Department of Sociology Library

About the library

The departmental study library was established simultaneously with the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts. From its humble beginnings to the present day, the library has built up a solid collection of study books and periodicals (27. 000 items), aimed at satisfying the needs of students and professors. At the time of its foundation, the Department had neither a library collection nor a librarian, and all credit for the library's creation goes to prof. Ludvik Čarni, who was then an assistant at the Department. He obtained many books from the Institute of Sociology and other major libraries. Many books were donated by professors and lecturers, as well as by students. As can be seen from the carefully kept library inventory book, the first title was registered on 28 July 1961 (Franz Mehring: Contributions to the History of Literature. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1952; two copies - price 480 din). In 1964, Mara Arčon took up the systematised post of departmental librarian and professional secretary. After her retirement (1983), her work was taken over by Alojz Cindrič; since 2005, Mojca Žaberl has been working part-time as the librarian.

With the financial consolidation, the Department devoted most of its resources to the purchase of books and periodicals. Of course, serious study could not be carried out without foreign sociological literature, so the library constantly monitored and purchased foreign sociological literature. In the early years, purchases were mainly made on the Eastern or Soviet market, while later purchases focused mainly on Western European and American sociological publications. The selection of study literature has always been tailored according to the programmes and orientations developed by the Department of Sociology within its departments (General Sociology and Sociology of Culture) in the diverse sociological and humanistic field.

Members of the sociological library can access a variety of information resources collected in the OHK Digital Library. Users can access the resources in different ways. Some resources are freely accessible, while those resources that require a subscription are available mainly from the University of Ljubljana libraries. As such access is limited to the library's premises during the library's opening hours, the library also provides users with a remote access service. The information resources are divided into several sections, namely FF Works, bibliographic collections, electronic journals, electronic books, electronic manuals, search engines, citation indexes and others. They are designed for finding scientific and professional literature, e.g., electronic journals, books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographic records of articles, books, dissertations, etc., as well as statistical data and other information.