Discover our collections

• 100 databases
• 422,000 ebooks
• 94,000,000 academic articles
• 36,000 academic journals
• 11,000 press titles
• 150 archive collections available for consultation by appointment
• 980,000 digitised documents in the digital library 
• 1,000,000 documents, including 650,000 books (unica: 22.2%, i.e. 150,000 documents)
• 25 linear km of shelving
• 11 reading rooms in Paris for 3,500 visitors a day during the teaching period
• 18,000 press kits, 4,850 of which are digitised
• over 1,000 DVDs and audio CDs (fiction and non-fiction, audiobooks) and 5,000 streaming films
• 40% of the collection is in French, 40% in English and 20% in other European languages.

When the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques was founded in 1872, its founder Émile Boutmy planned "a library containing all documents relating to contemporary political history". By 1892, the library already contained more than 25,000 volumes and 160 journal titles in French, German, English, Italian, Spanish and Russian.

In the early years, the library's holdings were built up from donations (or deposits) of collections from academic societies. From 1872 to 1910, 25% of the books were purchased and 75% donated; from 1911 to 1945, 50% were purchased and 50% donated. The main donors were professors, politicians, former students, government departments and ministries, French and foreign universities and organisations.

In 1945, the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques was commissioned to manage the library
of the former École libre. This confirmed the major role of documentation, which became one of the four fundamental missions of Sciences Po, along with education, research and publishing.

As a result, the library enjoys strong support from the FNSP's management and board of directors, which has enabled it to ensure the continuous development of its collections, even during periods of budget restrictions or unfavourable exchange rates, and to become one of Europe's richest libraries in the social sciences. When the library was transferred in 1945, an inventory was drawn up. The collections were estimated at 65,000 volumes, including 253 journal titles. 28% of the titles are foreign, 19% of which are in English; the other languages represented are German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. The disciplines covered are economics (26%), history (25%), political science (19%) and law (14%) and other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (14%).

From 1946 onwards, documentation activities underwent a new boom that accompanied the development of research at Sciences Po. The documentation services (documentation centre and library) were involved in research work as and when required. They prepare and compile specialised documentation.

Since the 1950s, a literature watch has been set up in conjunction with researchers, to ensure that the choice of journal titles to be acquired is based on the widest possible information base, at a time when the number of specialist periodicals published worldwide is growing at an unprecedented rate.

The library became a CADIST (Centre d'Acquisition et de Diffusion de l'Information Scientifique et Technique) in political science in 1982: this financial support, together with the FNSP's ongoing support for documentation, enabled it to cope with an ever-increasing volume of scientific output. Acquisitions in political science account for more than a third of expenditure on documentary resources. Between 2,500 and 3,000 titles a year were acquired thanks to this grant.

A collection of 40,000 documents relating to legislative and presidential elections in France has been digitised and made available on the Internet Archive since 2013, and in part on the Sciences Po digital library website.

The Archelec Explorer interface, online since June 2022, enables researchers to make detailed use of electoral data to produce analyses and trends over a wide time series. 38 search fields, covering political groups and ballots as well as candidates and substitutes, enable researchers to refine their searches on a corpus of 33,000 professions de foi from legislative elections from 1958 to 2012.

As a priority, the library is digitising its unique collections to make them accessible to all: reserve, Unicas, parliamentary enquiries (such as the one on the Paris Commune), student dissertations from the Ecole libre des sciences politiques, donors' funds.

Particular attention is also paid to periodicals that are in too poor a condition to be consulted and whose publication period was short-lived: newspapers published during the Algerian war, during or after May 68.

This collection of over 900 documents constitutes the heritage of dissertations written before 1945 at the École libre des sciences politiques (ELSP).

• Use the catalogue to browse these documents, which are organised into 5 disciplinary sub-sets corresponding to the main subjects taught at the ELSP.
• Consult digitised dissertations in the digital library.

The library also holds the courses taught, and the student handbooks listing them have been digitised from 1872 to 1997.

Under the terms of an agreement between the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, until 2014 the library received a copy of collections of books and periodicals printed in political science as part of the publisher's legal deposit. These documents are the property of the State and are stamped "legal deposit". In return, the library lists these documents in the Sudoc and its own catalogue, and provides on-site access and preservation. The regular receipt of these copies came to an end in December 2014, as the Bibliothèque nationale de France changed the rules for publisher legal deposit.

Some of the library's collections have been donated by individuals, Sciences Po departments or outside organisations. In the 2010s, the library received several major donations, the private libraries of politicians and professors at Sciences Po.

