Library Collections

Over 720,000 volumes of books, journals, government documents, maps, pamphlets, films, and sound recordings from all parts of the South Asian subcontinent are housed in the University of Chicago Library system. Publications are available on all aspects of South Asian life and culture, in all major western languages as well as in over thirty languages from all the nation-states of the subcontinent.

In addition to the Library's on-line catalog, area-specific informational resources can be found at the Southern Asia Collection website and the Southern Asia Research Guide. A subpage of this site offers cataloging for the 21,000 volumes of Official Publications of the Government of India, deposited with the Regenstein by the British Library.

The office of the Southern Asia Collection is located in Regenstein Library, Room 560. Laura Ring, head of the Southern Asia collection, is a subject specialist in South and Southeast Asian studies; you are encouraged to consult with her to discuss your research needs. You can reach her by email to set up an appointment at rin6@uchicago.edu.

Following is a list of South Asia-related materials in the Regenstein Library and elsewhere on and near campus:

South Asia Reference Collection, Regenstein Fifth Floor Reading Room (RR5) on the far east side. This collection includes some 4,000 reference tools for most South Asian subjects (bibliographies, indexes, census volumes, gazetteers, atlases, dictionaries, standard histories, etc.), plus a selection of current journals, and daily newspapers.

South Asia Pamphlet Collection, housed on the south wall of RR5 in vertical files for which a key is available in Room 560 during office hours; collection includes several thousand pamphlets, off prints, unpublished conference papers, reading lists and other ephemera; holdings are listed in special catalog drawers marked by yellow tape in the fifth floor South Asia card catalog.

Map Collection, JRL 370, includes thousands of maps of all parts of South Asia at various scales, and from various periods.

Audio-visual materials: These include 16-mm films, videos, audio cassettes, DVDs, etc. Many are in the Regenstein collection catalogue, especially audio recordings of a wide variety of South Asian music. A few South Asian film resources are available at the Film Studies Center. A small library of audio-visual materials is available for check out to graduate students from the South Asia Outreach Office in Kelly Hall.

The nearby Center for Research Libraries holds multiple resources, including films from the important South Asia Microform Project. These can be obtained through Interlibrary Loan, or at the CRL Reading Room itself, at 6050 S. Kenwood Avenue.