The Old Anthropology Library (and its website) serves as a key space for intellectual debate, a place to showcase diverse departmental research in the critical tradition for which we are best known, and a setting for friendly and inclusive sociability.
Anthropologists at LSE have long been thinking about issues of decolonisation, colonial encounters, race, indigeneity and the politics of fieldwork, as well as deconstructing them and viewing them critically. These debates are intrinsic to anthropology. Rather than sweeping these awkward aspects and complexities aside, we acknowledge that our discipline, perhaps more than many, has been implicated in the colonial process; and also that, as we teach, we are simultaneously embroiled in structures of power that have colonial roots. During 2018-19 we worked collaboratively with a student collective called Seligman Must Fall to think about highlighting these issues more explicitly to students, and in the process we resolved to change the name from the Seligman Library to the Old Anthropology Library. A ceremony was held in 2020 to celebrate the renaming.
Find out more about our manifesto and reading list here
Borrowing items
During opening hours all cabinets are left open to allow you to browse and pick any off-print or book you require, or you can use the Catalogues to find items. You can then approach one of the library assistants who will be able to issue it/them to you. Please only ask the library assistants to retrieve books or off-prints if you are having trouble locating what you are looking for.
Loan period
Books – 1 week.
Off-prints – 3 days.
Essential reading for courses that is not available in course packs – 1 hour.
Returning items
If you are returning items outside library opening times you can leave them in the blue box marked ‘Old Anthropology Library returns’ in the department's outer office (OLD 6.04). Please ensure you return items in the same condition in which you borrowed them. If items are unusable or damaged badly you will be charged the cost of replacement.
Click here to view the 2023/4 Summer Ethnography Projects
Click here to view the 2022/3 Summer Ethnography Projects