When we talk about the CIVICA Library, we are not talking about one physical library or one collection. The CIVICA Library brings together the libraries of CIVICA’s ten member universities, creating a network that connects expertise, resources, and services across Europe.
For students and researchers, this means you can discover resources and expertise beyond your university. Over the past few years, the CIVICA libraries have been working to make these opportunities easier to find and, most importantly, useful in everyday study, teaching, and research.
So, what does the CIVICA Library offer you?
Finding resources beyond your library
One of the main things the CIVICA libraries are working on is helping students and researchers find high quality academic resources, particularly material that is freely available online.
The CIVICA Open Access Resources collection brings together more than 100 resources in the social sciences and humanities, identified by librarians from across the CIVICA network. These include digital collections, research databases, repositories, open access books or journals and other reliable online sources. So, rather than expecting students and researchers to navigate the growing amount of information available online on their own, this can be used as a starting point for discovering reliable academic content.
This is particularly helpful when you are starting a research project, looking for material that may not be available through your institution's subscriptions, or simply trying to find trustworthy academic information online.
Another way to discover valuable resources and research beyond your institution is through the CIVICA OpenAIRE Connect Gateway, which brings together research output from across the CIVICA alliance in one place. There, you can discover publications, datasets and other research material produced by CIVICA universities, many of them openly accessible. CIVICA OpenAIRE can help you broaden your sources when working on an assignment, dissertation or research project.
The idea behind all of this is quite simple: useful academic information should be easier to find, understand and use.
Expanding access to e-books
Access to academic books remains an important part of studying and conducting research, but access can vary considerably between institutions.
Through CIVICA, the libraries have worked together to expand access to electronic books connected to CIVICA courses. Dedicated CIVICA funding has allowed the libraries to purchase e-books, with an emphasis on titles that can be made available as widely as possible to students. This collaborative approach allows us to think beyond the collection of an individual institution.
For students, the benefit is practical: more opportunities to access academic books digitally, wherever possible.
Discovering digitised and historical resources
The CIVICA libraries give you access to a wide range of digitised collections and historical resources, many of which are freely available online. These collections can be particularly valuable when you are studying social sciences and humanities, offering primary sources and original documents on topics such as European integration, political and social history, women’s rights, and the development of the social sciences.
For example, you can explore photographs and archival documents from Bocconi and LSE, as well as digitised books and periodicals from Sciences Po. You can also discover historical and audiovisual collections from the European University Institute (EUI) and the Historical Archives of the European Union.
These resources can be useful for finding primary sources to support essays, dissertations and research projects. They give you the opportunity to work directly with original documents that may not be available through your own library's collections.
Developing your research and information literacy skills
The libraries across the alliance also offer training opportunities. More than 20 information literacy sessions have been offered to CIVICA students and teachers so far, covering topics that can help you become more confident and effective in your academic work: How to use reference manager software, using AI to find and analyse academic literature, finding EU documentation and case law online, and building effective searches in legal databases…
These training opportunities are accessible through the CIVICA Intranet Course catalog and allow you to benefit not only from the expertise of your own library, but from the experience and knowledge developed across the CIVICA network.
Supporting Open Science
The CIVICA Library's work extends well beyond collections.
One of the strengths of CIVICA is that expertise does not remain within a single institution. Librarians and researchers regularly share their knowledge with colleagues across the network.
Explore the 10 CIVICA Open Science Communities and find out about their events and webinars.
A network of expertise
Perhaps the biggest advantage of the CIVICA Library is the network itself.
Each CIVICA library has its own collections, services and areas of expertise. Bringing these institutions together allows librarians to share knowledge and develop projects that would be much more difficult to undertake individually.
That collaboration can ultimately benefit everyone in the CIVICA community.
A researcher interested in Open Science can discover resources and expertise developed elsewhere in the alliance. A student can find an openly accessible resource recommended by CIVICA librarians. A teacher may benefit from additional digital material supporting a course. Librarians can learn from colleagues working on similar challenges in another country.
These may seem like separate activities, but they are all part of the same idea: making the collective knowledge and expertise of CIVICA more accessible.
There is still more that we can do. The CIVICA Library continues to develop as the needs of our communities change, and collaboration between the libraries remains at the center of that work.
Ultimately, the CIVICA Library is not just about providing access to information. It is about making the combined resources, knowledge, and expertise of our libraries easier for the CIVICA community to discover and use.
Contact with any questions: Library@civica.eu