Services for information users from developing countries

The British Library for Development Studies is located at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in Brighton , UK .

BLDS has wide coverage of Southern publications particularly from Africa, and South and East Asia

Part of the remit of the library is to make the holdings of the library more accessible to librarians, researchers and policy makers with an interest in development based in the South.

Find out more about the library and what it contains.

There are three main services that you can access directly from your country:

Ask a librarian

Do you have difficulties finding development information to support you in your research? If you can't find an answer to a question related to development, or need help putting together statistics or a bibliography of sources, e-mail Ask a librarian – blds@ids.ac.uk, and a dedicated member of BLDS staff will provide you with answers to development enquiries.

Free Document Delivery

If you are looking for a particular document, book or journal article, or have found a list of useful materials in our online library catalogue but can't get easy access to the item that you want, then join our Free Document Delivery Service.

New Acquisition Lists

Are you interested in receiving free updates on new materials in the library in your subject area or about the regions that you're interested in? Subscribe to any of our BLDS Updates. They will be sent to you on a bi-monthly basis, alerting you to the most recent publications in your field.

About the library

The library contains Europe 's largest collection of material on economic and social change in developing countries, including more than 200,000 documents, working papers, books, government publications and journal articles, all accessible through the online catalogue. The library was established in 1966, with a particular focus on collecting little known materials from developing countries, which now make up approximately twenty percent of our collection. We have acquired these materials through Exchange Programmes and through direct purchases. If you would like to know more about (or possibly join) the Exchange Programme please contact us.