Institute of Development Studies

British Library for Development Studies

 

Services for individual users

Collection and Online Catalogue Search – detailed subject cataloguing of over one million items made up of books, journals, working papers and government papers. Approximately 50% of the collection originates from the South.

Subject Guides and Browse by country – provide quick access to BLDS resources through pre-designed searches of the catalogue. The searches are prepared by the librarians to give focused and comprehensive results.

E-mail Helpdesk - users struggling to find development research information can ask the trained librarians at BLDS to guide them to useful resources.

Services for librarians and research organisations

BLDS Updates – regular email updates on new acquisitions and indexed articles in 29 subject areas (including 5 regional). With over 1,00 subscribers, this service is primarily used by librarians to assist them in selection of materials, as well as by researchers who can then request materials through the BLDS document delivery service.

Document Delivery – free to research organisations in the South, this service is enabled by our partnership with the Global Development Network (GDN). Journal articles, documents and book chapters are scanned and emailed in PDF format to recipients within 48 hours of the request. For more information contact Rachel Playforth.

Exchange Programme
Our exchange programme with Southern institutions enables us to source a large proportion of grey publications and primary data from the South. We exchange IDS publications for those produced by a range of institutions in over 30 countries, and currently have 74 sustained exchange partnerships with Southern organisations. For more information contact Henry Rowsell. 

Interlibrary Loans - books and other documents can be supplied on loan to libraries and information centres.