Some samples of collections

Jean Longuet collection

In 2013, the Sciences Po library received a donation of the personal library of Jean Longuet, a French socialist politician from the early 20th century and grandson of Karl Marx, from his granddaughters. This collection, comprising more than 2,000 documents (journal issues, political or socio-economic works, novels, scientific works or works of general interest) was the subject of an exhibition and a documentary dossier in 2016. 

This collection is identified in the catalogue by a classification system independent of the current collections, with the document numbers beginning with "FLM" for "Fonds Longuet-Marx" followed by an inventory number.

Levy-Leboyer donation

In 2016, the family of Maurice Levy-Leboyer, a French economics historian and history professor at Sciences Po, donated around 3,000 documents to the Sciences Po library. Following a detailed inventory, the works have become part of the library's general collection and are listed in the catalogue with a note under the title "Bibliothèque de Maurice Lévy-Leboyer".

Stanley Hoffmann collection

Following the death of Stanley Hoffmann in 2015, a lecturer and researcher in international relations at Harvard and Sciences Po, his widow donated his personal library to Sciences Po. Around 7,000 books, several journal issues and offprints have been added to the library's collections. 5,000 documents are held in the Reims campus library and 2,000 in Paris.
A specific call number has been created for this collection, beginning with FSH (for "Fonds Stanley Hoffmann") followed by an inventory number.

Since 2023, the library has been working to highlight these collections in the form of permanent selections:

• Jules Moch donation
• André Zervudachi donation
• Monique Chajmowiez donation
• Jacques Kayser donation

The Sciences Po library is a delegate of the Groupement d'Intérêt Scientifique (GIS) Collex-Persée, whose mission is to encourage and provide financial support for collaborative initiatives between researchers and information professionals, with the aim of acquiring or developing thematic collections in the Human and Social Sciences that are of great interest to research.

Within this framework, the Sciences Po library is acquiring printed and digital collections in political science. The aim is to meet national expectations in this field by creating a unique repository of information located in the Sciences Po library. 

Between 1945 and 2005, the Sciences Po Library compiled 18,000 press clipping files on political, economic, social and cultural news in France and in every country and region of the world.

Find out more in our catalogue 

Press clipping files on paper

Most Press clipping files can be consulted in paper format at the Paris library.

Digitised Press clipping files

Microfiche Press clipping files [Microforme]

Around 1,200 files on France can be consulted on microfiche:

• Fourth Republic: 1945-1958
• Indochina War: 1945-1954
• Political parties and elections: 1958-1988

These microfiches can be consulted on site at the Paris library.

The reserve holds printed collections that can only be consulted on site for conservation reasons:

• all works (monographs and periodicals) published before 1851 ;
• large-format periodicals (in folio);
• all works (monographs and periodicals) whose state of preservation or nature requires precautions to be taken when using them.

The library holds all thesis and "habilitations à diriger des recherches" defended at Sciences Po, as well as a selection of research master theses. 
It also holds donated theses and master's theses  from other institutions, as well as microfiches of French theses in political science.

All these academic writings are listed in the library catalogue and in the Sudoc, whatever the medium (paper, digital or microfiche). Theses defended since 1985 and theses in preparation are also listed on theses.fr.

Sciences Po theses

The library holds more than 1,700 theses, half of which are in political science. 

Other disciplines: Sociology, History, Economics and, since 2014, Law.

Since October 2013, Sciences Po has introduced electronic submission of theses. Authorised theses are published on Sciences Po's open archive, Spire.

Please note that confidential theses cannot be consulted during the period of confidentiality, not even on site.

Habilitations à diriger des recherches (HDR)

Nearly 180 HDRs submitted to Sciences Po are kept. These files generally consist of a summary of the author's scientific career, an original dissertation and a collection of works.

Sciences Po research master's theses

Not all master's theses are deposited in the library; the author's and the jury's permission is required.

Since 2005, the library has received some of the master's research theses from the Sciences Po doctoral school: 1,600 works in political science, history, sociology (since 2011) and economics (since 2013).

The library also has

• 3,000 3rd cycle, DEA and DESS theses from the IEP
• more than 1,000 old diploma cycle dissertations (1946 to 2003),
• over 800 dissertations from the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques (1870-1945).

Since 1947, the Sciences Po library has been the depository for some of the printed publications of the United Nations.

As such, it undertakes to maintain a collection in good condition and to make documents available free of charge.

This partial deposit consists of :

• Official documents of the principal organs of the United Nations from 1945 to 2005 (General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, Secretariat). They include, in French
  • meeting documents
  • reports
  • texts of resolutions and decisions.
• Printed publications in French or English of subsidiary bodies, commissions, programmes (UNCTAD, UNICEF, etc.)
• Publications of the Economic Commission for Europe

Find out more :  United Nations Guide (FR)