Library and Archive
Institutes' Library
Opening Hours:
Monday — Thursday: 10 am to 6 pm
Friday: 10 am — 4 pm
email: etnolibr.wh@uw.edu.pl
The Library of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology is in a possession of a specialised book collection, consisting of 25 000 volumes of books and periodicals, including a valuable deposit of the Towarzystwo Naukowe Warszawskie (The Warsaw Scientific Association), 1 200 volumes published in the 19th and the beginning of 20th century. Furthermore, our collection embraces library of the Chair of Ethnography in Lviv and some parts of private collections of prominent Polish ethnologists, including W. Dynowski, A. Kutrzeba-Pojnarowa, E. i M. Frankowscy, M. Federowski. The Library also has an extensive collection of contemporary publications in cultural anthropology in both Polish and English and offers its students and faculty members online access to a wide range of anthropological journals.
The Library catalogue is available in two forms: card catalogue embracing the whole collection and online catalogue. The online catalogue was introduced in 1998 to classify both books and MA theses. The catalogue is integrated with a key-word index designed especially for the Library. It gives the possibility of multidimensional search of keywords from ethnography, ethnology, cultural anthropology and other related disciplines. Currently, the online catalogue consists over 5 000 book records and the whole collection of MA theses.
Archive of the Institute
Opening hours during academic year
Tuesday 10 am — 4 pm
Thursday 12 pm — 6 pm
Since the 1950s the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology has been conducting fieldwork in all Polish regions and has participated in international research within the so-called Carpathian Expedition and carried out fieldwork in Bulgaria and the Balkans. Since the 1970s research has been carried out also in Mongolia and East Africa.
Since the late 1980s systematic research has been regularly conducted on ethnic minorities in Eastern and Central Europe, in particular on Polish groups living in Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Caucasus. This research results in various studies, including scholarly analyses, doctoral dissertations, MA and BA theses and students' research papers. Theses studies are accompanied with a wide range of materials such as interviews, photographs and films.
The Archive's collection includes:
- theses and dissertations: doctoral, MA, BA, students' research papers;
- fieldwork materials (interview transcripts, fieldnotes);
- collection of photographic and film field documentation.
The Archive consists of ca 8 000 files classified into 530 thematic groups. The biggest groups include materials collected within Międzyuczelniane Obozy Etnograficzne (Interuniversity Ethnographic Camps) in the period from 1957 to 1985, materials on ethnic distance, ethnic relations in North-East Poland and in the Vilnius region as well as documentation collected within the project titled 'The Vistula.' There is also a large collection of materials collected within students' practicum in field ethnography
Catalogues of files consisting fieldwork materials, BA theses (649 theses), students' research papers (901 papers) and typescripts and other texts (150 thematic groups) can be accessed from the computers situated in the Archive and in the Institute's Library. The catalogue of MA theses (860 theses) is available online.