After 4 months of closure, the Special Collections Reading Room at SOAS has just re-opened. A major building programme has provided a new climate-controlled storage area for archives, a reading room with 50% additional spaces for readers and refurbished office accommodation. The project was generously funded by the Wolfson Foundation as part of the Wolfson/CURL Libraries Programme instituted in 2005.

To coincide with the re-opening of the Special Collections Reading Room, a new on-line archives catalogue has been launched, complementing the existing library book catalogue which includes the rare books collection. To consult the archives catalogue and find out more information about the Special Collections at SOAS, go to www.soas.ac.uk/archives.

Barbara Spina
Faculty Librarian (Law & Social Sciences), Librarian (Africa)
SOAS