Brief introduction

The SIPRI Library was established in 1968 to meet the needs of SIPRI research staff. Consequently, the holdings of the Library are project-oriented, with special focus on international security, armament and disarmament. Some of the material in the holdings is unique and cannot be found at any other library in Sweden. A contributory reason for this is the active exchange agreements the Library has with some 400 institutes and organizations worldwide.

The Library holdings today consist of around 50 000 volumes. Apart from books and monographs the Library can offer an extensive collection of “grey material” such as reports, series and conference proceedings as well as a special international collection of official publications. Once a month an acquisition list is compiled and published on the Library web site.

The Library catalogue containing entries from 1988-, is available online together with an article database containing references to journal and newspaper articles relevant to SIPRI’s field of research, from 1990-. Newer material, from 2003-, can also be viewed in the Swedish national catalogue LIBRIS. Older material not yet in the online catalogue can be located in the card catalogue in the Library.

The Library is in charge of a dynamic events database updated on a daily basis. An extract from this unedited database appears as the Chronology in the SIPRI Yearbook.

The Library holds some 250 current journals and newspapers and an additional 400 archived journals no longer subscribed to, all of which are found in the online journal holdings database.