-2002) and NEC-LINK Program (2002-to present). Under the RELINK Program, the fellows ordered books in connection with their projects, which were supposed to enter either the library of the institution they were affiliated with on an extended loan basis, or (conditions not permitting) the NEC library. The same procedure is now valid under the NEC-LINK Program. Although a good part of this educational material is held outside the NEC library, it has been included in the our library on-line catalog, mention being made as to where the books are presently to be found; the agreements signed with the libraries of the institutions benefiting from these purchases stipulate the possibility of inter-library loans, enabling us to make these books directly accessible to our readers, in case they are not able to access them in the libraries presently holding them. In order to further expand the holdings of the NEC library beyond the collections on its bookshelves, we also constantly acquire digital publications (be it on CD-ROMs and DVDs), and subscribe to electronic journals and databases (including the EBSCO’s Academic Search Premier). A further step towards enhancing the library’s offer consists in the development of inter-library loan services, both with Romanian libraries (the Library of the Romanian Academy, the National Library, the major university libraries, etc.), as well as with those of the foreign cultural institutes present in Bucharest. As a means of facilitating the search of our holdings, we have commissioned the development of a library catalogue program, that runs under Linux, which permits the Internet access to the NEC library catalogue (http://library.nec.ro). Although the NEC library is still a small one, the capability of anybody to consult our collection over the Internet very much boosted the number of students, faculty and scholars that were interested in making use of our library holdings, the more so as the they could discover titles that are not to be found otherwise in Romanian libraries. As mentioned above, the catalogue lists not only the books to be found in the NEC library, but also items that have been purchased under our various programs, and that have been loaned on an extended basis to various university libraries throughout the land. The NEC library is an open-shelf one, permitting free access to the holdings (the fellows staying on the premises have a 24 hours per day access, the rest of the readers being able to use the library facilities Monday through Friday from 10 AM to 8 PM). The library area (of approx. 450 sqm) consists of 2 large rooms (one holding the general collection, the other being the reading room), the André Scrima Collection room, and the librarian’s office. The reading room can seat up to 28 readers at one time. To date, readers can make use of 6 computer terminals (4 laptops and 2 desktops), which are connected both to the Internet and to the servers used to supply the library’s electronic facilities (Internet connection, catalogue, and CD-ROMs and DVDs collection). The reading room has been outfitted with additional network ports, thus enabling a future increase of workstations to benefit our readers. The library is fitted out with an air-conditioning/heating system. NEC Library membership is open to all NEC fellows and alumni (be they from Romania or from the region). Further, we welcome Romanian undergraduate and graduate students, academics, researchers, as well as foreign scholars who conduct researches in Romania. The non NEC-affiliated readers need be recommended by NEC fellows or alumni, or by local and foreign scholars; they are also offered membership on the basis of formal agreements with higher education and research institutions (such as the École Doctorale en Sciences Sociales. Europe Centrale – Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, Bucharest; the Center of Excellence in the Study of the Image, University of Bucharest; the Department of Art History and Art Theory, University of Fine Arts, Bucharest; the Department of Political and Administrative Sciences, University of Bucharest). The most important library services offered by the NEC library:
The NEC Library in numbers (as of September 2004):
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